Olympia Building and Coca-Cola sign Atlanta

Five Points is a district of

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

, the primary reference for the

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

area.

Description

The name refers to the convergence of Marietta Street, Edgewood Avenue, Decatur Street, and two legs of

Peachtree Street Peachtree Street is one of several major streets running through the city of Atlanta. Beginning at Five Points in downtown Atlanta, it runs North through Midtown; a few blocks after entering into Buckhead, the name changes to Peachtree Road ...

(the south-southwestern leg was originally

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament ...

Street, before a section of Whitehall was renamed as an extension of Peachtree Street to give businesses south of Five Points the prestige of a Peachtree Street address). Five Points is usually considered by Atlantans to be the center of town, and it is the

origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * ''The Origin'' (Buffy comic), a 1999 ''Buffy the Vampire Sl ...

of the

street address An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along ...

ing system for the city and county, although four of the streets (except Edgewood) are rotated at least 30° clockwise from their nominal directions, along with the rest of the downtown

street grid In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogon ...

. Woodruff Park is on the northeast corner of the intersection, between Peachtree Street and Edgewood Avenue. The Five Points MARTA station is one block south of the intersection on Peachtree Street. A large round Coca-Cola sign overlooks Five Points, atop the Olympia Building on the east side of the intersection between Edgewood Avenue and Decatur Avenue. The nearly 50-foot tall sign has a 33-foot lighted neon face and faces up and down Peachtree Street. A lighted portion at the bottom of the sign gives the current time and temperature. At the other corners of Five Points are located: Woodruff Park (northeast); the William-Oliver Building (northwest);

Georgia State University Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is also the largest institution of high ...

Andrew Young School of Policy Studies The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University houses the Criminal Justice & Criminology, Economics, School of Social Work, Urban Studies and Public Management & Policy departments. Georgia State University is the large ...

(southwest); and a parking garage (southeast). On a triangular island in the intersection stands the George Beasley sculpture

Five Points Monument The Five Points Monument is a large public monument in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Located in the Five Points district, the monument was designed by George Beasley and installed in 1996. History The monument was created during the lead ...

, alluding to the water tower formerly standing on the spot as well as the

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...

tracks that once existed in the intersection.

History

Prior to the arrival of white settlers, Five Points was the intersection of two Creek Indian trails, the Peachtree Trail and the Sandtown Trail. In 1845, George Washington Collier opened a

grocery store A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...

at what is now Five Points, and the store later served as Atlanta's first

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

in 1846. In 1848, Five Points served as the location of Atlanta's first mayoral election. Moses Formwalt became Atlanta's first mayor, defeating

Jonathan Norcross Jonathan Norcross (April 18, 1808 – December 18, 1898) was elected in 1850 as the fourth Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, serving the customary term at the time of one year. Dubbed the "Father of Atlanta" and "hard fighter of everything" by publi ...

. In 1875, Atlanta's drinking water system began with the construction of three

artesian well An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. An artesian aquifer has trapped water, surrounded by layers of impermeable rock or clay, which apply positive pressure to the water contained within t ...

s at Five Points. The system delivered water to Atlanta's residents via wooden pipes. Until the 1960s, Five Points represented the central hub of Atlanta. With the advent of

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

and the development of shopping malls, the economic and demographic center of Atlanta shifted northward, and Five Points went into decay. By the 21st century, the area was revitalizing, mostly due to the expansion of

, which maintains a large footprint in Five Points.

References

{{coord, 33.75432, -84.38979, display=title Neighborhoods in Atlanta