On your right is the Between the Rivers Historic District… about 90 acres of Rome squeezed onto hilly ground where the Etowah and Oostanaula wrap around three sides like a watery fence. In 1983, the National Register counted nearly 300 contributing buildings and a few structures here, which is a polite way of saying: this neighborhood has been busy for a long time.
Picture Broad Street in its working-clothes glory: the Busy Bee Cafe feeding regulars, Southern Bell wiring up phone calls, pawn shops and Montgomery Ward selling everyday hopes, and Esserman’s dressing people for Sunday. Around the corners, you’ve got the Greystone Hotel and apartments for travelers and new arrivals… plus a Tribune building pushing headlines, and even a Coca-Cola bottling plant keeping the fizz local. Commerce has always loved a river town.
And those bridges? One elegant concrete arch carried Broad Street over the Etowah in 1916… while the old Second Avenue truss over the Oostanaula got replaced around 1983.
Ready for Clock Tower (Rome, Georgia)? Just walk southeast for 6 minutes.
