This was a real poster in the mid-80s! And the thing was, this campaign for Atlanta came at the end of a point in time (15 to 20 or so years) when New York more or less had already moved over. Have you seen After Hours or read Please Kill Me? Anything south of Wall Street was post-apocalyptic!
Archive | May, 2010
PECANNE LOG’S RURAL EXPLORER
Seventies Streets Alive
23 MayIn honor of the first Atlanta Streets Alive, kicking off in less than 2 hours in Woodruff Park, here are some photos of Bike Day, hosted by WQXI (now 790 the Zone). I think Bike Day was possibly in 1971, and the moment was definitely captured by Boyd Lewis.
CNUhhhhhhhhh
19 MayIs anyone wealthy enough to be attending the Congress for New Urbanism* gathering this week? If so, is it truly “plannerlicious,” as one friend so vulgarly put it when describing the David Byrne “thing“?
What about this video, possibly financed by the Glenwood Park developers as propaganda, and definitely put together by a sprightly and tech-savvy group of new urbanists?**
a) Can we really call it a “makeover” in this day and age without Nick Arrojo cutting off some guy’s ponytail or giving a mousy gal caramel highlights?
b) Hmmm….sounds an awful lot like…….old urbanism. I mean, aren’t all those appealing traits of new Glenwood Park the same things you’d find in any old intown neighborhood? I love this about my elderly part of town – walking everywhere, running into people – although the downside is being recognized by a fanatical reader while trying to sneak away, unshowered, from a particularly empty-carb-dense brunch. You men can’t just come running up to me in broad daylight wearing tight seersucker trousers! It’s unseemly! I am a married woman and a pillar in this community!
But seriously, someone teach these new urbanists what adaptive reuse means, at least until CNU takes a well-defined stance against EIFS. Also, teach them there isn’t one single solution for every problem.
Anyway, if you really want to get down and dirty with Atlanta, ignore the previous video (and this one, too) and watch watch Steve and Drew’s Better Know a Neighborhood videos, which I guess will be shown at CNU?? I wouldn’t know!
Old Fourth Ward and Inman Park are my faves!! And someone please pay Steve $$$$$$$ so he can keep making these for every single one of Atlanta’s 3,000 neighborhoods!
*If you really want to know what I think of new urbanism, or at least as it pertains to Atlanta and this “healthy places” theme, I will have to tell you privately! Don’t want to bore the others!
**I realize in many circles, “developers” is a slur. Not in this case – I really like the idea of Glenwood Park, and I think the world of their intentions when building that development! Will it be a long-term success in Atlanta, though? Only time will tell!
A good idea we should steal
17 MayYou know what? Screw it, I am just going to get wonk-y here when I can’t think of something cute to say.
I read about this neighborhoods website that the child mayor of Pittsburgh just launched.
The site’s purpose is twofold: to guide would-be Pittsburghers to an ideal nesting place, and to highlight some of the incentives the administration has heaped on to the urban experience.
“The big problem we have in the city is to increase our tax base, increase our population — to get more people into the city,” said mayoral spokeswoman Joanna Doven. “We need a one-stop-shop location from which interested people — be it businesses or a future resident — can understand what we have going on.”
WHAT A GREAT IDEA. Imagine, if Atlanta had such a site, how many graduate students could find out about intown neighborhoods instead of moving from Phoenix, Arizona to some boring apartments around Lindbergh when they come here to start school. Imagine how many intowners could finally uncover what the deal is with Just Us (which always shows up on Google Maps at a very specific level of zoom) and all the other great places there are to live and hang out besides the famous ones everyone knows like Inman Park and Vaggie-Hi.
ADA has something sooooort of like this – Atlanta Emerging Markets. a) What a dull real estate-y name for a website. b) It is only focused on wheeling and dealing land with incentives, not so much on the cultural life or character of these areas. (I still like my passport idea.) c) All the info is in PDF. I don’t want to have to download a 25-page document to look at photos of houses on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway!
Pittsburgh has done a really good job of making people aware of how great its neighborhoods are. Even if you don’t know the names of Pittsburgh neighborhoods like you would those in Los Angeles or Chicago or Brooklyn, you know they are supposed to have very active local life. “You” being, of course, me. Atlanta has this in common with Pittsburgh – that its parts are much greater than its whole. I think Atlanta could create that kind of national public relations message, rather than this Brand Atlanta foolishness that every Atlantan is deeply ashamed of.
Later this week: Pecanne Log takes on new urbanists. Watch this space!
Previously: Please forward to Kwanza Hall
Pecanne Log’s Rural Explorer
9 MayWhen Thomas Wheatley told me that the theme of this year’s Urban Explorer issue was OTP, I was so excited! “I have just the places for you!” I cried. But then I found out that it was only the nearby metro Atlanta suburbs, not just anywhere in the continental United States that happens to be outside of I-285. Well, fiddlesticks. So all my recommendations fell on deaf ears because they were “too far to drive.” That doesn’t mean I can’t share them with you, Pecanne Log readers. You are more intellectually curious that the average Creative Loafing reader, as our expert marketing team has discovered. You are more likely to take risks and engage in your surroundings. That is why we present you now with:
PECANNE LOG’S RURAL EXPLORER
Transit happenstance
7 MayFrom the Briarcliff Plaza parking lot, I witnessed one of the most beautiful urban moments I’ve ever seen in Atlanta: an eastbound #2 MARTA bus, a westbound #2, a northbound #16, and a southbound #16, all waiting first in line at their respective red traffic lights at Ponce and North Highland.
There must be a German word, or Baltimore slang, for when this happens!
The Atlanta malaise
5 MayAren’t we embarrassed about abandoning this blog for a month?! April was the cruellest month. Maybe it’s been seeing the city in the harsh light of daylight savings time that has us feeling a little blah about everything. NOT THAT THERE’S ANYWHERE ELSE WE’D RATHER BE! But you know how it’s been around here – no one has jobs, certain people didn’t win certain elected offices so we have to treat them as private citizens, baby animals are dropping dead left and right and the AJC won’t let Mark Davis cover this so we don’t even know how to feel about the whole thing, not a single DJ in Atlanta will play Jermaine Stewart when we ask for it, we had to ride home on buses marked with red Xs a couple of weeks ago, and all the gourmet popsicles in the world can’t make us feel excited about summer because we didn’t even have time to get over spring’s runny allergy eyes before the humidity kicked in.
Oh, and then THIS:
Anyway, I blame Imagineering Atlanta for making me feel so anemic about this place. Has anyone else read this book? (Besides members of our book club.)
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