The Baths of TrajanThe Butler Street YMCA

Architect:

Operated: 109 CE - early 5th Century AD

Rome, Italy

Trajan, the Emperor of Rome from 98 - 117 CE, was a successor to Nero Claudius, known for his tyrannical rule and debauchery. Trajan continued to give back to the people what Nero had stolen from them by constructing a 330 meter by 340 meter bath complex with cultural and intellectual programming included. The complex was built directly on top of the ruins of Nero's house and provided the foundation for individuals to nourish the mind, body, and soul with access to lecture halls, libraries, meeting rooms, auditoria, exedrae, athletic spaces, and religious shrines. The libraries at the Baths of Trajan are in the East and West Exedra of the complex. Focusing on the Western library, the structure housed scrolls of the time, as well as locations to read and discuss.

The Hungry Club at the Butler Street YMCA

Architect: Hentz, Reid, and Adler

Builder: Alexander D. Hamilton

Operated: 1920 -2012

Atlanta, Georgia

Built in 1920 and in operation until 2012, the Butler Street YMCA served as the center of social life and recreation for the Black community in Atlanta. The Butler Street YMCA building shown above provided a location for the Black community to gather during a time of segregation. With amenities such as dormitories, classrooms, and a swimming pool, the building was pivotal during the civil rights movement in the United States. Like the Baths of Trajan, the emphasis of the Butler Street ‘Y’ was on a community space that provided its users with a space to pursue spiritual, intellectual, and physical endeavors. Of the many programs conducted at this YMCA, the “Hungry Club Forum” was one of the most influential to the political life of the city. With the club motto: “Food for taste and food for thought for those who hunger for information and association”, the “Hungry Club” became an extremely popular forum between Black and white leaders during the civil rights movement in Atlanta and beyond. Responding to the oppression against African Americans in the country, the “Hungry Club” became one of the first spaces for racial integration, thoughtful discussion, and community building.

The Baths of Trajan - Trajan’s Library Cont.

Possible Reconstructed Plan of the Library

inclusion, along with its southeast twin, set precedent for further baths in Imperial Rome. The incorporation of libraries would be included in the Baths of Caracalla (212-216

Library

Portico

The reconstructed plan of the library at the Baths of Trajan are based on the photogrammetry data, photographs, and the work of Lora Lee Johnson From historical drawings, maps and the existing ruins, the library would be characterized as a semi-

The following paper will discuss an elementary school closed in 1995 by Atlanta Public Schools, sold in 2010 to a local non-profit, and then conveyed in 2017 to a development company. Despite its initial programmatic charge to meet the demand of educating the children of white working-class families, English Avenue School on the west side of Atlanta is arguably, from its inception, always been connected to African American history. Completing a Historical American Building Survey submission, the research indicated a building fighting to tell its story, despite its deterioration, and reveal all that it has witnessed because of local, state, and federal racist policy. Whether through its namesake’s use of free enslaved labor in the convict leasing system to build his fortune or in its conversion to an “equalization school” to prolong racial integration in Atlanta’s public school system or its bombing in 1960 by segregationist forces attempting to halt the civil rights movement, the century-old building carries a legacy of resilience. Its very bricks the symbols of ancestors. Its detonated bricks the ushers of school integration within the city. And now, its aged bricks the heralders of a past almost forgotten and future nearly repeating itself. The structure serves as an example and possibility of monuments already living amongst us representing the joy and pain of the Black experience within the United States. The building’s revitalization is critical in infusing the community with a reminder of where they came from and to stake a claim as gentrification broaches the neighborhood. The presentation will entail an overview of the building’s history, the local leadership advocating and campaigning for its adaptive reuse as a community center, the story of its National Registry status, and its challenges from accelerating decay to obstacles within the city zoning commission.