Fresh Loaf

Jeff Johnson has a thing or two to say to the person who penned and circulated a vitriolic, idiotic letter that threatened African-Americans who live in Kirkwood.

Johnson, a yearlong Kirkwood resident and long-time Georgian, says the key to “saving” his neighborhood is to band together against displays of hate — and against the criminals whose acts instill that hate. He describes himself to the letter-writer as “the tall guy walking down the street headed to the park with my mixed kids. Don’t Shoot.”

Dear Angry Kirkwood Vigilante:

I hope you’re not as racist as you sound and just really angry over something that has touched you personally.

You mentioned crackheads, so let’s speak on drug epidemics. If you were in the suburbs, you would quite possibly have the same issue, only with non-African-American meth-heads. On to our specific issue here in Kirkwood: To everyone that bought a pricey house, and even those that brought a broke-down fixer-upper, my condolences. I would be upset too if I discovered the indigenous crackhead population after the purchase. I personally have grown up with the crack problem and have lost much more than my HD and Surround Sound, so allow me to offer these tips:

(more…)

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The following Home Base article is part of the Urban Living section, CL’s monthly focus on city home life. If you know of interesting events in your neighborhood, submit them to soapbox@creativeloafing.com or urbanliving@creativeloafing.com. We’re always on the lookout for cool homes to feature, too. So send us an e-mail today!

By Douglas L. Wood

Who can argue that strong schools don’t make a better neighborhood and a stronger city? While some choose private schools and others start charters, the Kirkwood community’s partnership with Atlanta Public Schools to implement the first K-12 Chinese language program in Georgia is just one example of how APS is willing and capable of engaging neighborhoods and enabling change.

NO RAIN ON THIS PARADE: Toomer Elementary students perform an umbrella dance at the opening ceremony of the Confucius Institute of Atlanta.

(Photo by www.alaneffphotography.com)

Mandarin is the world’s most spoken language, and by the time Kirkwood’s Toomer Elementary children graduate from college, China will be the No. 2 economy in the world. And since Chinese is a character-based language, learning it develops a different portion of the brain than a Romance-based language such as Spanish, and test scores tend to increase.

Members of the Kirkwood Neighborhood Organization, Principal Tonya Saunders at Toomer and Principal Andre Williams at Coan Middle School wrote a grant to the Georgia Department of Education requesting funds for a study on successful K-12 models of Chinese language instruction. A portion of the funding was used to conduct workshops for the Toomer PTA on what a Chinese curriculum would mean. From fall 2006 to spring 2007, a small team of parents, educators and community members visited programs in Chicago, the Washington, D.C. area, and Portland, Ore., and reported back to the community and other key players on the programs’ successes and struggles. (more…)

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The AJC, in today’s CityLife section, reprised a story CL did last month about Georgia Power’s plans to put an electrical substation in the old Pullman Yard on the edge of Kirkwood.

The AJC story says Georgia Power originally wanted to use four acres of the 28-acre site, which would have meant tearing down several of the historic buildings. But, since the land is owned by the state of Georgia, which, as CL noted, planned to sell the property, the utility could not simply condemn it and instead had to scale down its plans.

]If the land is eventually sold to a thoughtful developer who preserves the old warehouses, is it too much to hope that everybody will be happy with the outcome?

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