Fresh Loaf

An interview with Ashley Elder, the bartender who was closing up the Standard Food & Spirits alongside John Henderson the night he was killed, aired on Fox 5 this weekend.

In the interview, Elder recounted the Jan. 7 attack. She told Fox 5 that she and Henderson were about to leave the popular Memorial Drive bar and restaurant when a group of gunmen broke in. She said she was in the office and Henderson was behind the bar when the gunmen shattered the Standard’s glass door.

Elder said she begged the robbers not to kill her, stating her grandmother had just died and her mother wouldn’t be able to bear the loss. She also said Henderson, who joined her in the office after being shot in the leg, was conscious and alert — until the gunmen, upon leaving, fired several rounds through the office’s closed door.

Elder’s interview was aired the same day the AJC ran a story stating that most of the details police originally released about the crime were incorrect.

A reward for info identifying the gunmen has topped $10,000.

UPDATE: Just learned that Elder also talked to WSB-TV Channel 2 the day before.

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The AJC reports today that Atlanta police have corrected numerous details that were released in the hours after John Henderson, a bartender at the Standard Food and Spirits, was killed Jan. 7.

The most “startling” correction about Henderson’s death? According to the AJC, “His killers might not have meant to kill him.”

Nor was he killed execution-style, as the Atlanta Police Department initially claimed. In fact, the entire narrative of the incident inside the popular Memorial Drive bar and restaurant was way off.

The story goes on to say:

After robbing the bartenders of the business’s money, the [four or five] robbers closed the office door and fired several shots through the door before they left.

[Atlanta homicide detective Anthony] Gentile would not confirm that one of warning shots was the fatal bullet to Henderson’s head — he was shot three times, not four as originally reported by police — but the detective acknowledged that Henderson’s death could have been unintentional.

There are also several details that have been erroneously reported by police, Gentile acknowledged:

• The female bartender never hid in a cabinet for safety.

• One of the robbers never told the others not to shoot the woman.

• The robbers never told the bartenders to lie face-down on the floor.

• The wounds to Henderson did not come while one of the robbers stood over him, shooting him once in each leg and twice in the head.

Gentile said he doesn’t have a good explanation for the misinformation that was given to the media by the Atlanta Police Department, aside from saying that much information was being tossed around in the initial hours after the killing.

Though the new details might make the crime seem slightly less vicious, the gunmen wouldn’t be less culpable — even if they didn’t mean to kill Henderson. Under Georgia law, if a person is killed while a suspect is committing a felony (armed robbery, for example), that’s “felony murder.” The charge carries a mandatory life sentence.

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Management and employees of Standard Food and Spirits have established a memorial fund for John Henderson, the 27-year-old bartender who was murdered at the restaurant after a robbery early Wednesday morning.

“We are offering what help we can financially and emotionally to his family,” Chris Johnson, owner and general manager of Standard Food and Spirits, said in a press release from the city. “John was very outgoing and very lively and supportive. Our hearts go out to his parents, extended family and his many friends. It’s unfortunate that someone would take another life in such a senseless crime.”

Tomorrow from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., Southeast Atlanta residents will hold a vigil for Henderson at The Standard. Management and staff are also planning a memorial service at the restaurant in the near future.

To contribute funds to the John Henderson Memorial Fund, visit the Grant Park Neighborhood Association website and follow the link to make a donation via credit card. Checks and money orders, noted as “John Henderson Memorial Fund,” can be mailed to the Grant Park Neighborhood Association, PO Box 89235, Atlanta, GA 30312.

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UPDATE: Standard Food and Spirits’ management request the event be a vigil, not a protest, and that participants do not bring signs or placards. Participants are encouraged to bring candles to light as a tribute to the victim. The post below has been edited to reflect the Standard’s request.

Southeast Atlanta residents shaken by the this morning’s murder of a bartender at Standard Food and Spirits will hold a 7 a.m. vigil tomorrow at the Memorial Drive restaurant.

Rally participants are encouraged to bring candles to light.

For driving directions to The Standard, visit here. To find the nearest public transit that serves the restaurant, visit here.

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Memorial Drive’s fast-moving metamorphosis from industrial eyesore to a neighborhood with amenities continued last week after the Atlanta Regional Commission stamped its seal of approval on a 10-acre development that would feature a much-needed grocery store.

The project on the corner of Memorial Drive and Pearl Street would add 71,000 square feet of retail, 12,000 square feet of office space and 350 housing units to the area. It also requires the demolition of the Atlanta Dairies building.

Atlanta-based developers Brand Properties wouldn’t return calls about the project. Judging from site plans submitted to the commission, however, the $65-million project’s layout would be similar to that of the nearby Edgewood Shopping Center on Moreland Avenue — except more compact and a bit friendlier to foot traffic. It features storefronts along the streets surrounding a parking deck and courtyards.

It’s an ambitious endeavor at a time when financing is tight and housing is a gamble. But it’s also a development that regional planners say is smart for Memorial Drive — a close-to-downtown thoroughfare that’s seen land prices escalate as more people want to live closer to the city.

“Kind of the easiest way to think of it is ‘Paris-style’ density — four stories with ground-level retail,” Dan Reuter of the commission says. “It’s similar to what you find in Chicago, San Francisco and even New York City. It provides a good concentration of people in an area that can support retail.”

For the project to proceed, the city must rezone the property. If things go according to plan, the developers estimate the project will be complete in June 2010.

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The dominoes continue to fall along the Memorial Drive corridor. Just yesterday, Georgia State University threw down about $6.6 million for a 3.8-acre lot at 188 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., to be used as a practice field for the school’s planned football team.

The land, which backs up to the MARTA line and sits next to that unsightly Corey smokestack, was formerly the home of The Warehouse, a homeless shelter operated by Blood and Fire Ministries. There was another, older brick warehouse on the land that has been slowly disappearing over the last year as construction crews have salvaged old timber and building materials.

The sale is but the latest change to an area that likely will be unrecognizable a few years from now. As I  noted in a 2006 article, the entire Memorial Drive corridor – including MLK Boulevard – from the Downtown Connector to Oakland Cemetery, has been zoned for redevelopment with townhouses and street-level boutiques.

Ironically, some of that development has already occurred, but it’s been slightly to the east, across from the cemetery, specifically The Jane loft complex and the Oakland Park condo tower. Both projects house restaurants and retail space, helping bring a neighborhood feel to a strip that had been mostly industrial. For better of worse, however, the increased property values have pushed out businesses like Lenny’s Bar, which managed to relocate on nearby DeKalb Avenue.

Over the summer, an anonymous donor helped the city of Atlanta buy up several vacant lots between Memorial and MLK, which have been cleared and landscaped with wood chips and small boulders. Eventually, the plan is for the entire strip running from the highway to the cemetery to become Capitol Gateway Park, a linear greenspace bounded on both sides by European-style townhomes.

For more info, check here.

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Yep. The old Atlanta Dairies property, which sits between Cabbagetown, Grant Park and Reynoldstown (and directly adjacent to our pick last year for the city’s best doggie day care), is going to be turned into a midscale grocery store, the AJC reported over the weekend.

Brand Morgan, CEO of Brand Properties, declined to name the store his company has been negotiating with, but he described it as a “mainstream” retailer as opposed to high-end stores such as Whole Foods and Fresh Market.

Morgan said he scouted the Memorial Drive corridor for over a year in search of a spot for a supermarket before settling on the dairy property.

Morgan also told the AJC that the store’s parking lot will be tucked behind new shops and apartments that will line Memorial. (Other new developments also are taking shape along Memorial — a street that’s poised for a major makeover.) That means a strong sidewalk presence and a lower profile for cars — tenets of the New Urbanism movement espoused by Charles Brewer, who created the Glenwood Park development a few blocks away.

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If you take Memorial Drive into and out of downtown, you may recently have noticed land-clearing on several woebegone parcels between that street and MLK Drive. And you may have wondered what’s going in where those dilapidated structures had been.

Here’s your answer: Nothing.

The demolition you’ve witnessed is part of an ongoing project to create a linear park between the state Capitol and Oakland Cemetery. The western portion of the park, where the Capitol Homes public housing project once stood, is already cleared and is awaiting state funding to turn it into a greenway.

Just last week, Gov. Sonny Perdue submitted a budget proposal that includes some $11 million to begin designing a pedestrian thoroughfare that will allow visitors to walk from the Gold Dome to the planned Capitol Gateway Park by way of a walkway spanning the Downtown Connector. The ambitious proposal calls for the parking deck next to the Statehouse to be replaced by a rolling lawn, through which Piedmont Avenue will be rerouted, boulevard-style.

As for the land-clearing to the east, at Hill Street and along Oakland Avenue, that’s the city’s handiwork. Through the Atlanta Development Authority, and with support from the Trust for Public Land and private donors, the city is assembling the rest of the strip along Memorial to complement the state’s portion.

Last year, the city bought three blocks, with four more to go. The most recent acquisition – for $1.7 million – was the block on the north side of MLK, just opposite the entrance to the cemetery. The land was vacant except for an old, shanty-ish house, says Ellen Wickersham, the ADA’s manager of parks and greenspace.

“As we were wiring the money to seller, fire engines were called because the house was going up in flames,” she says. “It’s totally unexplained.”

The site could be used for a future visitor’s center for Atlanta’s most famous cemetery, she says.

Meanwhile, a number of existing businesses are still operating in the planned park corridor, including the beloved Daddy D’z. But Wickersham says the city isn’t trying to push anybody out.

“This is a long-term project, so we’re working with individual businesses in order to respect their needs,” she says.

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