A dream deferred
MLK Blvd. has rundown past, but maybe brighter future
It’s a street name that evokes images of another era, one of marches and cries for civil justice, equality and measuring a person by character, not skin color.
And yet, by modern standards of judging neighborhoods, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Gainesville is hardly what you’d call a “dream” street.
Some positive changes and improvements are happening, but for now, the two-lane road that connects major roadways through town is largely blighted by vacant buildings, overgrown vegetation and broken or no sidewalks.
Old industrial buildings along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard show the age of that side of Gainesville.
Hopeful for the future
Still, longtime Gainesville civil rights activist Rose Johnson is hopeful for the road’s future, citing King’s quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
“The justice of MLK becoming a street that when people drive down it they can see both the historical significance and a dream of what can possibly be in the future is really important,” Johnson said.
MLK, which runs between Queen City Parkway and a fork at Downey Boulevard and Myrtle Street, was once all known as Myrtle Street. Today’s Myrtle Street basically links Newtown to the New Holland community.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it
bends towards justice.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Associated Press
The Newtown Florist Club
About 15 years ago, the Newtown Florist Club, led by longtime Executive Director Faye Bush, pushed the city to change the road’s name to honor King.
Newtown Florist Club Executive Director Faye Bush was instrumental in getting the name of Myrtle Street changed to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.The road long has been a main artery in Gainesville’s predominantly black southside, with half of it running past homes and the other half mostly past businesses and open fields. 
Frances Meadows
“By us going to so many meetings and working in different areas, we noticed that we didn’t have an MLK street in our city,” said Bush in an interview last week.
Newtown, a group that seeks environmental justice, met resistance at it tried to get approval. Some people, particularly businesses, said the address change would cost them on their signs, stationery and such.
Finally, as media outside Gainesville started reporting the story, the council voted to rename the street, Bush said.
The street’s name dedication drew a large crowd of longtime supporters, including the late Frances Meadows, Hall County’s first black county commissioner.
'It fizzled out'
Efforts to improve the area began years before the name change.
In the 1990s, a group known as the Myrtle Street Area Property Owners Association sought to upgrade and redevelop the area to increase property values in what had been a “stagnant area” of Gainesville, according a 1993 press release.
“It fizzled out,” said Garland Reynolds, longtime architect and member of the group. “It was just another frustration because it wasn’t picked up by the city.”
La Esperanza Bakery patrons enter the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard business.Reynolds’ father owned property on Myrtle and his family lived at the corner of Myrtle and Pine in the 1940s.
“I recall they were both dirt streets … and I couldn’t breathe in the summer because they were so dusty,” he said.
'
There's nothing over here'
During a walk along the street last week, people gave a mix of opinions about the state of the street and its future.
Tim McClain, owner at La’ Shiek Salon and a Newtown native, said he believes the area has been neglected “to an extent” over the years because, traditionally, “there’s nothing over here.”Tim McClain of La'Shiek Salon waits for his next customer at his shop near Dixie Street. McClain, who is from the area, has seen a positive change move slowly along the industrial side of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
People getting off Interstate 985 at Exit 22, which leads into town via E.E. Butler, “are going to bypass (MLK) unless you’ve got a reason to be over here,” he said.
McClain has noticed a similar trend in other cities.
“I have noticed that every city you go into, if you’re looking for any black people, you’re going to a (street named after) MLK,” he said.
He said he has noticed improvements to Gainesville’s MLK just based on that “the street doesn’t flood out any longer — I watched that ever since I was a kid,” he said.
And McClain believes there also has been a mindset change in the community.
“Things are dying out with old people and old ways,” he said. “The newer generation isn’t so much caught up on ‘my granddaddy told me to run it this way’ but rather … on what’s going to make it work right.”
Getting better 
Katelyn Dill said she too has noticed improvements in the area in the few years she has worked at All Sports Uniforms, which is on Main Street at MLK.
“It’s not as bad an area of town as it used to be,” she said.
Left: All Sports Uniforms employee Katelyn Dill has been working at the successful Gainesville business for several years and has noticed a positive change slowly taking place along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
'It's growing'
Brian Hollis, owner of Piedmont Tractor & Equipment, off MLK near E.E. Butler, said the area feels “like home.” He has practically grown up there, with his roots tracing to his father operating a business there.
Hollis said he believes the city’s strides on the Midtown Greenway — a pedestrian trail winding through the community — will help improve the area.
“Midtown is coming alive,” he said. “It’s growing, it’s cleaning up.”
Brian Hollis, owner of Piedmont Tractor Co., has practically grew up along the former Myrtle Street/Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard part of Gainesville.
Big change
Shane Chastain, owner of Chastain Janitorial Supply, is hoping to make a big change to what is perhaps MLK’s biggest eyesore — removing 2 acres of concrete slab that was home to former businesses as part of plans to build a new office and showroom.
Gainesville’s Tax Allocation Shane Chastain, owner of Chastain Janitorial Supply, will soon be moving his business to another location along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. He plans to remove nearly 2 acres of exposed concrete slab at the former site of the The Tire Barn and will replace it with a new office and showroom, trees and other lanscaping. District Advisory Committee has recommended the Gainesville City Council approve up to $192,500 for the demolition. The council is set to take up the matter Tuesday.
“I think the changing of the name of the street was the beginning of the revamping of this area,” Chastain said. “It just showed the city’s willingness to get (redevelopment) going.”
Reynolds said MLK Boulevard represents an opportunity for true civic improvement.
“If MLK is ever widened, which now for a number of reasons I sincerely doubt is possible,” he said, “it should be a true tree-lined and landscaped boulevard with wide set-back sidewalks on both sides — all in proper honor to Dr. King.”
Tim McClain
Katelyn Dill
Brian Hollis
Shane Chastain
Spurring private reinvestment
The city has put its sights on MLK in recent years, such as including it in the midtown tax allocation district, an effort by which taxpayer money helps projects in blighted areas.
Gainesville’s comprehensive plan cites MLK as an area that could be spruced up through landscaping and include pedestrian improvements between Queen City and E.E Butler parkways.
The city’s Midtown Greenway runs from just south of Jesse Jewell Parkway to MLK between Grove and Pine streets. Eventually, it could extend east to E.E. Butler and south to Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport and the planned Central Hall Multi-Use Trail.
The city also is updating its sidewalk master plan, “which will help us identify where are missing sidewalks, where do we need them and where do they need to be repaired, and what are the priorities,” said Jessica Tullar, Gainesville’s special projects manager.
“I’m quite certain that, through the (comprehensive) plan and the vision for that (MLK) area, it will be on the sidewalk plan in some capacity,” she said.
Tullar said the efforts are “intended to spur private reinvestment In 2000, the Newtown Florist Club fought for a portion of Myrtle Street to be named Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.and rebuild confidence in those private property owners that the city hasn’t forgotten about this area.”
