James has an interesting post on downtown panhandling and Five Points (hey that's my old loft building in the Wikipedia article!). I was going to respond to the post in his comments, but my response got so long that I figured I'd put it here.

The Homeless

First off, I set forth my panhandling position on this site four years ago to the day and I also elaborated on this issue in my ATL podcast back in 05. To briefly recap, I got over the panhandling thing years ago. I have lived and worked downtown for almost ten years and walk among plenty of homeless people whenever I leave the house. Right now, I don't know what's worse, the fact that these people are homeless, or the fact that so many people feel like they are entitled to be shielded from the reality of urban homelessness when they enter urban centers. It is incredible how disrespectful some of us can be to a person simply asking for change.

Or worse. I was once at Supreme Fish Delight on Auburn Ave. (how many strange stories have I started like that) when a group of middle aged women ran into the restaurant screaming and yelling for help. As soon as they saw me, the only man in the restaurant, they ran toward me. At this point, I didn't know what to think as this wasn't a typical response to a robbery or accident. Once they got behind me, the source of their fear stumbled through the door - a clearly mentally deranged homeless man wandering aimlessly in a zombie-like stupor. I tried my best to contain my laughter as the cashier sternly told the intruder to leave, which he did promptly.

I guess I can see how these women could be scared. I mean a dude whose brain is so mushed that he mumbles a bunch of non-words, stumbles instead of walks, and holds his arms in front of himself like a Praying Mantis that happens to be black wouldn't be a settling sight for the average uninitiated tourist. However, this guy - like the overwhelming majority of the homeless downtown - was completely harmless and would respond to a simple "leave me alone." Contrary to popular belief, ignoring beggars is much less effective than looking them in the eye and firmly telling them that you have nothing for them. These people are human beings and, amazingly enough, common courtesy will go a way to getting you on your way. There are absolutely outliers, but I can't recall any sort of problem with a homeless person in years once I figured out how to best communicate with them. So many times I have gotten responses like "God bless you sir, and thank you for at least looking at me when you spoke."

Five Points

I guess I have a completely different view of Five Points. James mentions how the little plaza outside of the old World of Coke is dead during the week. To the extent that this is true, it's to be expected since the World of Coke is now gone and there is nothing over there outside of the Braves shuttle. Also, the fountain - like all others in the city - is shut down so the draw isn't quite what it used to be. Still, on the weekends and lunch time during the week - when the Underground is at its peak utilization - you'll see plenty of people out there regardless of the absence of the WoC. I saw at least ten people lounging there today during lunch, and I took a really early lunch.

However, if the diversity of the crowd is the concern, that could be an issue. At least on the weekends. The tourist trap nature of the Underground brings lots of outsiders, but more of the regulars are black and I think that's just being accepted as the way it's going to be. I talk to plenty of white tourists in the area (I must have some "ask me for directions" pheromone in my chemical composition) and they are almost always positive about the area - going out of their way to say so - so it can't be all bad. It also seems like those night clubs do okay, but I say that as a guy who doesn't go to clubs but walks past the Underground late at night fairly frequently.

Anyhow, my Downtown Unification Theory has always been that if Five Points is going to be what it should - that would be a hub of downtown activity - connecting it to Centennial Park is the key. The problem with doing this via Marietta Street is that there are several buildings there that darken the path at night (State Bar, AJC, Telecom Tower, DFACS, HUD, etc) and offer little value to the visitor during the day. Luckie Street could also serve this purpose but at LEAST two of the parking lots there would have to be replaced by buildings that contain some sort of restaurants or entertainment. Right now the street lining is too perforated and not inviting enough for any tourist to really want to explore it much further than the Super 8 Motel. If the lot across from 123 Luckie were replaced with a nice development putting more stuff to do on the street that would be a big improvement.

Luckie could provide a corridor from Centennial Park to Woodruff Park, and decent storefronts down Peachtree (which it arguably has now, but most places close when the students aren't around) could push people to the Underground. It would also put Broad Street - one of the jewels of the Fairlie Poplar District (a jewel unto itself) - in play on the weekends, though the business owners there seem to clean up so much during the week that they may not care about weekend business. Even still, there is lots of room for Forsyth to accommodate people as well on the way to the Five Points MARTA station. A key to this happening would be some decent storefronts in the Grant Building.

This also puts Auburn Ave. in play potentially, but there is too much dead space between Peachtree and the Auburn Ave. Research Library. GSU may be able to fix some of that since it recently acquired the Suntrust Building and will raze the unsightly annex building, but still you've got nothing but dead buildings for two blocks after that which are guaranteed to keep people from venturing down that way. A possible fix for this is to develop Decatur St. and push people to Auburn Ave. via Piedmont or Jesse Hill Jr. Drive. Though here Grady presents a problem with the numerous parking decks and generally depressing environment. With that taken into consideration, Ellis Street could be an option too.

Bah, there are plenty of things that could be done. My core idea here is that people need relatively uninterrupted stretches of restaurants and hotels and shops to encourage them to keep moving from one area to another. To me, the big problem with Five Points is that it's isolated by the two dead blocks running west of Forsyth Street that would otherwise create a clean connection to the CNN Center and Centennial Park. This is also a problem running east to Auburn Avenue as much of the legacy GSU campus is just as non-functioning for pedestrians as the buildings on Marietta. I have a few other ideas on what could be done there but this post has already gone way too long and I think that I've given the gist of my position. I'd love to serve on a committee or two regarding this, Central Atlanta Progress did a study on this a while back (I'll try to find and link to it later), and while I had issues, there were definitely good perspectives and suggestions - especially pertaining to the "Gulch."

Let's keep this conversation going, because there definitely is a will to see something happen.