When asked why she wanted to come hold LED candles in a Kroger parking lot, Tracy Hicks paused a moment.
“Um, because we’re sad,” Hicks said.
Then, her friend, Lucia Goodman, stepped in.
“Kind of just like to give it a proper goodbye,” Goodman said.
Atlantans Say Goodbye To Landmark At ‘Murder Kroger’ Vigil
Stephannie Stokes / WABE
“It” being the Kroger on Ponce De Leon Avenue — or, as most people know it, “Murder Kroger.”
The grocery store is closing Friday to be redeveloped as part of a mixed use project.
So Hicks and Goodman and a few hundred others brought candles, balloons and their Murder Kroger paraphernalia to pay their respects.
“It’s just something about it. It’s special,” said Brandon White.
He said the store was named after something dark — a murder that took place in the ’90s — but the Kroger has become an icon for Atlanta residents.
Everyone has heard stories about it or has memories of their own attached to it.
“Personally it’s sad to see it go for new development when there’s so much stuff being built in Atlanta, and it’s like we want to hold onto something,” White said.
Many of those at the vigil said it’s one of the last remnants of “old Atlanta,” in a neighborhood that’s been transformed by the BeltLine.
The people who organized the event think that’s why it got so much interest. Their Facebook event, originally just for friends, basically went viral.
When more than a thousand RSVPed online, the organizers decided to turn the vigil into a donation drive for the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
Still, even with all the construction, some people, like Bill Mitchell, don’t expect the Kroger’s nickname to go away.
The grocery chain already tried to shake the nickname a couple of years ago, and become “BeltLine Kroger.”
It didn’t work, Mitchell said, and it won’t work when the store reopens in a shiny new complex.
“It will still be Murder Kroger. They could put the Taj Mahal here and it’s still going to be Murder Kroger,” Mitchell said.
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