For nearly a century, the David T. Howard Building has stood watch over the fortunes of Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward. Opened as a grammar school in 1923 and later converted to a high school, the imposing four-story brick edifice counts among its thousands of students Martin Luther King Jr., pioneering mayor Maynard H. Jackson and basketball great Walt “Clyde” Frazier.
Declining enrollment led Atlanta Public Schools to close the building in 1976. Aside from temporary stints as office space for the agency, the school sat idle.