I was scrolling through photo archives and figured that many in the community have no history of the huge hospital at the back of what is now Brook Run Park. As someone who walked though every building and took the following photos in 2007, I figured I would share.
As happy as I am that the old buildings are down, I will be much happier once the lawsuit against DeKalb County is settled whereby I believe they still owe us close to $7 million for the development of Brook Run Park.
John, what are the plans for the remaining abandoned buildings within Brook Run?
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ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting these. I remember being there with you they day that we took these pictures.
A lot of folks need to remember just how bad Brook Run was from 1998 until we made the push for cityhood.
I still have hundreds of the photos that we took, just as you know, most just to vulgar to publish in your blog.
Thanks again for posting these so that folks that never saw this can see how bad that place used to be for a decade.
Tom Taylor
Agreed Tom and John, and these pictures also show us a glimpse of what is to come in the next decade or two to our cities and nation as the right-wing Tea Party Republicans inflict their Scrooge-like policies upon the centrist GOP decimating and eventually destroying our nation's infrastructure and societal parachutes (i.e. Medicare, Social Security, Veteran's Benefits, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, etc).
ReplyDeleteI'm just one of many, a former Republican who left the party because of its current misogynistic, homophobic, racist, anti-Latino, and anti-intellectual views, as well as its heartless position towards the working poor. Your pictures give us a pretty insightful view of the future of the Red States and local communities that are in the Tea Party Republican control. Thank-you!
And the hypocrisy of saying, we the GOP is a party of moral and caring church-goers? Well, WWJD? Well, He would certainly want to reinforce our bridges and roads and support the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act!
Bob, as much as this is a political blog, it is not that type of "Political" blog; take it elsewhere or I will need to start deleting which I have rarely done in the past.
ReplyDeleteTom, you and I had a common vision for a better Dunwoody than we had at the time and I believe together with the help of many people that we started something special. Thanks for your prior service on the Dunwoody City Council and your current service in the State Legislature!
Travis, the front admin buildings near the theater will be the next to go and though we have "saved" the others they are all in bad shape and need extensive work.
Discussions on what to do with the dorm and theater should be forthcoming.
For anyone who does not remember these issues, here are links to a couple of older posts. This is just about the condition that the county left this space in for a decade.
ReplyDeleteJohn, thanks for keeping the archive up. I think if you have some time, should also re-post the county EPD issues with the destruction, the $7 million in bond funds that were diverted...etc.
Goes back to the motivations that drove the effort to incorporation, this among others. Thanks for posting this.
http://dunwoodynorth.blogspot.com/2008/04/has-brook-run-been-properly-cleaned-up.html
http://dunwoodynorth.blogspot.com/2007/03/wanton-destruction-at-brook-run.html
AS a long time reader of tea leaves I am going to state that my GUESS is that an agreement with DeKalb on the pending lawsuit will soon be announced.
ReplyDeleteat roughly 100 acres, Brook Run is about the size of Piedmont Park, which was designed by famed landscape architect, Frederick Laws Olmsted.
What we do with Brook Run ought to be timeless, useful to ALL citizens, and affordable. A multi-stage approach is ideal.
Active use/Passive use/Dog Parks/Ball Fields - There really is room for all of these things, but the key, to my thinking, is making the Park a timeless beauty.
Comparisons to Morgan Falls Park are not timeless, that Park is an active use real life PlayStation. It's nice, and maybe that what will be what we end up with, up front. But leave the open areas and rear natural.
The best way to screw up a piece of land? Build something.
This is one of the only 100+ acre tracts in any major City, go slow and do it right.
Got it! Dunwoody blogs are for right-wing opinions only. Where its Republican leaders sell their souls and lay wreaths on the graves of Confederate soldiers, which in addition to Nazi Germany, was the most reprehensible and heinous cause that a war was ever waged - the enslavement of fellow human beings. And its Republican legislators misspell every other word in their documents addressing the quality of education.
ReplyDeleteWon't ever comment again - I'll leave you right-wingers to your own self-entitled white middle-class delusions that you all know all and are better than everyone else.
Im doing some research on the history of homes for the disabled. Was Brook Run a hospital for the mentally insane or did it also house persons with developmental disabilities? Where can I find information on the history of Brook Run Hospital?
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