Victorian houses surround the city's oldest park, with a 19th century cemetery on the north edge.
What Grant Park looks like
Large two-story houses face Grant Park itself, with wraparound porches stacked on both floors. Smaller Queen Anne cottages and craftsman bungalows fill the side streets, including Rosalia Street and Augusta Avenue, some set behind low iron fences and gates. Most of the buildings here date from the 1880s through the early twentieth century. Together with Inman Park, the neighborhood holds the largest remaining stretch of Victorian houses in Atlanta.
The stands at the park's edge, a cream stucco house from 1858 with four columns across the porch and an oak tree overhanging the yard. Grant Street runs past it to St. Paul United Methodist Church, a stone building with a square corner tower at Grant and St. Paul Avenue.
, a domed brick building on Rosalia Street with a columned entrance under a red tile roof, dates from 1925 and holds apartments today. The , a stone building on Glenwood Avenue from 1897, has columns along one wing and is offices now.
covers 48 acres along the neighborhood's north edge, with an estimated 70,000 graves behind a red brick perimeter wall. Its main gate is a brick arch lettered OAKLAND, dating to 1896. The Bell Tower beside it, a crenellated stone and stucco building from 1899, has an arcade of arches along its ground floor and serves as the cemetery's visitor center.
Shot in Grant Park
In September 2013, the production behind Furious 7 filmed a funeral and a car chase through several of Oakland Cemetery's older sections. The same gate and its Bell Tower later stood in for the series Watchmen and MacGyver.
Furious 7, 2015
The cemetery gate
Played Los Angeles, California, present day
The Toretto family's funeral for Han was staged inside Oakland Cemetery. The car chase that follows runs through several of its oldest sections, including the African American Burial Grounds and Old Hunter Street, before exiting through the main gate onto streets standing in for downtown Los Angeles. Historic Oakland Foundation's own account and a contemporaneous Atlanta Journal-Constitution report both place the production here in September 2013, with Vin Diesel, Jason Statham and Paul Walker on set.
Watchmen, 2019
Played Tartarus Acres Cemetery, present day
The same gate plays the exterior of a fictional cemetery called Tartarus Acres in a 2019 episode of the series Watchmen. The funeral scene inside that episode was filmed at a different cemetery.
MacGyver, 2018
Played a cemetery crematorium, present day
The Bell Tower at Oakland Cemetery plays a crematorium in a 2018 episode of the series MacGyver. It was built in 1899 as the sexton's office. The title character crashes his car into it to keep a partner from being incinerated inside.
What Grant Park can double for
Downtown Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California
Furious 7 exits its cemetery chase through Oakland Cemetery's main gate onto a street standing in for downtown Los Angeles. The production filmed here in September 2013, confirmed by Historic Oakland Foundation's own account and a contemporaneous Atlanta Journal-Constitution report naming Vin Diesel, Jason Statham and Paul Walker on set. OAKLAND is lettered across the brick arch of the gate, which identifies the location in any static shot. The chase keeps its cars moving through frame rather than holding on the gate itself. Try searching downtown street exit now.
Woodland Heights in Houston, Texas
Grant Park's craftsman bungalows and Queen Anne cottages on streets like Rosalia Street and Augusta Avenue are close in scale and period to Woodland Heights, a Houston streetcar suburb platted in 1907. Both share generous front porches set close to the sidewalk, and Woodland Heights' own bungalow blocks are the closest match to Grant Park's side streets. Grant Park's street signs and painted storefront signs like Bennett's Market name the neighborhood directly, so a shot standing in for Houston needs to stay on the residential blocks. Parked cars and satellite dishes on porches need the same control in either city. Try searching craftsman bungalow street now.
Riverside Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio
Riverside Cemetery's gatehouse in Cleveland is a close match for Oakland's Bell Tower, a castle-like building at the main gate of a large nineteenth century cemetery. Architect Charles Hopkinson built it in 1897, two years before the Bell Tower, in red brownstone under a tile roof. That is heavier and darker than the stone and stucco Oakland used. Neither building names its cemetery on its own facade. Oakland Cemetery sits close enough to downtown Atlanta that the skyline shows through the trees from parts of the grounds. A wide shot facing that way gives the location away, so the Bell Tower works better framed against the cemetery's older monuments, with the skyline kept out of frame. Try searching cemetery gatehouse now.
