1981 - Georgia Power Moved Four Blocks & Abandoned Downtown

All the folks I knew at Georgia Power / Southern Company worked at the corner of Peachtree and Baker. In 1981 they moved to the new Georgia Power Corporate Headquarters. Georgia Power moved out of downtown while technically staying downtown. Many of our big corporate citizens follow suit. They aren't coming back downtown.


I like the place OK. I've been to a meeting in the top floor boardroom, nice with a terrific view. Way better than the Jackson Street bridge.

But these folks aren't on Peachtree any more.


Seemed like a cool idea at the time. The utilities were growing with the region, security was a big issue, and the energy crises. They decided to build an energy conscious landmark between the downtown connector and the Civic Center.

And hey, nearly 300,000 vehicle occupants see it every day.


Round here you need a fence and wall.


Shuttles park here.


Pedestrian entrance with nice private park to the right.


Lot's of fences. A suburban office park.


But more private.

This has bugged me for 35 years.

Would they do this today? I think not. They'd just build in Midtown like NCR or at Permeinter like State Farm or Sandy Springs like Mercedes-Benz.

"We Were Never Going to Tear It Down" - our Breuer Library

That's what former Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts said on Wednesday night about Atlanta's Marcel Breuer designed library which I call "The Breuer," (How to pronounce Breuer)

Mr. Pitts also said, "But in 2008 the voters voted to build a new downtown library."

Thanks to FOCAL - Friends of the Central Atlanta Library, Creative Loafing and the Center for Civic Innovation for hosting their 4th "Social Studies" and the meeting last night, this one about the future of The Breuer. They asked the panel:

"What’s wrong with Atlanta's Central Library and can it be fixed?"

I scribbled #terrystinybulletpoints which are a little whiny. Read Thomas Wheatley's report "What will happen to Atlanta's Central Library, an architecturally significant but undervalued building?" at Creative Loafing. And see "Atlanta’s Central Library debate" at Turned Georgian.


The stair window is my favorite place in the library. The grimy glass is a sign of why folks are talking about it. If the library can't manage to clean one of the coolest windows in Atlanta - and it's on the ground floor -  then....


Here's the panel It one was as focused and on point as a panel can get. Special thanks to Kyle Kessler who opened with a history of the Downtown Libraries.

So here are #terrystinybulletpoints

1. I had stumbled on to a discussion that began before 2008. 
2. The most boring use I can imagine for The Breuer is as a library.
3. At the very same hour Switch Modern held a seminar, "Why Beauty Matters." I wonder how this would go if The Breuer was considered beautiful as well as "significant," "world class" and "master work."
4. I wished the Beauty Matters folks were at our meeting.
5. Side 1: Politicians need to do what the voters voted for in 2008: a new downtown library.
6. Side 2: The Breuer could work as the "new downtown library" and it would be cheaper and it needs some work. The library is at risk if it's not a library.
7. Libraries are no longer be what they were when The Breuer was built. It's a white elephant.
8. Libraries will no longer be what they were when the "new" library was(is) built. It will be a white elephant.
9.  Does building to "the program" guarantee inflexible short-lived buildings?
10. I don't think the government is the best long term steward for "The Breuer.".
11. If they tear it down, will we get a world-class hotel befitting our international city? 
12. A Kroger in The Breuer might help the downtown renaissance thing more than a library or a hotel.

So Terry what are your #smartypants suggestions?

1. If we must, build the new library in Underground Atlanta. Maybe white elephants can cancel each other out or perhaps work together. Perhaps it can bridge south downtown with not-south downtown.
2. Get the High Museum / Woodruff Arts Center to buy The Breuer and give downtown a major cultural center that is actually on the sidewalk where a lot of people walk, where tourists hang out, near our popular downtown park and our big downtown university, in the midst of the hotel/convention district. Make it our Whitney. The High would have a Meier, a Piano AND a Breuer. Can we get Calatrava to build a bridge to one of them? TOTAL PACKAGE!
3. I don't think Atlanta has the patron capital or the art fan capital to pull it off right now.
4. Check your lottery ticket and get back to me.

Thanks to everybody for a useful meeting in an extraordinary building.


When it rains, the brutalist diagonal concrete grooves rock.

Terry's Tiny Tour: The View Outside from 85 Park Place, New Home To Georgia State's Law School

* Thanks to Sam Donaldson who gave Stuart Jackson and me a tour of 85 Park Place. Thanks Stuart for including me.

* You are probably wondering if I like it. Well...

* What our modernist designers do best, they did here: Walls of windows and a soaring atrium that slashes tall and deep into the building "bringing" the sunlight.

* Interior windows light interior rooms so claustrophobics can be somewhat at ease.

* Open spaces mean you'll see your fellow students and teachers and they will see you right back.

* A monumental floating stairway "brings" the diagonals.

* Two words: terrazzo floors.

* There aren't any cultural symbols inside 85 Park Place. I just can't imagine portraits of judges or alumni, certainly no Moses in there. Wouldn't it would ruin the minimalist effect?

* Attention artists: Y'all could do something bodacious in here. Please do.


* Fortunately the blandness of the finishes, the soaring atrium, hallway enfilades and glorious windows take the eye outside towards the Candler Building, the Flatiron and the Carnegie Buildings.


* And you can go outside on the decks while you are inside.


* I didn't know there was a water tower atop the Carnegie.

* I was too busy looking outside to capture the inside but I did take a couple of videos.

*Here's one from a stairway landing, I even caught the street car. This feels BIG CITY.



* And another from higher up.



* You are probably wondering if I like it. Would I enjoy going to school in a brand new building with a view and elevated decks? Well yeah. Thanks Sam and Stuart.

Terry's Tiny Tour - Classical / Traditional Spring Street in the Drizzle

Here's the deal: This week Maria Saporta wrote:  "It’s hard to believe, but the expansion of the Center for Puppetry Arts is even worse than I had feared..."

When I arrived at Georgia Tech in 1968, Spring Street was a 2-way of car dealerships. Is it less memorable today? Last night I cruised the 15 blocks between Peachtree and Linden to find out.

"Where you headed?" JoAnn asked.

"Spring Street."

"Huh?" was her silent, telling, sarcastic and totally correct response.


However great the puppet expansion might be, it hides a nice old building.

Terry Tiny Tour for folks driving 35-40 mph.


The Temple is one of our finest buildings (Shutze) and you can kind-of see it from Spring Street so I'm giving it an honorable mention.


Peachtree Christian Church (Hopson) is the gateway to Spring. It's stunning inside and out but seems lonely.


The skyline view from Peachtree Christian. It's where the eye goes but ...


The most you can see of the old Spring Street Elementary from Spring Street, the 40 mile an hour view.


It's still there, but fronted with modernist camo.


This is 1385 Spring, tax records say 1920. This and 1050 Spring are the only "houses" left on Spring Street. They are building this style today in my neighborhood.


The superb H.M. Patterson & Son - Spring Hill (Shutze). As if teleported from the English countryside.


The drizzly skyline view from from Spring Hill feels big city but not big comfort.


"Warm" view with drizzle in 19 seconds from Spring Hill. Caution: metal music.


 
Though Crum and Forster (Crook) is only 1/3 of its former self and has trompe l'oeil stick-on windows, it still classes up the place.

One more.


563 Spring Street, tax records say 1926. If pay you attention to the traffic, you might miss it.

Yet to be done: Terry's Tiny Mid-Century Modern Tour of Spring Street might be good.

Bottoms Up and Blooming: Nexus Press & Atlanta Zine Fest

Do the Nexus Press alums ever mix it up with the zinesters?

I was thinking: Why wasn't the Atlanta Zine Fest at The Contemporary? Underground printing has come a long way but it's got deep roots.


Here is Taylor Moon's zine, Lost in Time and Space, with her self portrait from the new "Murmur Media" space on Broad Street in South Downtown.


Underground printing at maximum quality required expensive equipment and materials with maximum craftsmanship. These artistic avenues remain open while technology has reduced some of the costs. Picture from the superb "Endless Road: A Look at Nexus Press" show at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

The Atlanta Zine Fest would have been perfect amidst the Nexus Prsss show. But our young, fearless, risk oblivious, poor arty crowd looks elsewhere.

"They" are building an arts district from the bottom up in downtown Atlanta, it's even on MARTA. It's edgy, it's risky, it has a big-city feel. It's the perfect place for the Atlanta Zine Fest.


Downstairs at Mammal Gallery.

Thanks to the Goat Farm folks.

Meet Mike Lydon, Learn Tactical Urbanism in Sweet Auburn on Thu, June 19 at 4:15PM

Free Snacks tomorrow at Noni's. See you there?

"New Urbanism" rhetoric is a whispering game. I don't understand how "We're trying to do a better job in designing places people like," turns into a grand unified theory for solving all our social ills. I don't understand why trying emulate things that have worked turns into political religion with a strident rhetoric of smugness, condensation, and busybodyness. I don't understand why even the practitioners and city lovers at times have chips on their shoulders.

So...


The best solution to the whispering game is to seek the original sources like Mike Lydon, a planner, an author and one the most eloquent and straightforward spokespersons on street design. He and Jason Roberts from The Better Block are here in Atlanta working with the Atlanta Regional Commission.

You can meet Mike AND Jason on Thursday, June 19 at 4:15PM at Noni's thanks the the Atlanta Regional Commission, TSW, and the Atlanta chapter of the Congress of the New Urbanism.

Read more about the ARC Sweet Auburn project here: "...demonstrate what a Lifelong Community might look like by temporarily transforming two blocks of Auburn Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward into a place that allows young and old to live well and age in place.


Mike has friends here. Remember him in the 2012 Living Walls panel at the Plaza?

Twitter:
@thebetterblock @AtlantaRegional @MikeLydon  @CNUAtlanta and me too: @terrykearns

Dude Working WAY UP THERE on Corey Tower

On my way into town on Dekalb Avenue yesterday I stopped on the connector bridge. Was there somebody up there? 


Yep, there he is. Read more on the tower below.


The tower is 300 feet tall.


Looks like they've just lifted a panel.


Unhooking the left.


Loose.




 
Walk it over.


There you go.

I hope he's taking some pictures.

Corey Tower to be transformed into giant digital sign that will be Atlanta's most glorious landmark forever and ever Max Blau for Creative Loafing

Structure of the Week: The Corey Tower Rebecca Burns for Atlanta Magazine

At Last! Corey Tower's Digital Billboard Has Arrived From Utah   Kimberly Turner for Curbed Atlanta

P.S. Say Hello on the Modern Atlanta Home Tour. I'm docent at Oakview on Saturday morning and at Welbourne on Sunday morning.

Thirty-nine Lions on Atlanta's Glenn Building

The Atlanta lion count continues with the Glenn Building, 1923, designed by Waddy B. Wood.


The lions are way up in the elaborate cornice.

 
As long as I've been here, it was dumpy, frumpy, and seedy. The 2006 redevelopment into the Glenn Hotel deserves high praise.


It's the last classy, classical building on the west side of downtown.

There's nothing nearby left from it's era. The Omni, (now CNN Center), the former Federal Reserve, 101 Marietta (now Centennial Tower), the digital billboard with the giant clock, the Centennial Park light towers, are practical, impressive, modern, "activated" pop.

It's a vibrant area but my eye prefers the Glenn.

Let's count lions.


There is one lion on the rear of the building which faces southwest.


Eighteen lions on the Spring Street side.


There are nineteen lions on the front which faces Marietta Street.


Lion thirty-nine flies solo over the northwest side.

More lions:

• Candler Building Lions: 31 in the Cornice and 4 at the doors.
• Sixty Lions on the Ellis Hotel's Cornice - Really - I Counted Them

Please submit your lion count request in the comments.

Bonus lions:


The Ponce Apartments (now Ponce Condominiums) lions guard Midtown

Candler Building Lions: 31 in the Cornice and 4 at the doors.

Atlanta's Candler Building opened in 1906 with a full complement of Lions. Two things first. One, if you aren't from Atlanta: The Candlers were Coca-Cola. Two, if you are in downtown Atlanta: Walk into the lobby, thank me later.

 
I'm on a hunt. My last post was "Sixty Lions on the Ellis Hotel's Cornice - Really - I Counted Them." A kind reader wondered about the Candler lions. Here we go.


The south cornice has four lions.


The east cornice has eleven lions.


The north cornice has six lions.


The west cornice has ten lions.


The other "south cornice" doesn't have a cornice or lions.

That's 31 lions in cornice.


The east entrance has two Lions.


The west entrance has two lions.

That's 35 lions in all. Have I missed any? Let me know.

Next?


The lion count on the Glenn Hotel.