Atlanta’s “junior-sized” skid row, as one journalist referred to it in 1958, was the South CBD in microcosm. In 1974 Jim Merriner, a Constitution reporter fresh out of college, was given the assignment of investigating the underbelly of downtown Atlanta. After hitting the streets and making a number of local contacts, he published a two-part exposé on the sights, sounds, and smells of the area. As a historical source, Merriner’s reportage must be handled with care. He was unable to resist the temptation to sensationalize his material, leaving readers with the false impression that deviance and disorder ran rampant in the dingy haunts of skid row. On the other hand, Merriner assembled a trove of information from which we can discern how skid row actually worked for both its residents and the many actors who extracted profits from their labor.

In a lead that set the overall tone for his piece Merriner pronounced,