Neighborhoods - Sylvan Hills

Bounded by Lee Street, Langford Parkway, I-85, and avenues including Deckner and Arden, Sylvan Hills manages to be all about the porousness of borders. In the days when Fort McPherson still held a military presence, the sounds of “Taps” would sometimes drift east, across Lee Street and the southern line of MARTA and multiple freight train tracks, at sunset. From within the neighborhood, the Nabisco plant that fronts on Murphy Avenue often suffuses the area with the scent of toasting sugar. In typical Atlanta fashion, an area with the most pastoral of names has homes on one street and light industry on the next. Alas, many examples of both such inhabitants seem derelict — perhaps none more picturesquely so than an old RC Cola facility near the southwestern corner. — Ed Hall