South Downtown

South Downtown is a historic neighborhood of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. South Downtown is primarily home to city, county, state, and federal governmental offices, which prompted the city to adopt signage declaring the area "Government Walk." Although much of South Downtown is dominated by surface parking lots, the neighborhood was passed over during the redevelopment boom of the 1960s and 1970s that resulted in the demolition of much of Downtown's architecturally significant buildings. The result are a myriad buildings from the 1950s and earlier that retain their historic structural integrity.

South Downtown is located north of I-20, east of Castleberry Hill, south of Five Points, and west of I-85. Underground Atlanta is the primary shopping and entertainment center near South Downtown and it, along with the railroad gulch ("The Gulch"), separates the district from Five Points and the Hotel District.

South Downtown was once a bustling shopping district. Whitehall Street, renamed Peachtree Street Southwest, was the principal shopping street of Atlanta from the 1850s until the mid-20th century. A source from 1854 reported that the street was "being built up with stores of brick", while Broad Street was the market district. The City of Atlanta historians refer to the area as the "Heart of Atlanta" commercial district.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a cluster of department stores was located in the area. In the 1870s, the "Big Five" were Rich's, Chamberlain, Boyton, & Co., Ryan's; Keeley's; and Dougherty's; later, the J.M. High Company would join their leagues. By the 1930s, Rich's would come to dominate the South Downtown shopping district. In 1949, Whitehall was filled with five and dime stores, such as McCrory's, S. H. Kress, Woolworth's, and W. T. Grant.

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