Experts Say: “Many People Know A Lot About Something”

An Artist. A Botanist. An Architect. 
An Historian. A Firefighter. A Birdwatcher.

They each see our neighborhood differently. The name of that bird, the age of that stone, the store that used to stand there – the Resident Experts know things that we don’t. Now, once a month, see Reynoldstown through their eyes.

Walk a few times with Resident Experts. Not very far, just a few blocks, looking closely at what’s easy to overlook. Bit by bit, learn the names of things, and how they all fit together.
Learn what’s underground; in the past; inside a seed. 
The traditional superpowers – flying, eye-lasers, car-lifting – they get dull pretty quickly. 
The powers of attention, of curiosity – these last a lifetime. 

Our first Walk with Resident Experts will be guided by Christopher Leerssen.

A Reynoldstonian for over two decades, a gifted architect and prolific builder, Christopher has also headed up the neighborhood zoning committee, and served many terms on the RCIL Board. Our walk with him will serve as a sampler of what’s to come – from zoning and building codes, to infrastructure and history, Christopher knows Reynoldstown up one side and down the other. Together, we’ll ponder the question, ‘Why is this thing like that?’

Walks With Resident Experts (WWRE) kicks off Saturday, February 24, at 9 am. There’s no charge for WWRE, but to ensure focus, the group is limited to 12 people. Respond here to claim your spot, and to receive more details, including the meet-up location. 

Seeking Future Experts: Help us find our next experts: birds, geology, local wildlife and habitats, folklore and folkways, infrastructure, murals and graffiti, entomology, zoning and code, dendrochronology, hydrology, and urban planning are just a few of the topics we hope to cover. Drop us a note, here.

Household Products

It seemed like a simple question:
How many households are in the Reynoldstown neighborhood?

Sometimes, simple things turn out to be hard.

First we asked neighborhood leaders and long-timers. The oldest household count they found was from 1928, when Reynoldstown had 801 residential buildings. The most recent count they knew of was around the year 2000, and consisted of ‘about 1,200 households’ – so in 72 years, we’d grown around 50%.

Whomp.

Time to unleash our secret weapon: Jay Varner, the Rangers’ data and mapping specialist. Using openstreetmap.org as his base, Jay started surveying and updating, structure by structure. Most of the building boom along Memorial had been documented online, but in some cases it took real digging to come up with a ‘door count.’ Finally, his digging was done, and data was updated. We can now state with real certainty that Reynoldstown comprises 3,661 households, of which 1,153 are single family, and 2,508 are apartments and condo units. 

Three things to take away from this exercise: 
Reynoldstown has grown by about 300% in 25 years.
Beware the simple question.
We are giant nerds.

Jay’s really lovely, continually updated, clickable-by-structure map of Reynoldstown can be found here.

FARQ: Holtzclaw Hill

Howdy Howie,

First: stop gloating. Nobody wants to hear about your view, or your dreams, or your diet. 

Then, as to Holtzclaw heights: close, but no cigar. 

(Which reminds me: please also be quiet about your cigars.)

Though the top of Holtzclaw is the highest nearby point, at about 1060 feet above sea level, there are spots near Spelman College, Castleberry Hill, and the High Museum that top out around 1,073 feet. The hill’s extra height hasn’t been, um, overlooked  – it was a command location during the Battle of Atlanta. As well, the fenced Watershed Management property there still has a huge concrete pad, over which, for decades, a water tower stood.

This Month’s Ranger Calendar

Sunday, February 11, 3-6p, The New Reynoldstown Quilters (yellow house)

Saturday, February 24, 9a, Walks with Resident Experts, Christopher Leerssen

Sunday, February 25, 3-6p The New Reynoldstown Quilters (blue house)

Confused by the Quilters location code? Contact J. Gibson to get in the know!

Glossary

Ant Building (The large, low-slung building at 930 Mauldin Street might have been dubbed the 'Rocks on the Roof Building' if not for its longtime (very teal) mural of ants swarming over a pair of sleeping workers. The large-scale artwork, painted by artists Labrona and OverUnder for Living Walls in 2011, lasted about a decade, and was the backdrop for countless selfies, music video shoots, and one epic neighborhood pushback. The current plans, from Metzger & Co. and starchitects Perkins & Will, are eagerly anticipated.)

Beltline
(Is it true that, though the Atlanta Beltline traverses 44 Atlanta neighborhoods, Reynoldstown is the only one that it bisects? Definitely maybe. Turns out the answer depends on your definitions. Let’s just say: the Beltline centers us.)

Breaker Breaker
(Last summer those brilliant burger brains behind Grindhouse, Alex Brounstein and Johnny Farrow, brought us their best idea yet: Breaker Breaker, a 9,000-square-foot platform for Beltline-gawking and gullet-stuffing. Though some refer to it as a crane, we know a gantry when we see one, especially when it’s painted Stein Steel yellow.)

Buzz! 
(A Big-Bearded, Burly Bear, Buzz is brought to you by the letter ‘B.’ The guiding light behind ‘A Better Buzz’ brand (and the light in Rodney’s eyes), Buzz is the first of many ‘one-name-is-enough’ Reynoldstonians we’d like you to meet.)