John Howell Memorial Park
Encyclopedia
John Howell Memorial Park is a 2.8 acre park in the Virginia Highland neighborhood of Atlanta.
proposed building Interstate 485
to connect what is now Freedom Parkway
through Virginia Highland to what is now Georgia 400 at Interstate 85. The park site would have been the Virginia Avenue exit off the freeway.
I-485 was finally defeated, and The Georgia Department of Transportation began selling the properties it had acquired. In 1988, the park opened.
In the early 1980s, the Virginia Highland Civic Fund, Inc. was created to plan and develop the space. The park design emerged from a study broadly distributed broadly across the neighborhood. In the late 1980s, the Living AIDS Memorial Park Project and Volleyball Atlanta joined the effort and provided fundraising and technical help.
In 1989, the park was named after Virginia Highland resident and anti-freeway activist John Howell
, who died from complications of HIV in 1988.
Peter Frawley & Associates, a local landscape architectural firm, coordinated all the input. In February, 1993, the city council approved the final plan for the park.
Along Virginia Avenue are eleven granite columns, each of which bears the address of one of the homes that were demolished.
History
The park is built on the site of 11 houses demolished in the mid-1960s, when the Georgia Department of TransportationGeorgia Department of Transportation
The Georgia Department of Transportation is the organization in charge of developing and maintaining all state and federal roadways in the U.S. state of Georgia. In addition to highways, the department also has a limited role in developing public transportation and general aviation programs...
proposed building Interstate 485
Interstate 485 (Georgia)
Interstate 485 was a proposed U.S. Interstate Highway in Atlanta, Georgia, heading eastwards and then northwards from downtown. The 5.9 mile-long route would have begun at the Downtown Connector and used the proposed State Route 410 east to the junction with the also-proposed State Route 400...
to connect what is now Freedom Parkway
Freedom Park (Atlanta)
Freedom Park is one of the largest city parks in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The park forms a cross shape with the axes crossing at the Carter Center...
through Virginia Highland to what is now Georgia 400 at Interstate 85. The park site would have been the Virginia Avenue exit off the freeway.
I-485 was finally defeated, and The Georgia Department of Transportation began selling the properties it had acquired. In 1988, the park opened.
In the early 1980s, the Virginia Highland Civic Fund, Inc. was created to plan and develop the space. The park design emerged from a study broadly distributed broadly across the neighborhood. In the late 1980s, the Living AIDS Memorial Park Project and Volleyball Atlanta joined the effort and provided fundraising and technical help.
In 1989, the park was named after Virginia Highland resident and anti-freeway activist John Howell
John Howell (Atlanta)
John Howell was an Atlanta, Georgia grassroots civic activist, well-known and well-loved for his strong support of human rights, civil liberties, neighborhood preservation, and the arts....
, who died from complications of HIV in 1988.
Peter Frawley & Associates, a local landscape architectural firm, coordinated all the input. In February, 1993, the city council approved the final plan for the park.
Features
Features of the park, from west to east, are:- Volleyball courts
- Cunard memorial playground, a children's playground dedicated in 2004 honoring neighborhood residents Lisa, Max, and Owen Cunard who were killed in the summer of 2003 by a falling tree during a storm while driving along N. Highland Avenue
- Wrought iron sculpture of a stylized phoenix, the symbol of the City of Atlanta. In March 2000, a plaque describing the history of the Park was added.
- A circular pathway paved with commemorative bricks. Sale of the bricks has funded park maintenance.
Along Virginia Avenue are eleven granite columns, each of which bears the address of one of the homes that were demolished.