Meanwhile, down the street at 306 Ponce de Leon Avenue, thanks to an initiative from preservation nonprofit Historic Atlanta, the city’s Zoning Review Board approved an ordinance this spring making the Atlanta Eagle the city’s first designated historic landmark dedicated to LGBTQ+ history. P’s was one of the city’s first safe spaces for LGBTQ+ residents, from the time it was opened as a restaurant by Vera Phillips in 1956 until a final police raid in the early 1980s. But for an older generation of queer Atlantans, Mrs. P’s is the name of stylish new restaurant occupying the bottom floor of the just-opened Wylie Hotel at 551 Ponce de Leon Avenue.
In a city notorious for knocking down large swathes of its history, on a single stretch of Midtown’s Ponce de Leon Avenue, two historic LGBTQ+ spaces are being preserved.įor folks who moved to Atlanta after the Reagan administration, Mrs. P’s in 1980Ĭourtesy of Georgia State University collection
