On a sweltering Tuesday afternoon as temperatures surpassed 90 degrees, a group of longtime Fourth Ward residents gathered on Albert Cooper IV’s porch to share memories of their century-old neighbor — the Atlanta Medical Center.
Both of Cooper’s daughters were born in the hospital right down the street, then known as Georgia Baptist. Charles Blackmon used to visit some of the hundreds of doctors’ offices on the property with his wife, who suffered from sickle cell anemia. Joyce Sheats remembered one of her best friends who had a severe stroke rushed to its high-tech neurology unit from Kennesaw.
“I’m concerned about where people are going to go — and where they’re going now,” said Sheats, a former nurse and researcher at Morehouse School of Medicine who has lived in the neighborhood all of her 74 years…