Tech Lawson Apartments
From SPSU Wiki
Tech Lawson Apartments, also known as Georgia Tech Apartments, were located in [Chamblee.] Tech Lawson Apartments were used as student housing in the late 1940's and early 1950's. The structures were converted Navy barracks from Naval Air Station Atlanta, a base active in World War II that was also a WWI base that turned cornfields into barracks at the rate of 8 a day [from a historical marker on the Peachtree DeKalb Airport property]. Located on the Peachtree DeKalb Airport facility grounds on the East side of Hardee Avenue, the buildings were demolished to make room for new construction after DeKalb County acquired the facility. This Hardee-Sixth area also had several huge H-shaped buildings that might have housed STI. The buildings that were the Chamblee campus of Southern Tech were also demolished, but it is unclear which part of the NAS they occupied. Some buildings to the north, in the old hospital area, were demolished to extend runway space. DeKalb County acquired the old NAS when the military decided to move to Marietta, where they could expand. Southern Tech probably moved to Marietta at the same time, because the demand for technical education included military and military-connected industrial needs. The Technician, STI's student newspaper, had many articles on this subject, and how what is now SPSU added many instructors to take care of the growing body of students entering under the GI Bill. Students who lived in the Tech Lawson Apartments came from mostly the Southern states, but some came from overseas. Few were commuting distance. My parents came from Edison, Georgia, at the Southwest end of our state. Some students stayed on as instructors, but most found jobs quickly.
There were two large buildings, and each wing might have had a porch on the end. They were in the vicinity of Hardee Ave and Sixth Street. The one North of Sixth Street was I-shaped, and the one South of it was E-shaped. Boxwood bushes decorated the grounds. On the aerial, since the I-shaped building could also be called H-shaped, it seemed easier to visualize it as an I if the map is oriented North-South. The E-shaped building has all three "legs" or "wings" pointing North. There is a stub on the right side of the E pointing East.
From photographs around the Spaeths' apartment, a swing set with two swings stood, a small porch with steps wide enough for maybe 8 people to sit, and the 2nd story had a smaller balcony with steps down. Another part of the building is visible in some photographs, but not enough shows to determine whether this was the I-shaped or E-shaped building. The top and bottom of the I, from the aerial view, were very long wings, but the three parts of the E were longer wings, with a little extension at the bottom of the E that would make a short wing. There must've been miles of hallways in these two buildings! In the aerial, the only place a porch makes sense is at the end of each wing [which I called a "leg" in my other page].
The interior of one bedroom shows two iron-framed twin beds pushed together. Perhaps beds from the old barracks served as part of the furnishings!
