December 3, 2025 • 40 mins
How Atlanta’s reputation as the Mecca for Black business attracts entrepreneurs from around the country, and how conflicting visions of Black entrepreneurship have played out on one street in Castleberry Hill.
HOSTED BY: Big Rube
STARRING: Pastor Troy, Miya Bailey, Alphonzo Cross
NARRATED BY: Maurice Garland
SUBJECTS: Business, Entrepreneurship, Atlanta places, Atlanta history
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Atlanta is the problems of opportunity, but that promise comes
with pressure.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
They call it the Black Mecca, where.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Ambition is the norm and entrepreneurship is part of the
city's DNA. But simply moving here isn't enough. You got
to get up, get out, and get something. You can
see it all play out in the street as the
story of Atlanta unfolds, where old school hustle, music, new
school ambition, sometimes clashing in the pursuit of truly defining
(00:28):
what Atlanta is a big rule and Atlanta is open
for businesses.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
For more than fifty years, Atlanta has been called the
Black Mecca, the mecca for culture, where musicians and artists
have been flocking to for decades, the mecca for education,
home to Spelman College, Moorhouse College, Clark Atlanta University, and
Morris Brown College. But maybe most of all, Atlanta is
the mecca for business, a city full of hustlers and
(01:06):
dreamers who believe, if you can't make it somewhere else,
you can.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Probably make it here.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Just listen to the city's mayor Andre Dickens in the
State of the City address in twenty twenty five, you
can hear he's directly talking to black folks.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Atlanta is the place to be. Money Magazine has named
us the best place to live, Black Enterprise Magazine named
Atlanta the best city to start a business. We've been
named the best place to start a career and the
best city for Black home buyers. And if you had
any doubts, Atlanta has still influences everything.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
But what if the story is more complicated than that.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
What happens when the city that calls itself to Black
Mecca can always guarantee that black folks will reap the benefits.
What happens when local spots blow up and suddenly the
neighborhood doesn't feel like the neighborhood anymore. And what happens
when black folks themselves have competing visions for what a
business should even look like and how it should operate.
(02:09):
This is the story of what it really means to
build and fight to keep a business in the so
called Black Mecca, And nowhere tells that story better than
One Street, Peter Street, a few short blocks that captured
everything folks meant when they refer to this city as
the Black Mecca, black business owners, black art, black nightlife.
(02:32):
If you wanted to see Atlanta's promise in motion. Peter
Street was it. To outsiders, the name doesn't ring like Bankheads,
Sweet Auburn, or Peachtree, But to anyone who's lived here,
they'll tell you that this short strip once had the
whole city on fire. At its peak, from the mid
two thousands to the late twenty ten's, Peter Street was
(02:54):
alive in a way that felt distinctly Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
You'd hear Gucci Main blasting.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Out of cars and catch Dave Chappelle hopping on the
mic at a bar.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Atlanta. I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
You could grab a slice next to Ti or running
to GZ at an art show. But today it looks
and feels very different. Foot traffic slowed down, a lot
of those same businesses are boarded up, and the block
that once felt like a symbol of possibility now feels
(03:27):
like a big question mark. We're tracing its rise, its fall,
and its uncertain rebirth. A few blocks that reflect both
the promise and the pressure of being a black entrepreneur
in Atlanta.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
I'm gonna be a real you be like dang Man.
There's whole bunch of white people be fussing and stuff.
Speaker 7 (03:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It feels like the almost like the bourgeois.
Speaker 8 (03:46):
Nobody's rushing into relationships with you. Motherfuckers want to know
who you are, who's your family, where are you from?
Speaker 4 (03:54):
They want to look you in the eye standing on business.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Indeed, I'm Maurice Garland, and this is episode six of Atlanta.
Is to understand how Peter Street became a center of
black business and culture, We've got to start at the beginning,
before the art walks, before the parties, before it was
even on the city's radar. Atlanta has always attracted black
(04:20):
folks from all over the country, people looking for their
slice of the American pie, or in this case, peach Cobbler.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Karl Booker is one of those people.
Speaker 9 (04:29):
Born and raised mass Point in Mississippi, been in Georgia
now for what thirty eight years.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Carl is the founder and owner of Off the Hook
Barbershop at two point fifty one Peter Street, which he
opened back in two thousand and one. I've been getting
my hair cut there since two thousand and three. Shout
out to JJ. Carl first came to Atlanta in the
nineteen eighties visiting friends who were at Morehouse College, seeing
them living it up and having the time of their lives.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
He decided to make the move himself.
Speaker 9 (05:00):
Up here and visit a week, went back and said
this is my two week resignation on head back to Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
His shop has become one of the landmarks on Peter Street.
Once you walk in, you can see numerous autograph pictures
and jerseys of entertainers and Hall of Fame athletes who
have all been longtime clients. It often happens that people
who come in to casually get a haircut notice the
surroundings and decide that they too want to be a
(05:26):
part of this community.
Speaker 9 (05:27):
Who else in the country could you go to an
area where you had this many black owned businesses as
well as the property own itself, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Karl was one of the first in a long time
to take a chance on the area. Back then, the
neighborhood Calseleburry Hill was mostly old industrial buildings, brick shells
with four lease signs hanging in the windows. Some of
those buildings had been turned into lost of cheap rent.
A handful of artist studios and galleries popped up, but
(05:56):
that was about it for most people. Calselebury was just
to cut through between downtown and the West End.
Speaker 9 (06:02):
Partially a ghost town, they called the Snake Nation.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
I'm glad he brought that up.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Back in the eighteen forties, Peter Street and Casterbury Hill
was known as Snake Nation, and yeah, they definitely earned
that name. Every law unabidened citizen called this place home.
I'm talking bootleggers, gamblers, prostitutes, murderers, and literal snake oil salesmen.
They were all running the streets until the mayoral election
(06:30):
of eighteen fifty one between the Moral Party and I
kid you not, the Free and Rowty Party.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Naturally, Snake Nation was on the side of the.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Free and Rowty Party, but the Moral Parties Jonathan Norcross
won the election and promptly sent a mob to burn
Snake Nation to the ground. Eventually, a grocery store owner
named Daniel Castlebury came to the area and named it
after himself. Still, the area was mostly in dush up
(07:00):
until the nineteen nineties. Around that time, it became something
of a go to backdrop for movies looking for a
dystopian vibe, including California That's California with a K featuring
Brad Pitt in his interesting Southern accents. People think fast
draft there on count all that warm weather go.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
We to make people.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
But by nineteen ninety four, Atlanta started becoming known for
something else.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
It's time and time against.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It got me thinking about seven.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Day Outcast Southern playlistic Cadillac music that came out, giving
the city a fresh soundtrack, cementing its place as the
new Black Mecca. A little less than two hundred miles
away in Asheville, North Carolina, a young artist named Maya
Bailly was sitting at home in the projects watching beet Today.
He's a renowned tattoo artist and painter who's worked with
(07:54):
icons like Lisa leftyut Low, Pazz of TLC, and Usher.
But back then he was It's just another kid looking
for a way out. Until one line from an Outcast
video changed everything.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
One night, man, I was sitting out there in the
hood and then Outcasts player's ball came on and that line,
Rico Wave Bless his Soul said.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It was like, it's a black man's heaven here.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I'm talking about a black man heaven here. You know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
And I looked outside of my project window and I
heard that words at the same time, and that was
just the epiphany. I was like, this shit definitely ain't
the black Man's heaven where I'm at right now.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And it was only three hours away.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Those three hours were three worlds away from what Maya knew.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
You know, I'm coming from, like caring pistols and wild'n
out and just doing a whole But it was just
really strong aggression where I came from.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
But like Carl Booker from Off the Hook Barbershop, Maya
saw something in Atlanta, a new kind of freedom and possibility.
The first time Maya landed on Peter Street, it was
still up to its free and rowdy ways.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I think it was like Freaknik ninety five or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Freaknick, but started as a cottage picnic thrown by HBCU
students had exploded into an all out street party by
the mid nineties.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
And then we started walking and we ended up following
the traffic through Peter Street, and I seen some little
boys driving a car, not teenagers, like little boys, and
it blew my mind, man, because they had like the
trunk open, and they had some girls and they would
peep popping with the trunk open. But these kids are
out there like eleven or twelve years old, driving these
grown women in the car, and they were dressed like
(09:33):
grown men.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
It was crazy, beyond the freaknick craziness. Maya was starting
to get a glimpse of that black man's heaven he
dreamed about when he saw folks that looked like him
driving nice cars and seeing all the beautiful women around.
He spent years working out of other folks tattoo shops
and eventually opened his own with some friends in the
(09:55):
early two thousands. His first goal at it ended with
an incident where the landlord had to kick him out.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I was just doing stuff I ain't supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Which may or may not have involved someone getting their
toe shot off, and he lived he straight. His second
attempt at the tattoo shop didn't last long and he
ended up getting evicted.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
And I was like, Okay, if this get on my credit,
I got a hurb and find another spot before the
eviction pop up on my credit.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And that's when we found the building.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
The building was an eyesore on the corner of Walker
and Peter Street on the southwestern edge of Castlebury Hill.
This building would become home to City of Ink tattoo
shop in Art Gallery, which sits right on the corner
of Walker and Peter Street. They opened in two thousand
and seven. It took them a full year just to
get the abandoned building into shape. At one point there
(10:43):
was a toilet hanging from a pipe in the wall
with no floor beneath it, so they had to build
one from scratch. And then there was the dead body
they discovered inside the wall. After a few false starts, though,
they finally made the space their own.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
We had the whole block to ourselves because everything was
a band that was really, really cheap, and it was
so close to the middle of everything. My rent was
only fifteen hundred dollars when we got city in inc
And it was fifteen hundred dollars for seven years, So
imagine that.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Word about cheap rent in Calseerbury Hills started to spread.
Its convenient location was also becoming attractive to future buyers
and investors. See the area is right off a major
highway I twenty and it's five minutes away from the
Atlanta University Center. So within a couple of years after
Maya opened up his shop, a proliferation of hangout spots
(11:35):
started to pop up glam Bar, m Bar, Blue Cantena,
two five five Toppas Lounge, Baltimore Seafood, and more. All
of this led to Peter Street being the place to
be most days of the week by the late two thousands.
A typical Friday night on Peter Street could include hitting
the Calterlebury Arstro That was pretty much bar hopping book
(11:57):
with art galleries. At one point, the part even crossed
over the bridge for the legendary broken bougie parties at
the Royal. It was the first time in a while
where folks were just kicking it outside. Plus, for a
lot of us, being on Peter Street was better than
going to the club where they had a dress code
and made you pay money just to walk in the door.
Speaker 7 (12:18):
Peter Street, Man, we call it Black Hollywood over there, man,
because you walk up and down the street, man, and
you may just see anybody on this little block. Man,
that's not probably even a mile wide, but it's so
many successful black business owners.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
In case you didn't recognize that inside speaking voice, that's
past the Troy, a rapper and entrepreneur that many of
us know for his intense, high energy music.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
I don't put this too much right here.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
He caught wind of what was happening on Peter Street,
and around two thousand and eight he bought a loft
and built his recording studio in there. His most recent
business is a vinyl record shop up and listening bar.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
Just to be able to walk on feet from my
spot across the street to the barber shops across the
street to the other restaurants that we had up at
the time. Man, it was just real smooth man, real
city living.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
This was also when people started posting their whereabouts on
social media. Photos and updates of folks having a good
time made even more people curious about what was happening
on this little last street ducked off in this neighborhood.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
It was crazy because everybody it was like an underground
music scene, party scene, fashion scene.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It was just dope.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
This era of Peter Street wouldn't last forever though. By
the mid twenty ten's, the strip that represented a black
man's heaven to my belly and Pastor Troy was remarkably different.
More boogie than broke, that's for sure, and then came
to fire. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. After the break,
a pair of ambitious siblings come to Peter Street with
(13:54):
a different idea of what a blackguned business could be.
So one person that were definitely having on the podcast
is going to be Alfonso Cross.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
Yep, he was the one who had to chase up
when I went in the meeting to chase is writing
the notes and the Fonzo was leading the meeting.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
That was a little different.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
It was a little different, and the energy of Castlebury
Hills night life brings tension to the neighborhood.
Speaker 9 (14:20):
And his lady asked why there are so many African
American kids in this neighborhood, and everybody turned around and
looked at her, like.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
The appeal of Atlanta to out of town dreamers can
be a lot of things. For Maya Belly, the Black
Mecca was Rico Wade talking about low Riders, seven seven
sevills and nail dogs. For Alfonso Augustus Cross Senior, it
was real estate. Cross Senior was a native of Swainsboro, Georgia,
one of those small southern towns where the best way
(14:52):
to describe it was saying how far it was from
another slightly bigger small town. He left when he was
sixteen years old and sw worldar to never come back,
eventually landing in Fremont, California. He wound up doing pretty
good for himself, landing a job at United Airlines. He
started investing in real estate in California, buying a multi
(15:13):
family unit here in an apartment complex there. But he
still had family in Georgia, and during visits to Atlanta
he rode around looking for real estate opportunities. In nineteen
eighty four he found one, a three quarter acre plot
with a multi unit building in Castlebury Hill, right on
the corner of Fair and you guessed, Peter Street.
Speaker 8 (15:37):
It didn't take much for my father to be able
to see the future, which he always told us. You know,
he said, you know, Atlanta's going to grow this direction
and this will be really worth something.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
That's Alfonso Cross Junior. And it turns out his dad
had a good eye for real estate trends. He got
the multi unit building in nineteen eighty four for one
hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. Today, just one condo
across the street is going for twice as much. Alfonso
Senior passed away in two thousand and one, and for
(16:09):
several years his sister managed the property, but by two
thousand and nine, Alfonso Junior and his sister Allison decided
it was time to step up and take it over themselves.
The Cross siblings grew up in Debate Area in San Antonio, Texas,
where they were a part of a tight knit black
community made up of doctors, business and landowners and the like.
Speaker 10 (16:33):
Allison explains, there was a lot of structure in San Antonio.
There was a black community that my mom was a
part of. Bought land, developed land, developed health services showed
us a lot of what excellence looks like individually, but
what excellence looks like when you pull it with other
(16:56):
people from the community.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
When da Cross siblings inherited the building on Peter Street,
it included one stipulation from their late father. If they
wanted to keep the property, they had to move to Atlanta,
manage it themselves, and open up a business in it,
which meant the Cross siblings, who had zero experience, were
suddenly new landowners managing five units and first time business
(17:21):
owners damn near overnight.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
So we always tell.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
People we didn't inherit money. We're not rich. We just
inherited a job.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
They arrived in Castlebury Hill in twenty eleven, and like
many who came before them, the Cross siblings showed up
with a bold vision for what this neighborhood it could
be and the plan to get there by empowering the
community and supporting fellow business owners. The only problem was
they didn't know the first thing about being landlords. And
(17:51):
in Atlanta, this black Man's Heaven, they're still a certain
way of doing things. The Cross siblings were about to
learn things the hard way.
Speaker 8 (18:00):
Nobody's rushing into relationships with you. Motherfuckers want to know
who you are, who's your family, where are you from.
They want to look you in the eye.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
As soon as our Fonso Junior and Allison got to
Castlebury Hill, the streets were buzzing. When I first became
aware of you, I'm in the barbershop getting my hair
cut and I remember you walking by the window, and
somebody's like, that's the dude that owned the block.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Then people start chattering there like, oh yeah, bro, I heard.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
He just kind of came up in here with a
piece of paper saying I own this shit now, Jesus,
and you gotta pay me rent.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
You know what it was like?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
The whole thing you're gonna do this pointing at you
out the window, like that's the dude, you know what
I'm saying. So I'm curious, how did you introduce yourself?
Speaker 8 (18:46):
Let me be real fucking clear. Nobody walked around with
a piece of paper and told motherfuckers like pay them rent.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Like, that's just not how that happened. That's just some
wild that's wild.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's why.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
That's not even my personality.
Speaker 10 (18:57):
I mean, it was kind of like that. We didn't
know what we didn't know. We came down and introduced
ourselves to everybody, but as far as we were concerned,
we were just focused on getting our little store open.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
When Alfarso and Allison arrived in twenty eleven, the building
they owned already had calls barbershop and a few popular
bars like two five to five Tapas Lounge. For their part,
Ol Fosol always had a desire to own his own lounge,
and Allison wanted to provide healthy food in what was
essentially a food desert, so they landed on the idea
(19:33):
of opening a community centered grocery store, the Box Car Grocer.
Speaker 8 (19:38):
We wanted to imagine a world where a whole foods
could have a baby with a convenience store.
Speaker 10 (19:47):
Yeah, it was sort of like this minimalist farm urban
chic look that the two of us came up with.
We had pictures of black farmers on the wall.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Within months after into Atlanta, the Cross has got the
store up and operating. Box car grocer offered fresh fruit
and vegetables from local farmers, healthy drinks and snacks, and
according to Addison, absolutely no Coca Cola products, which is
a ballsy move considering that Atlanta is its headquarters.
Speaker 8 (20:18):
So Allison has always been way ahead of me with
like health stuff and fucking crystals in the corner or
the room, and think about organic food and all this
kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I remember, cause I was like, goddamn everything you he'll
cost ten dollars.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, you remember the price.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
It was high.
Speaker 9 (20:33):
Boy.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
It was like, okay, we didn't made it over here.
I can't get no milk from here.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
The prices were high. But let us remind you, this
is twenty eleven. So the whole farm to table ten
dollars komboosh of life that some people live now, it
wasn't like that back then. Hell, organic might as well
have been a cuss word to some people.
Speaker 10 (20:52):
It's just that when you buy in small amounts and
small quantities, things are more expensive. So what people were
seeing was the true costa food.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
But the Cross has had big ambitions for the store.
They saw food as being a vital force to building
healthy communities in urban areas.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Alfonso welcome to fly with presents, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Him and his sister created Box.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
It wasn't long before Alfonso was on stage sharing the
vision he and his sister had for Peter Street. Here
he is at a live event hosted by the nonprofit Plywood,
standing in front of a screen with a diagram outlining
how their new venture, Box Car Grocer would grow across Atlanta.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
Where at the center of our hub is a central
station that's anywhere from a two to three thousand square feet.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Their idea wasn't small.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
The plan was to build a massive distribution hub that
would supply their own stores as well as other convenience
stores across Atlanta. The bigger their buying power, the cheaper
healthy food could be. On paper, they were setting themselves
up to service more than two hundred grocery stores.
Speaker 8 (21:59):
That's two hundred communities.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Alfonso started pitching this vision everywhere he could local reporters YouTubers.
Speaker 8 (22:06):
I passed by here one time and I was like
a grocery store on Peter Street.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
That's him on Merritt Field's YouTube channel, and here he
is introducing himself on the TV program Soul of the South.
Speaker 8 (22:20):
The South really does have a rich history, a lot
of wonderful natural resources, and a lot of opportunity for
small businesses to grow.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Within a three year span, Alfonso pretty much became the
face of Peter Street and he started a neighborhood association
that he became president of. Despite all of the attention
the store was getting, they were struggling to keep it open.
The grand plans for all the satellite stores didn't work out.
They were learning that being a business owner in the
(22:50):
so called Black Mecca came with a lot of politics
and red tape, and they were barely making a profit.
Allison jokes that people thought her and her brother were
skinny because they were eating healthy, when actually they were
losing weight because they were stressed and barely eating. Every
dime they earned went right back into that store. They
(23:11):
even tried to kickstart a campaign to fund it, but
it didn't help because a lot of people assumed that
since they owned the building, they already had money.
Speaker 10 (23:20):
There's a perception, and it was told to us to
our faces by black peopeople as well as white people.
Why would I give you any money you have so much.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
By twenty fifteen, just three years after opening, the Cross
Siblings were forced to close box Car for good. I
asked our Fonzo what it's like to look back on
that time. Now, there's a part.
Speaker 8 (23:42):
Of me that we were very naive, and that naivete.
I feel like we came off as real assholes. We
didn't know what we were doing. We had a bunch
of lofty ideas and a lot of theories, and we
didn't have I have a lot of time to do
(24:02):
a lot of propaganda and you know, and marketing and
pr We sort of just landed and had to get
right to get in this building open because it was
I mean, we had to pay this banknote.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Box Car might have shut its doors, but our falls
on Allison still owned the block, and the block was
about to change fast.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
With box Car gone.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Our farms on Allison were still landlords, Like you said,
that was their job. The grocery store had failed, but
the bars and restaurants on their property were thriving. Peter
Street was buzzing. People from all over the city came
there to party. But that kind of success brought problems too,
especially for longtime locals like Maya, who owned City of
(24:50):
Ink tattoo shop.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
The problem we had is a whole bunch of people
coming from out of town or something coming from another place,
which is good for tourism, but it's not even a
demographic was it the neighborhood.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
The crowds coming to Peter Street weren't from the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
They were looking for a party, and sooner or later
businesses had to cater to that demand. Take Slice Pizza,
one of the first spots to open on the Cross's
property back in the early two thousands. It was sleek, simple,
with no frills. You could go there get a cheap slice,
a cheap drink, or a toasted pesto chicken sandwich with
(25:26):
arugula and baby tomatoes if.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
That was your thing. On the right night, you might even.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Catch Ti Young Jeezy or past to Troy at the bar,
grabbing a moment away from the spotlight.
Speaker 7 (25:37):
But it was really just a real hangout spot for
all us man we probably hadn't even hit thirty.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Years oh yet.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
By twenty twelve, Slice was gone, replaced by another pizza
spot called The Spinning Pie or just Spin. It was
a new black owned business that promised more than food.
Spin leaned into the vibe of Peter Street with craft
beers or on new balls, TVs for the.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
Game, and DJ spinning and late into the night.
Speaker 6 (26:04):
The vibe changed because you know, the frequency of the
music changed to put this in hip hop playlist terms.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Back in the day at Slice, you would walk in.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
And hear slum village, day La Soul or trial called Quest.
It was a mixed crowd of hipsters and vertsy people.
When Spin took over, you was gonna hear Rick Ross
and Juicy J.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
Just seeing like everybody with these fake ass gold chains
on and wanted to be black Hollywood, Atlanta. It did
change to like, I want to go have some pizza
to niggas standing on the bar.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
He ain't lying. The ship was lit.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I mean I hosted a bunch of my birthday parties
in there, my damn self.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Shout out to my man. Sean Fallion.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Blue canteena right next door, leaned it to the same formula,
music and party vibes, often out shining the food, and
just a couple of doors down was two five to five.
Once a year they team that with Grand Hustle Records
to throw a massive block party during Birthday Bash or
the Beet Hip Hop Awards. Granted they got the permits
(27:09):
and everything, but that still didn't keep locals from bitching
about it.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Here's how Pastor Troy remembers it.
Speaker 7 (27:15):
That's when a lot of the car break ins and
stuff like that started. But with the neighborhood coming together, man,
they were able to.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Tone that down.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
This coming together, if you want to call it, that
would often happen at the neighborhood association meetings.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
About Casterlebury Hill that made the fireworks go off at
these meetings. It wasn't just one type of resident. In
the early two thousands, you had struggling artists living in
loss for cheap rent, but as property values rose, wealthier
folks moved in, some paying top dollar for high end spaces.
Of course, the different residents had different ideas of what
(27:56):
the neighborhood should be like. But if you sat in
on those meetings, do you get a front row seat
to who cansel Berry really was before the street lights
came on. I mean, just as Carl, the owner of
Off the Hook barbershop. He's been here forever, and he
always used to tell me, man.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
You need to write a story on the real calsele
Berry be.
Speaker 9 (28:15):
Happy to be in one of the association meeting one
a day and this lady asked why there are so
many African American kids in this neighborhood, and everybody turned
around looked at her like, ma'am, you're three blocks away
from four black colleges.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
I'm gonna be real.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
He'd be like, dang, man, there's whole bunch of white
people be fussing and stuff.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
It feels like the almost like the bourgeois. When Maya
says bourgeoisie. He's talking about white folks and black folks
from varying backgrounds who all had different ideas for the street.
And some of them even used to call the police
on my when one of his art shows caused a
little too much traffic until he but hold on, hold on,
before we get there.
Speaker 6 (28:54):
I want to say that. But they also do love
me and they be helping me out. Could they helped
me out right now with a zonea issue.
Speaker 8 (29:04):
It was a mess on so many levels. It was
a mess economically, it was a mess racially, it was
a mess with individual business owners and land.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It was just a mess.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
In response, Alfonso founded a neighborhood business association. He noticed
a growing disconnect between the owners running the businesses and
the residents who actually lived there.
Speaker 8 (29:25):
The way community development usually works is that you usually
have industrial first, and then you have commercial and then
you have residential. Casterbury Hill didn't develop like that. Casbury
Hill developed all ass backwards. So it was industrial first
and then it was residential, and then it was commercial.
And this is where things did get racial.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
If there was this.
Speaker 8 (29:45):
White gallery owner, artist, sort of contingent that started to
really buy in to Casterbury Hill prior to Peter Street.
And we live in the south, so it was like
watching two trains on a track. You know they're gonna collide.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
This isn't too uncommon in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Front facing the city proudly sells the image of black excellence,
where black folks are running shit. I mean, hell, we've
had nothing but black mayors for the last half century.
But underneath there's still pockets of racial and cultural tension,
Thoulans and feedback from the neighborhood and the business Association's
war to Cross Siblings down because no matter how many
(30:29):
meetings they held, common ground always seemed to be out
of reach. It looked like it was going to take
a miracle or a disaster for folks to see out
of eye. The miracle never really came. The disaster unfolded
in stages. It took ten plus years for Peter Street
to reach its peak from twenty twelve to twenty nineteen.
(30:51):
Its downfall came a lot quicker. To this day, a
lot of people still point their fingers at Alfonso. In
the summer of twenty seventeen, the Cross Siblings scheduled a
routine inspection of their building to make sure everything was
in order. They had renovation plans in the back of
their minds. After all, the brand new Mercedes Benz Stadium
(31:12):
was just a short walk away, and with it came
big promises for the neighborhood, more people, more traffic, more opportunity.
The Crosses wanted to be ready.
Speaker 10 (31:23):
We had some architects and engineers walk through the building
and give us sort of the big sums up like Okay,
structurally everything's fine here.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
But actually it wasn't news.
Speaker 9 (31:31):
Drone Iwo flew over a local restaurant where the roof
collapsed and hurt several customers.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Inspects are asking.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
One of the restaurants on the property, Blue Canteena, had
to shut down after a heavy rainstorm caused the roof
to collapse. It was a pretty big deal because it
happened on one of their more popular nights and a
few people got injured.
Speaker 10 (31:50):
There was a hidden defact that no one could have
found really from what all the engineers afterwards said, that
was a beast of a project to figure out what
was the failure, Because, of course then the worry was
if this failed, then we've been watching it and taking
care of it. What else could possibly fail that we
don't know about. These buildings are over one hundred years old.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Then two years later, in twenty nineteen, Alfonso sat down
for an interview with Atlanta reporter King Williams and revealed
his next big plan to build a boutique hotel above
the businesses on his property.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
The timing could not have been worse.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
That same year, tenants at two five five Spend Baltimore
Seafood and Pearl Lounge all got word their leases would
not be renewed. The public reaction was immediate and ugly.
They accused Alfonso of finally caving to the neighborhood pressure
of making the sweeping changes they suspected he wanted to make. Alfonso, however,
(32:53):
tells a different story. When the roof collapsed at Blue Cantina,
it was a wake up call for him in Allison,
the building needed serious work and they couldn't make those
renovations while tenants were still inside. But by then the
court of public opinion had already ruled against him. I
asked him about the interview and his plans for this hotel.
Speaker 8 (33:14):
I will say it right here on the record that
I never should have said that.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
I was sort of in my Richard.
Speaker 8 (33:19):
Branson face, and I was really wanting to drum up
interest from developers and investors in that project. It was
super premature, Yet again, I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It was wild.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
But just a couple months after that interview, another catastrophe happened.
Speaker 10 (33:41):
Right now in Atlanta. Fire cruis are on this scene
of a business fire. This happening at Peter Street around
eight This morning the fire start.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
On the morning of September eight, twenty nineteen, Allison and
Alfonso woke up to frantic calls their property.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Was on fire.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Allison says it likely started from a cigarette or maybe
a hookah coal that slipped between the deck boards at
two five five the night before. By morning, it had
smoldered into a full blaze, tearing through two five five
and spreading to Baltimore's Seafood and Pearl Lounge.
Speaker 10 (34:15):
That was a devastating day for all of us.
Speaker 8 (34:19):
The firefucked everybody up, like it super fucked everybody up.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
The leases were supposed to expire three months after the fire.
Alfonso says there was already an exit strategy in place
for the businesses, but the fire threw everything off. According
to the Crosses, they didn't force anyone out.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
The tenants chose to leave early. There was no kicking
people out.
Speaker 8 (34:43):
It wasn't even in our financial best interest for that
fire to have rent suddenly stopped. I mean, what did
you think about that.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
It's been six years since the fire, and Peter Street
is definitely quieter. During twenty twenty and twenty twenty one,
it was p technically a ghost town, though that was
mostly because of COVID. Slowly, though, pieces of it have
started to wake back up. Off the hook moved into
a new unit, and while the former homes of Blue
CANTEENA Spin two, five to five, and Baltimore's Seafood are
(35:15):
technically open for new tenants, you wouldn't know it at
first glance.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Most of them are still boarded up.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
As for Allison and Alfonso, they aren't joined at the
hip like they used to be when they were running
Box Card Grocer together.
Speaker 8 (35:29):
When you inherit a business, or you inherit actual physical assets,
then you gotta work together. And you may not be
compatible to work together, or you may be compatible for
a short period of time.
Speaker 10 (35:42):
And you need to have the humility to know when
it's time to move into different directions.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Forty years after their father first bought the property, Allison
and Alfonso now faced the same challenge he did. A
big vacant building in need of work, sitting in the
neighborhood full of potential, and just like people keep flocking
to Atlanta for their slice of peach cobbler, everyone on
Peter Street has their own vision for what the neighborhood
(36:11):
should be. Carl for example, wants something practical, something that
delivers right now, somebody.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Please open the convenience store on Peter Street.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Past de Troy can see the global future of Atlanta.
He kind of liked our Fonzo's idea with Fever World.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Cup coming and stuff like that. You say, hey man.
Speaker 7 (36:30):
It might not be a bad idea to have a
nice boutique hotel down there with probably sixteen rooms and
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Maya has spent the last eight years opening four more
art galleries on Peter Street, so he has some thoughts.
Speaker 6 (36:43):
And I think the other direction is, you know, like
bringing the arts to the neighborhood. It's a lot of
empty buildings and empty stuff that's still available that we
can do some art related stuff and have a true
art district.
Speaker 8 (36:55):
I think Atlanta can be for people of Colorado world
with Las Vegas is for Americans. And I think that
the pin drop, if you will, for that Discasper Hill,
and I'd have always said that, I think it's our building.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Whatever direction Peter Street and Canterbury he'll take, it won't
be an easy road. The city is changing fast. Rents
keep climbing and so is the cost of everything. So
even as the Mayor's office puts out press releases bragging
that Atlanta is the best city to start a businessing
anyone trying to set up shop down here needs to
know exactly what they're stepping into.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
And if you.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Decide to try it anyway, you have a landlord down
here waiting to welcome you.
Speaker 10 (37:35):
Whoever comes in the building, they're gonna get a lot
of shine from being in Castlebury Hill at this particular
moment in time.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
What happens next on Peter Street is anybody's guests. But
if Atlanta is still the Black Mecca, then this street
tells us what that really means, not just the dream
of ownership, but the cost of holding on to it.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Some people see Atlanta as a financial opportunity, Others see
it as a place that's about culture and community. Truth is,
it's all of that and more. Atlanta ain't one dimensional.
It's multifaceted. It's supposed to if all of us, the dreamers,
the builders, the one still trying to figure it out.
(38:27):
But to me, a Black Meca gotta mean more than
individual accomplishment. It's about community and building together for the
good of us. All that's the real work. That's really
what Atlanta is a city where one rises and we
all rise.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
In the next episode, a die far near Martin Luther
King's Church serves as the launching pad for the next
generation of artists and it becomes an unlikely magnet for VIPs.
In Atlanta is a department store party.
Speaker 10 (39:07):
As two Change is walking in the door, He's like this,
two Change fucking slaps that shit out in his fucking hand,
and I was.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Like, what the fuck?
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Atlanta is the will Packer Media production in partnership with
iHeart Podcast Idea, Generation and Complex. This episode was written, reported,
and produced by Maurice Garlin, with additional production from.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Christina Lee and jul Wicker.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Our supervisor, producer and editor is Shiva biad Our. Managing
producers are Rose Frulini Bacon O'mari Graham, and Shamara Rochester.
Editorial support from Sean Setero and Jack Irwin.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Original theme music by Iman Sahota.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Sound designed by Shiva Bayat and Our Mind Sahota, mixed
and mastered by Iman Sahota. Fact checking done by Sean Setero.
C counsel Donison caliph Perez, Lisa Califf and Jacqueline Schwedt.
Executive producers for will Packer Media are Will Packer and
Alex Bowden.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Co producer for will Packer Media is Nemi Mohun.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Executive producers for Idea Generation and Complex of Jack Irwin
and Noah Callahan. Bever Head of talent relations for Complex
is Anthony Already. Talent associate for Complex is Ryan Houston.
Senior attorney for Complex is Jordan Washington. Special thanks to
Tyler Klin, Terry Harrison, Chris Senator, Noams Griffin, and Candace Howard.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Big rude piece
Atlanta is the problems of opportunity, but that promise comes
with pressure.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
They call it the Black Mecca, where.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Ambition is the norm and entrepreneurship is part of the
city's DNA. But simply moving here isn't enough. You got
to get up, get out, and get something. You can
see it all play out in the street as the
story of Atlanta unfolds, where old school hustle, music, new
school ambition, sometimes clashing in the pursuit of truly defining
(00:28):
what Atlanta is a big rule and Atlanta is open
for businesses.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
For more than fifty years, Atlanta has been called the
Black Mecca, the mecca for culture, where musicians and artists
have been flocking to for decades, the mecca for education,
home to Spelman College, Moorhouse College, Clark Atlanta University, and
Morris Brown College. But maybe most of all, Atlanta is
the mecca for business, a city full of hustlers and
(01:06):
dreamers who believe, if you can't make it somewhere else,
you can.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Probably make it here.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Just listen to the city's mayor Andre Dickens in the
State of the City address in twenty twenty five, you
can hear he's directly talking to black folks.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Atlanta is the place to be. Money Magazine has named
us the best place to live, Black Enterprise Magazine named
Atlanta the best city to start a business. We've been
named the best place to start a career and the
best city for Black home buyers. And if you had
any doubts, Atlanta has still influences everything.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
But what if the story is more complicated than that.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
What happens when the city that calls itself to Black
Mecca can always guarantee that black folks will reap the benefits.
What happens when local spots blow up and suddenly the
neighborhood doesn't feel like the neighborhood anymore. And what happens
when black folks themselves have competing visions for what a
business should even look like and how it should operate.
(02:09):
This is the story of what it really means to
build and fight to keep a business in the so
called Black Mecca, And nowhere tells that story better than
One Street, Peter Street, a few short blocks that captured
everything folks meant when they refer to this city as
the Black Mecca, black business owners, black art, black nightlife.
(02:32):
If you wanted to see Atlanta's promise in motion. Peter
Street was it. To outsiders, the name doesn't ring like Bankheads,
Sweet Auburn, or Peachtree, But to anyone who's lived here,
they'll tell you that this short strip once had the
whole city on fire. At its peak, from the mid
two thousands to the late twenty ten's, Peter Street was
(02:54):
alive in a way that felt distinctly Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
You'd hear Gucci Main blasting.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Out of cars and catch Dave Chappelle hopping on the
mic at a bar.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Atlanta. I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
You could grab a slice next to Ti or running
to GZ at an art show. But today it looks
and feels very different. Foot traffic slowed down, a lot
of those same businesses are boarded up, and the block
that once felt like a symbol of possibility now feels
(03:27):
like a big question mark. We're tracing its rise, its fall,
and its uncertain rebirth. A few blocks that reflect both
the promise and the pressure of being a black entrepreneur
in Atlanta.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
I'm gonna be a real you be like dang Man.
There's whole bunch of white people be fussing and stuff.
Speaker 7 (03:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It feels like the almost like the bourgeois.
Speaker 8 (03:46):
Nobody's rushing into relationships with you. Motherfuckers want to know
who you are, who's your family, where are you from?
Speaker 4 (03:54):
They want to look you in the eye standing on business.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Indeed, I'm Maurice Garland, and this is episode six of Atlanta.
Is to understand how Peter Street became a center of
black business and culture, We've got to start at the beginning,
before the art walks, before the parties, before it was
even on the city's radar. Atlanta has always attracted black
(04:20):
folks from all over the country, people looking for their
slice of the American pie, or in this case, peach Cobbler.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Karl Booker is one of those people.
Speaker 9 (04:29):
Born and raised mass Point in Mississippi, been in Georgia
now for what thirty eight years.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Carl is the founder and owner of Off the Hook
Barbershop at two point fifty one Peter Street, which he
opened back in two thousand and one. I've been getting
my hair cut there since two thousand and three. Shout
out to JJ. Carl first came to Atlanta in the
nineteen eighties visiting friends who were at Morehouse College, seeing
them living it up and having the time of their lives.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
He decided to make the move himself.
Speaker 9 (05:00):
Up here and visit a week, went back and said
this is my two week resignation on head back to Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
His shop has become one of the landmarks on Peter Street.
Once you walk in, you can see numerous autograph pictures
and jerseys of entertainers and Hall of Fame athletes who
have all been longtime clients. It often happens that people
who come in to casually get a haircut notice the
surroundings and decide that they too want to be a
(05:26):
part of this community.
Speaker 9 (05:27):
Who else in the country could you go to an
area where you had this many black owned businesses as
well as the property own itself, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Karl was one of the first in a long time
to take a chance on the area. Back then, the
neighborhood Calseleburry Hill was mostly old industrial buildings, brick shells
with four lease signs hanging in the windows. Some of
those buildings had been turned into lost of cheap rent.
A handful of artist studios and galleries popped up, but
(05:56):
that was about it for most people. Calselebury was just
to cut through between downtown and the West End.
Speaker 9 (06:02):
Partially a ghost town, they called the Snake Nation.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
I'm glad he brought that up.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Back in the eighteen forties, Peter Street and Casterbury Hill
was known as Snake Nation, and yeah, they definitely earned
that name. Every law unabidened citizen called this place home.
I'm talking bootleggers, gamblers, prostitutes, murderers, and literal snake oil salesmen.
They were all running the streets until the mayoral election
(06:30):
of eighteen fifty one between the Moral Party and I
kid you not, the Free and Rowty Party.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Naturally, Snake Nation was on the side of the.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Free and Rowty Party, but the Moral Parties Jonathan Norcross
won the election and promptly sent a mob to burn
Snake Nation to the ground. Eventually, a grocery store owner
named Daniel Castlebury came to the area and named it
after himself. Still, the area was mostly in dush up
(07:00):
until the nineteen nineties. Around that time, it became something
of a go to backdrop for movies looking for a
dystopian vibe, including California That's California with a K featuring
Brad Pitt in his interesting Southern accents. People think fast
draft there on count all that warm weather go.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
We to make people.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
But by nineteen ninety four, Atlanta started becoming known for
something else.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
It's time and time against.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It got me thinking about seven.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Day Outcast Southern playlistic Cadillac music that came out, giving
the city a fresh soundtrack, cementing its place as the
new Black Mecca. A little less than two hundred miles
away in Asheville, North Carolina, a young artist named Maya
Bailly was sitting at home in the projects watching beet Today.
He's a renowned tattoo artist and painter who's worked with
(07:54):
icons like Lisa leftyut Low, Pazz of TLC, and Usher.
But back then he was It's just another kid looking
for a way out. Until one line from an Outcast
video changed everything.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
One night, man, I was sitting out there in the
hood and then Outcasts player's ball came on and that line,
Rico Wave Bless his Soul said.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It was like, it's a black man's heaven here.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I'm talking about a black man heaven here. You know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
And I looked outside of my project window and I
heard that words at the same time, and that was
just the epiphany. I was like, this shit definitely ain't
the black Man's heaven where I'm at right now.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And it was only three hours away.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Those three hours were three worlds away from what Maya knew.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
You know, I'm coming from, like caring pistols and wild'n
out and just doing a whole But it was just
really strong aggression where I came from.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
But like Carl Booker from Off the Hook Barbershop, Maya
saw something in Atlanta, a new kind of freedom and possibility.
The first time Maya landed on Peter Street, it was
still up to its free and rowdy ways.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I think it was like Freaknik ninety five or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Freaknick, but started as a cottage picnic thrown by HBCU
students had exploded into an all out street party by
the mid nineties.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
And then we started walking and we ended up following
the traffic through Peter Street, and I seen some little
boys driving a car, not teenagers, like little boys, and
it blew my mind, man, because they had like the
trunk open, and they had some girls and they would
peep popping with the trunk open. But these kids are
out there like eleven or twelve years old, driving these
grown women in the car, and they were dressed like
(09:33):
grown men.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
It was crazy, beyond the freaknick craziness. Maya was starting
to get a glimpse of that black man's heaven he
dreamed about when he saw folks that looked like him
driving nice cars and seeing all the beautiful women around.
He spent years working out of other folks tattoo shops
and eventually opened his own with some friends in the
(09:55):
early two thousands. His first goal at it ended with
an incident where the landlord had to kick him out.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I was just doing stuff I ain't supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Which may or may not have involved someone getting their
toe shot off, and he lived he straight. His second
attempt at the tattoo shop didn't last long and he
ended up getting evicted.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
And I was like, Okay, if this get on my credit,
I got a hurb and find another spot before the
eviction pop up on my credit.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And that's when we found the building.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
The building was an eyesore on the corner of Walker
and Peter Street on the southwestern edge of Castlebury Hill.
This building would become home to City of Ink tattoo
shop in Art Gallery, which sits right on the corner
of Walker and Peter Street. They opened in two thousand
and seven. It took them a full year just to
get the abandoned building into shape. At one point there
(10:43):
was a toilet hanging from a pipe in the wall
with no floor beneath it, so they had to build
one from scratch. And then there was the dead body
they discovered inside the wall. After a few false starts, though,
they finally made the space their own.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
We had the whole block to ourselves because everything was
a band that was really, really cheap, and it was
so close to the middle of everything. My rent was
only fifteen hundred dollars when we got city in inc
And it was fifteen hundred dollars for seven years, So
imagine that.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Word about cheap rent in Calseerbury Hills started to spread.
Its convenient location was also becoming attractive to future buyers
and investors. See the area is right off a major
highway I twenty and it's five minutes away from the
Atlanta University Center. So within a couple of years after
Maya opened up his shop, a proliferation of hangout spots
(11:35):
started to pop up glam Bar, m Bar, Blue Cantena,
two five five Toppas Lounge, Baltimore Seafood, and more. All
of this led to Peter Street being the place to
be most days of the week by the late two thousands.
A typical Friday night on Peter Street could include hitting
the Calterlebury Arstro That was pretty much bar hopping book
(11:57):
with art galleries. At one point, the part even crossed
over the bridge for the legendary broken bougie parties at
the Royal. It was the first time in a while
where folks were just kicking it outside. Plus, for a
lot of us, being on Peter Street was better than
going to the club where they had a dress code
and made you pay money just to walk in the door.
Speaker 7 (12:18):
Peter Street, Man, we call it Black Hollywood over there, man,
because you walk up and down the street, man, and
you may just see anybody on this little block. Man,
that's not probably even a mile wide, but it's so
many successful black business owners.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
In case you didn't recognize that inside speaking voice, that's
past the Troy, a rapper and entrepreneur that many of
us know for his intense, high energy music.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
I don't put this too much right here.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
He caught wind of what was happening on Peter Street,
and around two thousand and eight he bought a loft
and built his recording studio in there. His most recent
business is a vinyl record shop up and listening bar.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
Just to be able to walk on feet from my
spot across the street to the barber shops across the
street to the other restaurants that we had up at
the time. Man, it was just real smooth man, real
city living.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
This was also when people started posting their whereabouts on
social media. Photos and updates of folks having a good
time made even more people curious about what was happening
on this little last street ducked off in this neighborhood.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
It was crazy because everybody it was like an underground
music scene, party scene, fashion scene.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It was just dope.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
This era of Peter Street wouldn't last forever though. By
the mid twenty ten's, the strip that represented a black
man's heaven to my belly and Pastor Troy was remarkably different.
More boogie than broke, that's for sure, and then came
to fire. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. After the break,
a pair of ambitious siblings come to Peter Street with
(13:54):
a different idea of what a blackguned business could be.
So one person that were definitely having on the podcast
is going to be Alfonso Cross.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
Yep, he was the one who had to chase up
when I went in the meeting to chase is writing
the notes and the Fonzo was leading the meeting.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
That was a little different.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
It was a little different, and the energy of Castlebury
Hills night life brings tension to the neighborhood.
Speaker 9 (14:20):
And his lady asked why there are so many African
American kids in this neighborhood, and everybody turned around and
looked at her, like.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
The appeal of Atlanta to out of town dreamers can
be a lot of things. For Maya Belly, the Black
Mecca was Rico Wade talking about low Riders, seven seven
sevills and nail dogs. For Alfonso Augustus Cross Senior, it
was real estate. Cross Senior was a native of Swainsboro, Georgia,
one of those small southern towns where the best way
(14:52):
to describe it was saying how far it was from
another slightly bigger small town. He left when he was
sixteen years old and sw worldar to never come back,
eventually landing in Fremont, California. He wound up doing pretty
good for himself, landing a job at United Airlines. He
started investing in real estate in California, buying a multi
(15:13):
family unit here in an apartment complex there. But he
still had family in Georgia, and during visits to Atlanta
he rode around looking for real estate opportunities. In nineteen
eighty four he found one, a three quarter acre plot
with a multi unit building in Castlebury Hill, right on
the corner of Fair and you guessed, Peter Street.
Speaker 8 (15:37):
It didn't take much for my father to be able
to see the future, which he always told us. You know,
he said, you know, Atlanta's going to grow this direction
and this will be really worth something.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
That's Alfonso Cross Junior. And it turns out his dad
had a good eye for real estate trends. He got
the multi unit building in nineteen eighty four for one
hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. Today, just one condo
across the street is going for twice as much. Alfonso
Senior passed away in two thousand and one, and for
(16:09):
several years his sister managed the property, but by two
thousand and nine, Alfonso Junior and his sister Allison decided
it was time to step up and take it over themselves.
The Cross siblings grew up in Debate Area in San Antonio, Texas,
where they were a part of a tight knit black
community made up of doctors, business and landowners and the like.
Speaker 10 (16:33):
Allison explains, there was a lot of structure in San Antonio.
There was a black community that my mom was a
part of. Bought land, developed land, developed health services showed
us a lot of what excellence looks like individually, but
what excellence looks like when you pull it with other
(16:56):
people from the community.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
When da Cross siblings inherited the building on Peter Street,
it included one stipulation from their late father. If they
wanted to keep the property, they had to move to Atlanta,
manage it themselves, and open up a business in it,
which meant the Cross siblings, who had zero experience, were
suddenly new landowners managing five units and first time business
(17:21):
owners damn near overnight.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
So we always tell.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
People we didn't inherit money. We're not rich. We just
inherited a job.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
They arrived in Castlebury Hill in twenty eleven, and like
many who came before them, the Cross siblings showed up
with a bold vision for what this neighborhood it could
be and the plan to get there by empowering the
community and supporting fellow business owners. The only problem was
they didn't know the first thing about being landlords. And
(17:51):
in Atlanta, this black Man's Heaven, they're still a certain
way of doing things. The Cross siblings were about to
learn things the hard way.
Speaker 8 (18:00):
Nobody's rushing into relationships with you. Motherfuckers want to know
who you are, who's your family, where are you from.
They want to look you in the eye.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
As soon as our Fonso Junior and Allison got to
Castlebury Hill, the streets were buzzing. When I first became
aware of you, I'm in the barbershop getting my hair
cut and I remember you walking by the window, and
somebody's like, that's the dude that owned the block.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Then people start chattering there like, oh yeah, bro, I heard.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
He just kind of came up in here with a
piece of paper saying I own this shit now, Jesus,
and you gotta pay me rent.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
You know what it was like?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
The whole thing you're gonna do this pointing at you
out the window, like that's the dude, you know what
I'm saying. So I'm curious, how did you introduce yourself?
Speaker 8 (18:46):
Let me be real fucking clear. Nobody walked around with
a piece of paper and told motherfuckers like pay them rent.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Like, that's just not how that happened. That's just some
wild that's wild.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's why.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
That's not even my personality.
Speaker 10 (18:57):
I mean, it was kind of like that. We didn't
know what we didn't know. We came down and introduced
ourselves to everybody, but as far as we were concerned,
we were just focused on getting our little store open.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
When Alfarso and Allison arrived in twenty eleven, the building
they owned already had calls barbershop and a few popular
bars like two five to five Tapas Lounge. For their part,
Ol Fosol always had a desire to own his own lounge,
and Allison wanted to provide healthy food in what was
essentially a food desert, so they landed on the idea
(19:33):
of opening a community centered grocery store, the Box Car Grocer.
Speaker 8 (19:38):
We wanted to imagine a world where a whole foods
could have a baby with a convenience store.
Speaker 10 (19:47):
Yeah, it was sort of like this minimalist farm urban
chic look that the two of us came up with.
We had pictures of black farmers on the wall.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Within months after into Atlanta, the Cross has got the
store up and operating. Box car grocer offered fresh fruit
and vegetables from local farmers, healthy drinks and snacks, and
according to Addison, absolutely no Coca Cola products, which is
a ballsy move considering that Atlanta is its headquarters.
Speaker 8 (20:18):
So Allison has always been way ahead of me with
like health stuff and fucking crystals in the corner or
the room, and think about organic food and all this
kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I remember, cause I was like, goddamn everything you he'll
cost ten dollars.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, you remember the price.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
It was high.
Speaker 9 (20:33):
Boy.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
It was like, okay, we didn't made it over here.
I can't get no milk from here.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
The prices were high. But let us remind you, this
is twenty eleven. So the whole farm to table ten
dollars komboosh of life that some people live now, it
wasn't like that back then. Hell, organic might as well
have been a cuss word to some people.
Speaker 10 (20:52):
It's just that when you buy in small amounts and
small quantities, things are more expensive. So what people were
seeing was the true costa food.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
But the Cross has had big ambitions for the store.
They saw food as being a vital force to building
healthy communities in urban areas.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Alfonso welcome to fly with presents, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Him and his sister created Box.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
It wasn't long before Alfonso was on stage sharing the
vision he and his sister had for Peter Street. Here
he is at a live event hosted by the nonprofit Plywood,
standing in front of a screen with a diagram outlining
how their new venture, Box Car Grocer would grow across Atlanta.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
Where at the center of our hub is a central
station that's anywhere from a two to three thousand square feet.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Their idea wasn't small.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
The plan was to build a massive distribution hub that
would supply their own stores as well as other convenience
stores across Atlanta. The bigger their buying power, the cheaper
healthy food could be. On paper, they were setting themselves
up to service more than two hundred grocery stores.
Speaker 8 (21:59):
That's two hundred communities.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Alfonso started pitching this vision everywhere he could local reporters YouTubers.
Speaker 8 (22:06):
I passed by here one time and I was like
a grocery store on Peter Street.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
That's him on Merritt Field's YouTube channel, and here he
is introducing himself on the TV program Soul of the South.
Speaker 8 (22:20):
The South really does have a rich history, a lot
of wonderful natural resources, and a lot of opportunity for
small businesses to grow.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Within a three year span, Alfonso pretty much became the
face of Peter Street and he started a neighborhood association
that he became president of. Despite all of the attention
the store was getting, they were struggling to keep it open.
The grand plans for all the satellite stores didn't work out.
They were learning that being a business owner in the
(22:50):
so called Black Mecca came with a lot of politics
and red tape, and they were barely making a profit.
Allison jokes that people thought her and her brother were
skinny because they were eating healthy, when actually they were
losing weight because they were stressed and barely eating. Every
dime they earned went right back into that store. They
(23:11):
even tried to kickstart a campaign to fund it, but
it didn't help because a lot of people assumed that
since they owned the building, they already had money.
Speaker 10 (23:20):
There's a perception, and it was told to us to
our faces by black peopeople as well as white people.
Why would I give you any money you have so much.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
By twenty fifteen, just three years after opening, the Cross
Siblings were forced to close box Car for good. I
asked our Fonzo what it's like to look back on
that time. Now, there's a part.
Speaker 8 (23:42):
Of me that we were very naive, and that naivete.
I feel like we came off as real assholes. We
didn't know what we were doing. We had a bunch
of lofty ideas and a lot of theories, and we
didn't have I have a lot of time to do
(24:02):
a lot of propaganda and you know, and marketing and
pr We sort of just landed and had to get
right to get in this building open because it was
I mean, we had to pay this banknote.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Box Car might have shut its doors, but our falls
on Allison still owned the block, and the block was
about to change fast.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
With box Car gone.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Our farms on Allison were still landlords, Like you said,
that was their job. The grocery store had failed, but
the bars and restaurants on their property were thriving. Peter
Street was buzzing. People from all over the city came
there to party. But that kind of success brought problems too,
especially for longtime locals like Maya, who owned City of
(24:50):
Ink tattoo shop.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
The problem we had is a whole bunch of people
coming from out of town or something coming from another place,
which is good for tourism, but it's not even a
demographic was it the neighborhood.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
The crowds coming to Peter Street weren't from the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
They were looking for a party, and sooner or later
businesses had to cater to that demand. Take Slice Pizza,
one of the first spots to open on the Cross's
property back in the early two thousands. It was sleek, simple,
with no frills. You could go there get a cheap slice,
a cheap drink, or a toasted pesto chicken sandwich with
(25:26):
arugula and baby tomatoes if.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
That was your thing. On the right night, you might even.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Catch Ti Young Jeezy or past to Troy at the bar,
grabbing a moment away from the spotlight.
Speaker 7 (25:37):
But it was really just a real hangout spot for
all us man we probably hadn't even hit thirty.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Years oh yet.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
By twenty twelve, Slice was gone, replaced by another pizza
spot called The Spinning Pie or just Spin. It was
a new black owned business that promised more than food.
Spin leaned into the vibe of Peter Street with craft
beers or on new balls, TVs for the.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
Game, and DJ spinning and late into the night.
Speaker 6 (26:04):
The vibe changed because you know, the frequency of the
music changed to put this in hip hop playlist terms.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Back in the day at Slice, you would walk in.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
And hear slum village, day La Soul or trial called Quest.
It was a mixed crowd of hipsters and vertsy people.
When Spin took over, you was gonna hear Rick Ross
and Juicy J.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
Just seeing like everybody with these fake ass gold chains
on and wanted to be black Hollywood, Atlanta. It did
change to like, I want to go have some pizza
to niggas standing on the bar.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
He ain't lying. The ship was lit.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I mean I hosted a bunch of my birthday parties
in there, my damn self.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Shout out to my man. Sean Fallion.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Blue canteena right next door, leaned it to the same formula,
music and party vibes, often out shining the food, and
just a couple of doors down was two five to five.
Once a year they team that with Grand Hustle Records
to throw a massive block party during Birthday Bash or
the Beet Hip Hop Awards. Granted they got the permits
(27:09):
and everything, but that still didn't keep locals from bitching
about it.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Here's how Pastor Troy remembers it.
Speaker 7 (27:15):
That's when a lot of the car break ins and
stuff like that started. But with the neighborhood coming together, man,
they were able to.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Tone that down.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
This coming together, if you want to call it, that
would often happen at the neighborhood association meetings.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
About Casterlebury Hill that made the fireworks go off at
these meetings. It wasn't just one type of resident. In
the early two thousands, you had struggling artists living in
loss for cheap rent, but as property values rose, wealthier
folks moved in, some paying top dollar for high end spaces.
Of course, the different residents had different ideas of what
(27:56):
the neighborhood should be like. But if you sat in
on those meetings, do you get a front row seat
to who cansel Berry really was before the street lights
came on. I mean, just as Carl, the owner of
Off the Hook barbershop. He's been here forever, and he
always used to tell me, man.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
You need to write a story on the real calsele
Berry be.
Speaker 9 (28:15):
Happy to be in one of the association meeting one
a day and this lady asked why there are so
many African American kids in this neighborhood, and everybody turned
around looked at her like, ma'am, you're three blocks away
from four black colleges.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
I'm gonna be real.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
He'd be like, dang, man, there's whole bunch of white
people be fussing and stuff.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
It feels like the almost like the bourgeois. When Maya
says bourgeoisie. He's talking about white folks and black folks
from varying backgrounds who all had different ideas for the street.
And some of them even used to call the police
on my when one of his art shows caused a
little too much traffic until he but hold on, hold on,
before we get there.
Speaker 6 (28:54):
I want to say that. But they also do love
me and they be helping me out. Could they helped
me out right now with a zonea issue.
Speaker 8 (29:04):
It was a mess on so many levels. It was
a mess economically, it was a mess racially, it was
a mess with individual business owners and land.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It was just a mess.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
In response, Alfonso founded a neighborhood business association. He noticed
a growing disconnect between the owners running the businesses and
the residents who actually lived there.
Speaker 8 (29:25):
The way community development usually works is that you usually
have industrial first, and then you have commercial and then
you have residential. Casterbury Hill didn't develop like that. Casbury
Hill developed all ass backwards. So it was industrial first
and then it was residential, and then it was commercial.
And this is where things did get racial.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
If there was this.
Speaker 8 (29:45):
White gallery owner, artist, sort of contingent that started to
really buy in to Casterbury Hill prior to Peter Street.
And we live in the south, so it was like
watching two trains on a track. You know they're gonna collide.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
This isn't too uncommon in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Front facing the city proudly sells the image of black excellence,
where black folks are running shit. I mean, hell, we've
had nothing but black mayors for the last half century.
But underneath there's still pockets of racial and cultural tension,
Thoulans and feedback from the neighborhood and the business Association's
war to Cross Siblings down because no matter how many
(30:29):
meetings they held, common ground always seemed to be out
of reach. It looked like it was going to take
a miracle or a disaster for folks to see out
of eye. The miracle never really came. The disaster unfolded
in stages. It took ten plus years for Peter Street
to reach its peak from twenty twelve to twenty nineteen.
(30:51):
Its downfall came a lot quicker. To this day, a
lot of people still point their fingers at Alfonso. In
the summer of twenty seventeen, the Cross Siblings scheduled a
routine inspection of their building to make sure everything was
in order. They had renovation plans in the back of
their minds. After all, the brand new Mercedes Benz Stadium
(31:12):
was just a short walk away, and with it came
big promises for the neighborhood, more people, more traffic, more opportunity.
The Crosses wanted to be ready.
Speaker 10 (31:23):
We had some architects and engineers walk through the building
and give us sort of the big sums up like Okay,
structurally everything's fine here.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
But actually it wasn't news.
Speaker 9 (31:31):
Drone Iwo flew over a local restaurant where the roof
collapsed and hurt several customers.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Inspects are asking.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
One of the restaurants on the property, Blue Canteena, had
to shut down after a heavy rainstorm caused the roof
to collapse. It was a pretty big deal because it
happened on one of their more popular nights and a
few people got injured.
Speaker 10 (31:50):
There was a hidden defact that no one could have
found really from what all the engineers afterwards said, that
was a beast of a project to figure out what
was the failure, Because, of course then the worry was
if this failed, then we've been watching it and taking
care of it. What else could possibly fail that we
don't know about. These buildings are over one hundred years old.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Then two years later, in twenty nineteen, Alfonso sat down
for an interview with Atlanta reporter King Williams and revealed
his next big plan to build a boutique hotel above
the businesses on his property.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
The timing could not have been worse.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
That same year, tenants at two five five Spend Baltimore
Seafood and Pearl Lounge all got word their leases would
not be renewed. The public reaction was immediate and ugly.
They accused Alfonso of finally caving to the neighborhood pressure
of making the sweeping changes they suspected he wanted to make. Alfonso, however,
(32:53):
tells a different story. When the roof collapsed at Blue Cantina,
it was a wake up call for him in Allison,
the building needed serious work and they couldn't make those
renovations while tenants were still inside. But by then the
court of public opinion had already ruled against him. I
asked him about the interview and his plans for this hotel.
Speaker 8 (33:14):
I will say it right here on the record that
I never should have said that.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
I was sort of in my Richard.
Speaker 8 (33:19):
Branson face, and I was really wanting to drum up
interest from developers and investors in that project. It was
super premature, Yet again, I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It was wild.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
But just a couple months after that interview, another catastrophe happened.
Speaker 10 (33:41):
Right now in Atlanta. Fire cruis are on this scene
of a business fire. This happening at Peter Street around
eight This morning the fire start.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
On the morning of September eight, twenty nineteen, Allison and
Alfonso woke up to frantic calls their property.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Was on fire.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Allison says it likely started from a cigarette or maybe
a hookah coal that slipped between the deck boards at
two five five the night before. By morning, it had
smoldered into a full blaze, tearing through two five five
and spreading to Baltimore's Seafood and Pearl Lounge.
Speaker 10 (34:15):
That was a devastating day for all of us.
Speaker 8 (34:19):
The firefucked everybody up, like it super fucked everybody up.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
The leases were supposed to expire three months after the fire.
Alfonso says there was already an exit strategy in place
for the businesses, but the fire threw everything off. According
to the Crosses, they didn't force anyone out.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
The tenants chose to leave early. There was no kicking
people out.
Speaker 8 (34:43):
It wasn't even in our financial best interest for that
fire to have rent suddenly stopped. I mean, what did
you think about that.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
It's been six years since the fire, and Peter Street
is definitely quieter. During twenty twenty and twenty twenty one,
it was p technically a ghost town, though that was
mostly because of COVID. Slowly, though, pieces of it have
started to wake back up. Off the hook moved into
a new unit, and while the former homes of Blue
CANTEENA Spin two, five to five, and Baltimore's Seafood are
(35:15):
technically open for new tenants, you wouldn't know it at
first glance.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Most of them are still boarded up.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
As for Allison and Alfonso, they aren't joined at the
hip like they used to be when they were running
Box Card Grocer together.
Speaker 8 (35:29):
When you inherit a business, or you inherit actual physical assets,
then you gotta work together. And you may not be
compatible to work together, or you may be compatible for
a short period of time.
Speaker 10 (35:42):
And you need to have the humility to know when
it's time to move into different directions.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Forty years after their father first bought the property, Allison
and Alfonso now faced the same challenge he did. A
big vacant building in need of work, sitting in the
neighborhood full of potential, and just like people keep flocking
to Atlanta for their slice of peach cobbler, everyone on
Peter Street has their own vision for what the neighborhood
(36:11):
should be. Carl for example, wants something practical, something that
delivers right now, somebody.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Please open the convenience store on Peter Street.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Past de Troy can see the global future of Atlanta.
He kind of liked our Fonzo's idea with Fever World.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Cup coming and stuff like that. You say, hey man.
Speaker 7 (36:30):
It might not be a bad idea to have a
nice boutique hotel down there with probably sixteen rooms and
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Maya has spent the last eight years opening four more
art galleries on Peter Street, so he has some thoughts.
Speaker 6 (36:43):
And I think the other direction is, you know, like
bringing the arts to the neighborhood. It's a lot of
empty buildings and empty stuff that's still available that we
can do some art related stuff and have a true
art district.
Speaker 8 (36:55):
I think Atlanta can be for people of Colorado world
with Las Vegas is for Americans. And I think that
the pin drop, if you will, for that Discasper Hill,
and I'd have always said that, I think it's our building.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Whatever direction Peter Street and Canterbury he'll take, it won't
be an easy road. The city is changing fast. Rents
keep climbing and so is the cost of everything. So
even as the Mayor's office puts out press releases bragging
that Atlanta is the best city to start a businessing
anyone trying to set up shop down here needs to
know exactly what they're stepping into.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
And if you.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Decide to try it anyway, you have a landlord down
here waiting to welcome you.
Speaker 10 (37:35):
Whoever comes in the building, they're gonna get a lot
of shine from being in Castlebury Hill at this particular
moment in time.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
What happens next on Peter Street is anybody's guests. But
if Atlanta is still the Black Mecca, then this street
tells us what that really means, not just the dream
of ownership, but the cost of holding on to it.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Some people see Atlanta as a financial opportunity, Others see
it as a place that's about culture and community. Truth is,
it's all of that and more. Atlanta ain't one dimensional.
It's multifaceted. It's supposed to if all of us, the dreamers,
the builders, the one still trying to figure it out.
(38:27):
But to me, a Black Meca gotta mean more than
individual accomplishment. It's about community and building together for the
good of us. All that's the real work. That's really
what Atlanta is a city where one rises and we
all rise.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
In the next episode, a die far near Martin Luther
King's Church serves as the launching pad for the next
generation of artists and it becomes an unlikely magnet for VIPs.
In Atlanta is a department store party.
Speaker 10 (39:07):
As two Change is walking in the door, He's like this,
two Change fucking slaps that shit out in his fucking hand,
and I was.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Like, what the fuck?
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Atlanta is the will Packer Media production in partnership with
iHeart Podcast Idea, Generation and Complex. This episode was written, reported,
and produced by Maurice Garlin, with additional production from.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Christina Lee and jul Wicker.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Our supervisor, producer and editor is Shiva biad Our. Managing
producers are Rose Frulini Bacon O'mari Graham, and Shamara Rochester.
Editorial support from Sean Setero and Jack Irwin.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Original theme music by Iman Sahota.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Sound designed by Shiva Bayat and Our Mind Sahota, mixed
and mastered by Iman Sahota. Fact checking done by Sean Setero.
C counsel Donison caliph Perez, Lisa Califf and Jacqueline Schwedt.
Executive producers for will Packer Media are Will Packer and
Alex Bowden.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Co producer for will Packer Media is Nemi Mohun.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Executive producers for Idea Generation and Complex of Jack Irwin
and Noah Callahan. Bever Head of talent relations for Complex
is Anthony Already. Talent associate for Complex is Ryan Houston.
Senior attorney for Complex is Jordan Washington. Special thanks to
Tyler Klin, Terry Harrison, Chris Senator, Noams Griffin, and Candace Howard.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Big rude piece
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