If you go down Ponce past Decatur, past Kudzu, past the galaxy cats mural, past YDFM, you’ll end up pretty quickly in Scottdale. Scottdale ended up on the map because of Col. George Washington Scott, owner the Scottdale Cotton Mill and major donor to the Decatur Female Seminary, renamed Agnes Scott College in memory of his mom. Scottdale Mill closed in 1982, four years after the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills and more than a decade after Whittier Mill (also owned by the Scotts) were shuttered. Now one of the biggest games in town is the creatively named Steel, LLC and the area suffers from the unincorporated malaise so specific to DeKalb County.
Sometimes when we get too bummed out here in Atlanta, Georgia, we like to check in on what other Atlantas are up to, to see if they’re living up to the hype, or even just making do. Makes us feel like we’re not alone in the world – somewhere out there, there’s another Atlanta, plodding along, learning valuable lessons through its constant mistakes, and just trying to make a name for itself in this crazy game we call life.
Atlanta, Illinois via www.atlantaillinois.org
Atlanta, Illinois: It’s hard to tell a lot of what’s up in Atlanta, Illinois, as the Atlanta Argus is updated online only monthly. The water leak on North Street will be repaired soon. There is a problem with unnumbered houses in the town that the council has to deal with. Dollar General needs a business license and the grocery wants to start selling liquor on Sunday.
There is so much to see and do in Atlanta, located along Route 66 and proud site of “the Bunyon Statue” of Paul Bunyan holding a hot dog and Illinois’ only eight-sided limestone public library and museum. You can get some great Atlanta souvenirs at the J. H. Hawes Grain Elevator Museum and find out where cornflakes come from in their new exhibit. (more…)
There are days and weeks when we literally cannot remember why we live in Atlanta other than because all our stuff is already here. Only a force as powerful as the History Twins can nurse us back from full-on fatigue to just dull listlessness.
Hey, snap out of it, you! This is truly one of the most amusing, ineffable episodes of them all. Especially if you like grand sweeping staircases and the letters “DOT” flying in your face. Oh, and more visuals with FOOD. You’ll see soon enough.
Here’s how the third-to-last episode of The Making of Modern Atlanta starts:
WHOA WHOA WHOA!! What is this? Clearly we are impeding on some sort of fancy dinner and similarly fancy conversation…
Dr. White: “…Maybe when we’re shooting The Making of the Modern Riviera.” [Inhales goblet deeply.] “Mmm, delicate fragrance. Fine taste. Robust but not ill-mannered. Ah, what’s the vintage?” (more…)
We are officially over the hill with The Making of Modern Atlanta. The second installment aired in 1993, two years after the first four episodes. The History Twins were still high off their regional Emmy nomination for “How We Played The Game” and ready to rock the PBA audience demanding more, more,more History Twins! This reinforced confidence in their game led to a few new snazzy enhancements on the series, like wackier introductions to each episode, Dr. White accenting his safari jackets with a little color base, and a new design to the titles and whatever it’s called that tells you the name of the person talking on the screen. Our fifth episode of TMOMA starts at City Hall, with the words we all dream of hearing spoken to us one day…
“Mr. Mayor, Professors Crimmins and White are here to see you.”“Who?” (more…)
We know it’s fall when we start noticing the argyle church on Briarcliff Road again.
The house next door is totally bricked out in bouclé, too, though you can’t tell here. We call this part of Briarcliff “Sweater Row”.
While you’re cruising the Druid Hills Halloween decorations and wooly Tudor architecture, do stop by Callanwolde for Tom Zarrilli‘s “Faces of the Yards of Clutter” show.
Wow, it’s been a while! We have not abandoned you, gentle readers, and have in the past month learned a valuable lesson about unplugging one’s DVD player from all those other things. And during football season! Of all the times to not be able to watch this: That’s a baseball field but later on they get to football.
In our last viewing of The Making of Modern Atlanta, the History Twins explored the mysterious suburbs and exurbs, where all the Pier 1 Tuscan Heritage Collection wine racks and Rubbermaid bids used as children’s furniture in the world cannot keep up with the sprawling tentacles of cul-de-sacs and Colonial Williamsburg strip malls. (I know, I know; that run-on sentence is inconsistent because this show was filmed in the early ’90s and Tuscan decor didn’t hit big time until a decade later.) And if this is the first time you’re joining us on our serial exploration of The Making of Modern Atlanta, please start back here.)
Now we will explore the next means by which Atlanta has expanded beyond its capabilities for quality and long-term sustainability: major league sports. The History Twins LOVE sports.
Literally the first sentence of this episode has a Field of Dreams reference. “Atlantan Billy Payne heard a voice: ‘If you build it, they will come.’” So now we know that this, like many of the episodes of TMOMA, will be framed in the context of Olympics anxiety: “Have we made it? Is Atlanta Losersville or a big-league city?”
Somehow, I feel the answer to that question will be both. (more…)
Now we all know how everyone left the city (on roads, in their cars) but to where did they go? That’s what episode three of The Making of Modern Atlanta is all about.“The development of suburbs and exurbs raise many thorny issues for the making of modern Atlanta.”
The History Twins meet us by Arabia Mountain in DeKalb County. I love when they both go casual at the same time.(more…)
How could there even be another episode of The Making of Modern Atlanta after that last one? What more is there to say about Atlanta?
First of all, it may take a bit of explaining to tell you what’s going on in this picture below. Once upon a time, there was a “construction” industry in Atlanta. They actually “built” “buildings” rather than just setting off news stories about planned developments. These “buildings” and their corresponding “construction” required a great deal of “money” that came from “jobs” and “investments”. Now you might better comprehend the context of this episode.
It begins with our good friend Tim Crimmins anxiously scaling the heights of the Peachtree Plaza. (more…)
The year: 1991. The Olympics: Five years away. Atlanta: Hadn’t done a thing to prepare itself for the event it was pinning its every hope and dream for the future on.
Enter: THE HISTORY TWINS. Ready to blow the lid off this whole “Atlanta” thing – for the entire world to see, on Public Broadcasting Atlanta, with the help of that shadowy group called the Georgia Humanities Council. (more…)
This past weekend while researching the second installment of Pecanne Log’s Rural Explorer, which has been a full year in the making, we snooped around Cedartown. I had to go ahead and post these pictures and urge you to make haste to Cedartown because last Friday wrapped a shoot for an upcoming Billy Bob Thornton movie in downtown Cedartown. This was/is a gigantic deal for the little town, and a gigantic deal for me as the whole downtown is still done up like it’s in 1969 small town Alabama (the setting). I’m not sure how long the “set” will be up, or if the production crew took it down on Monday – but if you’re going up that way for the 4th of July weekend, check it out if you love good old-fashioned window dressings! (more…)
Do we really need two stories of hot dogs? No, this isn’t a hypothetical question; do we as Atlanta residents need two stories of gourmet hot dogs? I have been waiting on a hot dog retailer to start in this city for YEARS but frankly, I just think two stories of hot dogs is one too many. It just is!
And a block south, we have been struggling to comprehend Buddy’s strategy and corporate vision through its recent aesthetic improvements – taking down the iconic Buddy’s lettering, painting the awning, transforming from a Citgo into a Chevron, etc. Still, they have not done a thing with that flower shop that was supposed to be the King of Pops’ shop, and the latest development is a small shanty town on the north side of the store. Seriously, what is going on at Buddy’s?
Previously:Unsolved mysteries
Helloooooo Georgia Historical Society Senior Historian Dr. Stan Deaton, star of Today in Georgia History!
For the record, until Councilmember Alex Wan grows back his surfer hair, we will not be featuring him as a Pecanne Log Boy of Summer!
Well, maybe for old times’ sake we’ll post one screenshot of his previously wavy locks just to remind us how it used to be: Thank you to the special tipster who sent us that screenshot.
While MARTA is famous for being MARTA, there are lots of other little lesser-known transportation services running in metro Atlanta that are realer than the streetcar, BeltLine’s transit component, and Stonecrest monorail – for example, Buford Highway’s jitneys, Decatur’s pedicabs, and the Jesus Come Into My Life bus service. We’ve seen these buses traveling in a pack through Downtown before, but were never fast enough with the camera phone to capture the moment.
Then this weekend a map/transit nerd reader who shares with us an appreciation for Google Maps’ street view sent us this:
While you’re googling the Jesus Come Into My Life bus schedule and routes, watch the first minute or so of the following super 8 footage to see MARTA rail in the very early 1980s.
Clear out a shelf in your lighted curio cabinet or rearrange the decorative needlepoint pillows on your bed to accommodate the greatest sale on Gilt Groupe ever, Madame Alexander Collectible Dolls! Including three kinds of Scarlett O’Hara dolls AND A RHETT BUTLER DOLL.
WHAT AM I DOING BLOGGING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW WHEN I DON’T EVEN HAVE A TARA DOLLHOUSE YET?!?!?
While on the Ponce kick from yesterday, we found this clever little article by one “Slab Towner” in the July 1984 issue of The Great Speckled Bird proposing an Atlanta Fast Food Historic District:
The creation of an “Atlanta Fast Food Historic District” in the area of Ponce de Leon, Boulevard and North Avenues, to maintain the historic value of the area, could serve to protect the fast food and convenience stores from unfair competition from other potential retailers who might employ vicious tactics, like offering quality and lower prices, to drive them out of business. A certain percentage of the land would have to be devoted fast foods and convenience, just like it is now, forever.
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This modest proposal could also serve as a model for other areas seeking such designations, like the Memorial Drive Strip Center Archeological District, to preserve the remnants of the earliest days of “white flight” in the southern portions of Fulton and DeKalb, or even the selection of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and Parking Lots as a National Historic Site to show precisely how sensitive and responsible a white local government can be in balancing community needs for frivolous stuff like housing and the desires of big business for a Big League City with Big League profit opportunities, and fast.
Here’s another charming reminder of Atlanta’s relentless gentrification and decline and unfulfilled threat of gentrification and even further decline: An early ’80s be-turtlenecked Tom Zarrilli performing “Destroy Midtown”, a vicious punk number with the band Attack and Decay to protest the closing of the Nitery Club on Ponce.
Warning: Contains satirical adult language and graphic descriptions of violence inflicted on landlords and Evil Real Estate Developers!
If you’ve been on his tour of Ponce de Leon Avenue, you’ll recall that the Nitery Club is where the owner sold Italian men’s dress shoes behind the bar. According to Mr. Zarrilli, after the Nitery Club shut down, it briefly became a gay bar, and then a Greek restaurant called the Golden Dolphin. Now it is that grown-up version of a college dining hall adored by overcooked pasta lovers all over town, Eats.
As we’ve mentioned before, there’s been a long-time fear of Ponce de Leon Avenue becoming upscale or overly yuppie. Now there is a Whole Foods, a Chipotle, and an Urban Outfitters on Ponce – all signs of modern middle-class retail development. But there is also the vandalized City Hall East, the rotting empty Clermont Hotel, Model T bar, the mysterious Lake Building, and the woman who pleasures herself on a beach towel in front of the vacant Wachovia at the corner of Monroe Avenue. Ponce doesn’t have a Smut Busters like Cheshire Bridge Road (well, Midtown Ponce Security Alliance) but there is an ongoing resentment of the crime and blight issues related to the sharp divide between Midtown and Old Fourth Ward that Ponce represents, as well as, on the other hand, the isolated development or “revitalization” that has happened (don’t even get us started on Sembler parking lots and in the ’50s and ’60s what an article in The Great Speckled Bird alluded to as “a shadowy group called the Ponce de Leon Association”). Everything we find about Ponce’s condition since the dissolution of Atlanta’s urban core echoes the same concerns, like everything else about Atlanta ever – but we’re too busy to be self-reflective or observe multi-decade patterns of failure!
These photos, taken by Thomas Askew, were collected by W.E.B. DuBois and shown in his “Negro Exhibit” at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 to demonstrate middle-class African-American life in America. Askew photographed many of his scenes in Atlanta because that was where black middle-class life could be had. DuBois wanted to show progress, education, and prosperity – the lives of the “talented tenth” – in the African-American community, not the suffering and tribulation that was typically the focus of national and international attention on his race. Read DuBois’ description/review of the show, “An American Negro in Paris,” in The American Monthly Review of Reviews.
But on a lighter note – watch your step for some serious fashion!!
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