The Number of New Homes for which George Prather Solicited Financing

An article from the 1994 book Atlanta: A City of Neighborhoods tells the story of Vine City through the life history of George Prather, who grew up and stayed in the "brick bungalow his parents built in the twenties." Prather remembered Vine City to be "a great neighborhood, a middle-class place. We went to school, to church. We were law-abiding. If you carried anything other than a Boy Scout knife, the rest of us would have nothing to do with you. The exclusion was pretty effective" (104).

He continued: "Vine City was a good-looking neighborhood when I was coming along. Postal workers, railroad firemen, educators, porters, chauffeurs - they were at the top of the economic ladder. Had nice homes, educated their children. School was the number one priority" (104).

The article author writes that "Churches, clubs, and other institutions still operate, but the old ethic is tarnished…Although generations have died and their children gone away, there remains a small core of enlightened successors, young and old, who seem unconquerable" (107).

Prather, one of those "unconquerable few" touted efforts he had been involved in to get financing from the Georgia-Pacific Corporation for homes. Prather remembered the successful effort: 'We laid to rest the myth that nobody would buy a house here." He continued that "fifty new homes have been sold, and Georgia-Pacific calls it 'Project Hope', and that's just what it is" (107).

Sources:
Joseph F. Thompson and Robert Isbell. Atlanta: A City of Neighborhoods. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1994.