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One of Stephanie Parker’s favorite things to do is to take long walks through East Atlanta, where she’s lived for more than two decades. But until recently, she almost never ventured south of Glenwood Avenue.

When asked why, her sigh is audible. “Unfamiliar territory. Wasn’t as attractive. I like trees, I like architecture, but there was nothing down here to look at.”

Parker hopes to help change that. She’s one of a couple dozen neighbors gathered in the basement of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church. (And yes, she walked here). It’s a meeting of the East Atlanta Corner Project, which wants to invigorate an intersection about a mile south of the popular restaurants and bars of East Atlanta Village.

“I’m glad it’s one of those quick turnaround projects,” she says, “so you can see the results of your efforts.”

The project is ambitious: a playground, a community garden, a dog park, an outdoor movie screen, a community hearth and a pop-up bar at the corners of Flat Shoals and Bouldercrest roads — all to be built by residents in about a month’s time.

As far as what that intersection looks like now?

“Parking lots without cars,” Matt Garbett, a community outreach consultant, said succinctly.

Basically, Garbett is in charge here, and his description of Flat Shoals and Bouldercrest is fairly accurate. This intersection sports two convenience stores and a barbershop nearby, but other than that, it’s mostly empty buildings and a whole lot of broken asphalt.

This improvement project, led and funded through the office of Atlanta City Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong, hopes to fix that by having residents build the amenities they want, themselves.

It’s something Garbett says has never been done on this scale in Atlanta.

“By doing it low-cost and temporary, you’re testing it … as opposed to spending money on structures then that could maybe not be used. I mean, everyone loves the idea of a playground, but you see ‘em all over the city where you drive by and there’s no kids on it.”

That’s why the amenities at this intersection will be built to be temporary, out of mostly found materials. For example, Garbett says, you can actually build a nice playground out of tires.

“And we know that there are plenty of tires in Atlanta. … [Then] all you really need is to buy is some rope, some paint and some bolts to hold it together and you can build it for 50 bucks,” he says.

Then, if the residents do use the playground, the dog park and the rest, it’s up to them to talk with the property owners and the city about replacing each temporary structure with the real thing.

Some residents at the meeting are excited about the community garden; while for others, it’s all about the pop-up bar.

Rory Schaffer, who’s lived in Atlanta for six months, says that for him, it’s actually not about any one amenity.

“You know, I just want something there,” he says. “It’s more about having something that brings the community together, versus anything that’s specifically for me.”

He could point his car in any direction to find a dog park, but going to chat with his own neighbors at their own dog park? He says that’s different.

Schaffer may or may not know it, but what he’s talking about has been discussed by sociologists for years. They have a concept known as a community’s “third place”: the social spot that’s not your home or work. Parks, public plazas and coffee shops are all third places — places that are extremely helpful to building the kind of connection these neighbors crave.

Take Marie Dietz-Meyer, who’s lived around the corner from the intersection in question for four years. She says she hopes the new park will do more than improve the intersection’s looks.

“I feel like a lot of us don’t really intermix with our current neighbors because of, you know, whatever, different backgrounds, and I think [the new park] will be a good place to kind of get together and get to know everybody and maybe see that we’re all the same,” she says. “We all live in this neighborhood, and we all like dogs, or we all like gardening, or we all like, you know, whatever.”

Grappling with any number of differences, including differences in class and race, are par for the course in a changing neighborhood like East Atlanta. But it’s the simpler exercise of community-building that these neighbors are thinking of at the meeting.

And Dietz-Meyer’s commitment runs deep. Want proof? She’s the one who’s agreed to house 30 tires in her backyard to build the playground, right at the start of Atlanta’s mosquito season.

“I’m sure my husband will understand when I get home and tell him why we’re doing it,” she says, laughing. “But he knows how excited I am about this, and I just want to do anything I can to keep it moving forward and make it as best as it could be.”

We’ll check back with these residents in about a month to see how things are going. That’s when Garbett says he hopes to hold a neighborhood party to celebrate the opening of the new park in East Atlanta.