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Neighborhood Info
The above map will take you on a one mile long self-guided street art and mural walking tour through Atlanta’s Cabbagetown neighborhood. After the tour, it’s about a half mile back to the starting point. See the red line on the map for your tour route. The table below the map is arranged in order according to your tour route. Markers with black outlines indicate Forward Warrior sponsored murals. Because there are so many, FW murals from previous years are not shown on this map.
If you have a little extra time quite a few Inman Park murals are within a very short walk of the other end of the Krog Street Tunnel. Also check out the other street art walking tours offered on this website. Cabbagetown was originally a factory compound containing the manufacturing Complex and worker’s housing for the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill. The neighborhood got its name (or so one story goes) when a cabbage truck overturned spilling its contents out onto the street. The smell of cabbage cooking permeated the neighborhood for weeks.
Street Art in the Neighborhood
Most of the Murals in this neighborhood came courtesy of Forward Warrior, an annual event hosted by the Cabbagetown Initiative. Forward Warrior is a block party with music, food, and live painting performances. Attendees can meet and interact with their favorite artists and see the mural making process from beginning to end. Atlanta artist Peter Ferrari founded Forward Warrior in 2011. The name “Forward Warrior” came from a phrase of encouragement used by Ferrari and a former roommate when times were tough.
Initially the event was just Peter and a dozen friends hosting a live painting performance party along the Atlanta Beltline in the Old Fourth Ward. In 2013, the Castleberry Hill community invited Forward Warrior to paint in their neighborhood. In 2014 the event moved to Cabbagetown along the half mile long wall owned by the CSX railroad. Graffiti tags plagued the wall. The thought was that taggers would respect murals. It worked and the event is still in Cabbagetown today.
Cabbagetown is one of Atlanta’s neighborhoods where an impressive amount of street art, spray art, murals and graffiti are highly concentrated in one easily walkable area. Tennelle Street and Wylie Street are one of the best street art viewing venues in Atlanta thanks to Forward Warrior. The murals line up for easy viewing along a wall that parallels the sidewalk.