Stewart Avenue

The Atlanta Metropolitan Parkway, also known as Stewart Avenue, was previously known to be an epicenter for prostitution and illicit activity. This parkway is located near the Morehouse School of Medicine and is not too far away from Georgia State University. This parkway connects Capitol View, Capitol View Manor, Pittsburgh, Adair Park, and Sylvan Hills. Stewart Avenue was named after Andrew Perry Stewart; he served as a tax collector for Fulton County for over 20 years and lived in Capitol View. Andrew Perry Stewart was born in Butts County Georgia but came to Atlanta shortly after the Civil War. In 1997, Stewart Avenue was renamed Metropolitan Parkway because the city wanted this area to have a clean slate, and be far removed from the previous red-light district reputation. 

The Metropolitan Parkway reminds me a lot of Drury Lane, which David visited in Charles Dickens's novel David Copperfield. Drury Lane was known for its wondrous gin shops along with rampant prostitution. I think the comparison between these two roads is relevant because they both illustrate how a thriving city with a notable reputation has slums and undesirable areas. Large metropolitan areas, like London or Atlanta, tend to be glamorized and romanticized by people, especially people who are from more rural areas. These people from rural areas carry a belief that cities are beautiful, clean, wondrous areas where everyone's happy because they are living in a big booming city with so many job opportunities. Even though that is true, it's not true for everyone. Even in large cities such as Atlanta or London, some people live in slums and in squalor; some people struggle to pay their bills and must resort to selling their bodies just to survive. The juxtaposition of having thriving gin shops in Drury Lane and thriving businesses along Stewart Avenue with dirty, littered streets, and an excessive amount of prostitutes gives an excellent, vivid representation of the realities of living in a city. 

Chance, Anne. “SW Atlanta History.” Blogspot.com. 25, October 2010. http://swatlantahistory.blogspot.com/2010/10/about-metropolitan-parkwaystewart.html Accessed 19 November 2020.

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Coordinates

Latitude: 33.740605300000
Longitude: -84.408650400000