Terry's #PhoenixFlies 2018 Curation: Awesome Churches

When folks ask me what to see during Atlanta Preservation Center's #PhoenixFlies 2018 I say the churches. There are 16 church tours this year.

I want see Northside Baptist and St. Anne's Episcopal this year and more I hope

Here are links to the online Phoenix Flies 2018 Program to the Phoenix Flies 2018 Event Cards and to the Phoenix Flies 2018 Daily Calendar Cards.

It's big. Francis Palmer Smith's magnum opus. Stained glass by the acres.	Another Francis Palmer Smith. Two words: Hammer beams. You'll get a church tour, a stained glass tour, and some honking big organ. Sometime you go in the pipe rooms.	Not just a church tour but the current "First Existentialist Church ," aka the "Old Stone Church" goes deep.

There's not a prouder structure on Peachtree, every brick and mortor-line has a purpose. Inside: An ethereal space with a dome. Combine this tour with Tour 40 for a same day two-fer.	Glorious stained glass with handful of Tiffany windows. Combine this tour with Tour 39 for a same day two-fer.	Glenn's main sanctuary is workaday and doubles and Emory's auditorium. The Steeple, and the dignified exterior reward every drive by. But Shutze's "Little Chapel" is a cathedral in 900 square feet. Shutze based the design on St Stephen Walbrook by Sir Christopher Wren: how to "dome a square."

I've never visited this one but I plan to.	The octagon landmark where the Northside Drive splits with Northside Parkway. Stained glass #notliketheothers

One of the Charles H. Hopson churches and a Peachtree landmark. Spectacular inside. Must see ceiling.	Buckhead, kind of hidden, looking forward to my first visit.	Spectacular and you'll hear the great organ. Combine this tour with Tour 90 for a same day two-fer.

Midtown landmark at 5th and Peachtree. Must see inside.	In Granite on Grant Street in Grant Park. Have you seen it, seen inside? Stunning sanctuary. #notliketheothers	One of the three "Jesus Junction" Chruches, a tall steepled landmark in white. Yes, the congregation used to meet on Ponce de Leon.

Shutze landmark with big-time heritage and history. The 1958 bombing is remembered in "Driving Miss Daisy,"	On the St. Luke's property it pokes out into Courtland Steet. Combine this tour with Tour 80 for a same day two-fer.

Enjoy Driving Slow on Ponce - Former Atlanta Highlands Church of Christ

When I'm driving Ponce de Leon these days, I'm going slow, I'm people watching, I'm architecture touring. You too?

Ponce is now a destination rather than a place you just want to get through, a good thing I think. This is how to enjoy your slow Ponce drives.

On Monday night this church conversion caught my eye so I stopped for some pictures. It's the  former Atlanta Highlands Church of Christ at 985 Ponce de Leon. Though I've seen it a thousand times, I liked it Monday night.



It's a condo conversion across the street from the Ponce Library.  See the curvy track lights through the left window? Can you imagine this as the balcony lobby?



I don't know anything about the church, whether it still exists, the building, or the condo conversion but I'd like to.



If Atlanta had a church street, it would be Ponce Leon. Within two blocks are Druid Hills Presbyterian, Druid Hills Baptist, and Druid Hills Methodist. And 18 more churches between the Varsity and Decatur.



Lot's of classical ideas here. Engaged portico with open pediment and giant order columns in antes, lancet windows. Dutch Bond brick pattern.



Got Gothic arches.



Capstone on the shoulders.



Think there was stained glass?



Pretty nice.



Notice the cottage court behind on Blue Ridge on the west wall of Publix?

This is how to enjoy your slow Ponce drives.

Tiny Church on 8th at Fielder Awaits Mixed Use-ification

I call it the Octane Coffee District and I have a secret parking spot when it's busy over there. I take 8th street down from the Marietta Street ridge and park on Fiedler Avenue next to this nondescript little church building. (Note to self: Didn't I just blog a Neel Reid Mansion?)



Last week I peeked inside.


In the Brady-10th-Northside triangle of flattop warehouses this little gabled shotgun with stained glass is the "difference" that I often find irresistible.

Those magnolias were probably perfect for about 5 years then got too expensive to take down.



Where to park: Fielder Avenue.There's the Architecture Tourist-mobile.


I don't know about Christ Church Midtown, but in 2013 the House of Prayer Pentecostal Holiness Church sold it to a developer (a) "...recognized and respected leader of urban development in Atlanta, Georgia - focusing on the revitalization of under-utilized areas and transforming them into vibrant neighborhoods."

So it awaits mixed use-ification. Lot: 6,050 sf / 0.1389 acres, built 1955 3,360 sf.
 
My father's advice was that if you keep the grass mowed, it'll be fine. No foundation planting, no problem, no pesky pruning either.














Not fixing these.


Bushy on the west side.


Windows in fair shape over here. Are there dedications and memorials on these windows?


Last week the sun was shining just right and I realized I could hold my camera over my head to see inside the front windows.















Thanks,
Terry

Now You Don't Have To Tear It Down to Save It: McGruder Street Church

I'd been stalking the McGruder Street Church of God in Christ (1940) for about a decade. It's a little landmark. Here's the deal:

"Most landmarks and focal points in cities - of which we need more, not fewer - come from the contrast of use radically different from its surroundings, and therefore inherently special-looking, happily located to make some drama and contrast of the inherent difference ... noble buildings ... set within the matrix of the city, instead being sorted out and withdrawn into 'courts of honor'"- Page 228, ”The Death and Life of Great American Cities” - Jane Jacobs, Vintage Books Edition 1991


Finally in 2011 I spotted someone entering. I slammed on the brakes and ran after them. This "slam on the brakes and run after them" is NOT always the best method for this sort of thing. But it worked this time.


I learned that zoning and building codes prevented the owners from converting it into a place to live.
 


Parking was the prime issue. I'm paraphrasing: To make it a place to live they had to add off-street parking. There's just not room. (And that's not all.) So it sat empty and unused.



I won't bore you with the details because I don't understand them. Let's just say, what they couldn't do then they can do now.

But that's not what I'm here to blog about.

Last night I ran into Shana Robbins. Her family was connected to this place.

It reminded me that they built a new house across the street that featured views of the church.



Here's the view from the first floor.



Here's the view from the second floor. Bravo: designing to take advantage of  two Old Fourth Ward landmarks.

Where Piedmont Avenue Slips Off the Rails

I don't need to tell you: One of Atlanta's great streets is Piedmont Avenue but only between St. Paul's Presbyterian and Rock Springs Presbyterian.

Piedmont goes off the rails at Cheshire Bridge and never recovers.


St. Paul's Presbyterian (1916) in Midtown and Rock Springs Presbyterian (1923) in Piedmont Heights bookend the pretty part of Piedmont. Charles H. Hopson designed both, the only two churches extant on Piedmont. St. Paul's is our Gothic-revival buttress against some unloved midtown moderns that succeeded in making St. Paul's look sad. Rock Springs Presbyterian with its cemetery seems teleported from the English countryside. It's a favorite of mine inside and out.

A few blocks north of Rock Springs Piedmont hits Cheshire Bridge and descends into Peachtree Creek's valley, from here on: ack.


The little bank designed by Pringle and Smith marks the sad transition. It was probably just right in 1957. Can you remember when it was last a bank? It stayed in good shape until the real estate folks moved out.



This is today, where the visual muck starts that not even Buckhead's jumble of me-me-me skyscrapers can resolve.


An early rendition of Inkaholics.


Cheshire Bridge's terminated vista in blue.


If we can just make it to Peachtree, maybe we'll be OK.




This has got to be fixed. 



Get me outta here.