Fortune 500, Class I Freight Operator with 21,000 miles of track, our adjacent piggyback switchyard gave us a big flat wall to paint, and a crazy dank tunnel to tweak. Like most next door neighbors, sometimes they party too late and make strange sounds in the middle of the night.
CSX – Cabbagetown Time-Line
1850-1880’s: East-West train tracks are vital to growth of Atlanta & Decatur, and the focus of several Civil War skirmishes during Battle of Atlanta.
1900’s: Multiple Industrial/Commercial applications along Dekalb Avenue & rail line. Several side streets cross the tracks. Landscaping, hills, drainage ditches, and other physical barriers exist in various states.
1949: Aerial photography shows a dozen tracks plus auxiliary buildings, including the Roundhouse in Reynoldstown at Flat Shoals.
1972: MARTA Gold Line completed. King Memorial & Inman Park/Reynoldstown Stations flank the site.
1976: Operations, which had be decreasing for a decade, finally cease at Fulton Cotton Mill. The area sees a steep decline in economic opportunity.
1988: Hulsey Yard Piggyback Facility constructed by Seaboard. Neighborhood is split between residents eager for new economic opportunities and urban pioneers bemoaning the extension of heavy industrial use.
1998: Atlanta’s Olympic-sized growth fuels gentrification and renewed attention towards affordable housing in East Atlanta. Hulsey switches hundreds of cars a day onto other tracks or dozens of semi-tractor trailers headed down Boulevard to I-20. Construction is underway on the Fulton Cotton Mill Lofts.
2000: Cabbagetown Neighborhood Improvement Association organizes a community mural project in Krog St Tunnel, with varying degrees of success.
2001: Cabbagetown Initiative Community Development Corporation 501c3 (hereafter, “CI”), is established to secure funding for Cabbagetown Park, with assistance from City of Atlanta. The mission includes identifying and improving community green spaces.
2000-2008: CI & CSX cooperate on timing & focus of buffing graffiti & landscaping.
2008-9: Cabbagetown Initiative applies for & receives CSX grant money to take over functions of landscaping, maintenance, and graffiti abatement (buffing). The “Tree Ninja” incident.
2012: Cabbagetown Initiative partners with Living Walls for a mural project along Wylie Street. CI commissions a large “Cabbagetown” mural on the SW Entrance of the Krog Tunnel by Sam Parker and Peter Ferrari, while Erin Basset is hired to install new artwork on the SE Entrance wall. Elsewhere in the city, Peter Ferrari invites a group of artist friends to paint large scale panels behind the Melvin Gallery, and calls it, “Forward, Warrior!!”
2013: Sam Parker begins curating select sites along the Wylie Street wall. Forward Warrior moves to Castleberry Hill.
2013: Peter Ferrari brings Forward Warrior to the CSX retaining wall in Cabbagetown and begins the process of covering the entire surface, a project that will take 8 years to connect horizontally.
2020: NPU-N, Fulton County Arts & Culture, and ATL100 partner with Cabbagetown Initiative to facilitate improvements at the entrance to Krog Tunnel including new landscaping, wayfinding, and a new mural celebrating Atlanta’s street art & mural achievements. CSX renews its commitment to the neighborhood by awarding a new grant for Wylie Street maintenance and the Forward Warrior Mural Project.