The Cut

Once mourned for its loss of historic housing, the “Cut” derives its name from an area bulldozed in the 1950s, bisecting Inman Park from east to west.

Today, the Cut is part of Freedom Park (see image on right). It now sports bicyclists, skaters, joggers and strollers as you will see in the accompanying Photos. Once isolated from neighborhoods to the north, Inman Park is now reconnected to its intown neighbors.

The green section of the 1949 aerial photograph on the left depicts land siezed by the Georgia Department of Transportation as a right-of-way cutting (roughly north to south) through Morningside, Midtown, Poncey Highlands and Inman Park.

Another DOT freeway plan resulted in the siezure of additional tracts of housing to clear land for an east-west corridor. Neither plan materialized, although there were some tense moments in the 1980s when the City of Atlanta and DOT wanted to revive the east-west corridor into the City of Decatur.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of neighborhood activists and organizations such as Freedom Park Conservancy, Inc., road construction was halted and then modified to accomodate a number of amenities, such as the Path and the Carter Center, which have enhanced the quality of life in Inman Park and surrounding neighborhoods.

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