Atlanta Streets Alive -- West End

On Sunday, Atlanta Streets Alive came to West End.  Atlanta Streets Alive is an open streets event organized by the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition.  The first one I attended was in May 2012, when Atlanta Streets Alive was on Highland Avenue.  Since then, they've been back to Highland with a loop on the Eastside Trail of the Beltline, have been on Peachtree Street a couple of times, and extended the the Highland loop to Boulevard.  I think I've been to every single one, since then, and have progressed from attendee to volunteer to $12 a month supporter.  (On Sunday, my volunteer assignment was to work in the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition's tent, getting people signed up for memberships.  One woman told me, well, I don't really ride my bike that much.  I told her I was a member and I don't even have a bike.  She didn't join, but lots of other people did.)

I was in the tent working at 2 when the event started.  The opening remarks were close by but the bullhorn the speakers were using didn't work well and I couldn't hear much.  But Ceasar Mitchell, the President of the Atlanta City Council, stopped by and introduced himself, and later Cleta Winslow, representing District 4 on the Atlanta City Council, came by but she didn't introduce herself.  We did have a good view though of the Seed & Feed Marching Band's opening, non-marching, set.

After I finished my volunteer shift, Tom dropped Iain off and we headed east on Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard.  Although the estimate for the number of participants was substantially less than some previous events, the music was absolutely the best of any Atlanta Streets Alive event I've attended, and I am not talking about the Feed & Seed Marching Band.  There was music in front of churches and in parking lots along Ralph David Abernathy.  It was amazing.  And I didn't even take a picture at the Wren's Nest, where the Atlanta Jazz Festival had set up a stage.

These musicians were playing on the steps at West Hunter Street Baptist Church.

A sousaphone ensemble was playing near Howell Park.

There had been a band earlier outside the Shrine of the Black Madonna, but they were packed up and gone by the time we got there.  But there was great music at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church.

There was another band outside the West End Performing Arts Center, but I didn't take a picture there either.

The route took us south on Murphy Avenue, past The Metropolitan, which Tom had described to me as "kind of like the Goat Farm," except that unlike the Goat Farm, the Metropolitan has actual goats.

It also has this really cool tower, which appeared to be inhabited, based on the curtains covering the windows.

There was a giant chalk board where we were invited to write down something we wanted to do before we die.  I had to think about it for a moment; I wrote "walk through Europe."

Then the route took us across West Whitehall Street and west on White Street, which took us to the Westside Trail on the Beltline, which we followed back to Gordon-White Park.  There were a few side trails, and the Streets Alive team really wanted us to stay on the correct route.

There was more.  We got Jamaican food for a late lunch from the women's agricultural group set up near Gordon-White Park, and a poem from Jon Cilberto of Free Poems on Demand.  ("I remember you," he said, when Iain and I approached the table.  To Iain, who was still trying to come up with a subject for a poem, he said, "you want something political.")  We picked up our poem on our second cycle past the table.

There were kids drawing in the street with sidewalk chalk, gymnasts doing flips and jump ropers doing complicated double dutch jump roping.  

There were people on bikes, on foot, in wheelchairs, on scooters, and on roller blades.  It was a great afternoon to walk around the city, listen to some music, eat some food, walk around some more.  

Did you miss it?  Not to worry -- the next one's back on Peachtree, on May 18.

See you there.