Buttermilk Bottom

Where the Civic Center now stands, once stood the slum of Buttermilk Bottom. It looked like this:

 

(More at Atlanta Time Machine)

Click on the aerial photo below to see it full size, and notice in particular the unpaved streets of the slums - look on the east side of Piedmont between Pine and Forrest (now Ralph McGill). 

from the Aerial Survey of Atlanta, Georgia, 1949 for the City Planning Commission