Ferst Dr Northwest, Georgia Tech

As a long-time graduate of the "North Avenue Trade School", or Georgia Tech, admittedly I have a biased affinity for my alma mater and its campus. Since the institution was founded in 1885, the city of Atlanta has been slowly encroaching upon it – in more ways than one. That can be a good thing, and a bad thing.

What do I mean? Well, Georgia Tech is truly a beautiful campus, which was originally bordered by just North Avenue, Northside Drive, Ferst Drive and 10th Street – making it a wonderful and safe academic haven in the shadows of Atlanta’s skyscrapers. This environment makes it a great place to learn for talented college students from all over the world. Picturesque rolling hills enjoin beautiful campus buildings from the School of Architecture to the Olympic Natatorium built to host swim events in 1996, when the Olympics Games came to Atlanta. Another campus improvement in the wake of the Olympics was the addition of high-rise housing (located on the extended Tech-campus along Techwood Drive), which were originally built to host the competing athletes during the games. In more recent times, the campus encroached more into the city when the school added a state of the art Georgia Tech Convention Center and Hotel on the other side of I-75. it’s an amazing environment to take continuing education classes.

And, a bad thing: increased violent crime on campus. Over the past 2 years there has been a sudden increase in violent crimes and crimes against women.

It’s a great place, a world-class institution but with its recent growth, one needs to be vigilant to stay safe!

This is a great street, especially if you are young and are in need of either education, fun, or a little bit of both. This is an amazing place to be during the week as all you see are young people coming and going to classes, being social and just having a good time.
The weekends can be really fun too, if you know where all of the hot spots are, and if you don't quite know, just follow the sounds of music to the place with all of the young people taking a break from studying hard so that they can play hard. I recommend this street for people under 35 especially, as there is always something fun going on.

Boy do I like Urban College Campuses. Atlanta has one of the best. The Georgia Tech Campus is large and very interesting. Probably the best way to get a real feel for this campus is to pick a very busy school day and traverse the campus on Ferst St. This street basically forms a circle inside the campus and passes by many of the important buildings on campus. In addition this campus is great for people watching.