A mile east down Ivan Allen, past the Georgia Aquarium and over the bridge dedicated with his history, the Path leads across Northside Drive and to the Westside Beltline Connector, built with the mantra visible through actions & achievements if not aloud:

You can’t see the Hood.

My cousin, an ATL native, was in town with her two boys and husband, who marveled at the many changes he had noticed since his last visit.

“We drove down this street, I can’t remember which; but there was the Hood on one side & new construction on the other side.”

I remarked then the same as any one else I’ve posed that query to from the A has said;

“I could name you about 10 streets like that. Where were you?”

Today, I’ve returned to the Westside Beltline Connection, a paved and lighted path that cuts a demarcation line through what the maps call English Avenue & Bankhead. It’s not complete and in a passed-down city design, it’s not straight, but it gets its point across.

This is where we will build and ‘take back’/gentrify/clean up this part of the city.

The voices of the men working soon after sunset are all accented, whether it’s with a foreign tongue or just OTP, those building the apartment monuments on high are not the ones they’re intended for. They work so others can enter into a luxury living space just moments from the heart of the city; close to major cross streets; the 75/85 Connector and MARTA…

I apologize; once a Sherpa, always a Sherpa.

They’re not apologizing for this path. The money might have gone to help the residents of this area, the ones who live here now. And certainly those that stay may see the benefits of this Path. Of how it can breed business and community as people in the area gather and see one another in the flesh and outside. If it’s used, it’s easy exercise and a safe way home…

Butt the homes that were here and either gone or were never were. This is an area where Greyhound stores their buses and the Path continues out towards the County Jail and a forest to the Westside that holds true to the history of this area; one where stubborn man declared he would build a city in this spot, even after both the trees and Sherman disagreed.

I can’t come to a conclusion about my feelings about The Trap Museum. Interestingly, it is just a few steps off this Path. One noticeable on Google Maps and evident if you’re walking during an event. The lines crowd what was and still is a very suburban street, stashed away on this side of town. A side many stayed away from; only to be visited in the lyrics of local rappers.

They’ve tagged what they can; but the city has turned their street art into something to be noted and admired along the tour from behind the safety of…

There are many things they use for that safety. The car windows as they pass under bridges or past telephone poles. The streets they stuff with cops to handle the actual crime, but the cameras catch all and focus on that instead of the houseless masses that fill the streets, sidewalks and side alleys.

And oh by the way, the bridges are sometime used for safety to; to lift one away from the hood underneath, therefore keeping one high up enough to avoid and ignore those below…

I have ignored much in my lifetime, but as I reach the end of this trip, I know I will return to take advantage of this trail because it is here to be used. But I could and will use this as the answer to the query of…

Hood on one side & City on the other.