If you don’t have time to read all 9,000 words of the exhausting Atlanta MSA page, at LEAST look at its nightmare urban apocalypse images, including one of of a demon cloud swirling over the city skyline.

via Wikipedia

Here are the highlights:

• The area is the world’s largest toll-free calling zone spanning 7,162 square miles (18,549 km2).
• …Atlanta [was] one of the US’s first cities to employ ten-digit dialing, which was begun by BellSouth the year before the Centennial 1996 Olympic Games.
• Cooktops and ovens are a mix of gas and electric, while gas clothes dryers are rather rare. Nearly all homes have a fireplace with a manual-valve gas starter, and some are now equipped with permanent gas logs with electric switch start. Some homes also have natural gas barbecue grills, formerly sold at utility company stores.
• Because of larger lot sizes, and natural-looking architecture such as California contemporary, older neighborhoods typically have many mature forest trees, except in cases where they have been destroyed by homeowners.
• Second-hand stores include several Goodwill Industries of North Georgia and a few Salvation Army thrift stores, three America’s Thrift Stores, and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. For-profit local chains which buy and resell higher-quality goods include local chains Abbadabba’s and Plato’s Closet.
• The area’s subsoil is a dense clay soil, colored rusty by the iron oxide present in it. It becomes very muddy and sticky when wet, and hard when dry, and stains light-colored carpets and clothing easily. It also tends to have a low pH, further aggravating gardeners.
• Common lawn weeds are wild strawberry, violet, wild onion, and of course the ubiquitous dandelion, crabgrass, and plantain.
• Among mammals, the eastern gray squirrel is by far the most ubiquitous, stealing birdseed from the bird feeders which many locals maintain.
• Falcons roost on skyscrapers in downtown Atlanta and can be regularly seen feasting on pigeons.
• The first commuter rail line would run south of the city, eventually extended to Lovejoy and possibly Hampton near Atlanta Motor Speedway. This project took two decades under Democrats, and has now been threatened by some Republicans in the Georgia General Assembly as being “wasteful”, despite being successful in every other U.S. city that has it.
• Owing to the area’s long history of settlement and uneven terrain, most arterial roads are not straight but meander instead, which can be confusing as much as the famed proliferation of Atlanta streets with “Peachtree” in the name. It is also often joked that half the streets are named Peachtree, while the other half have several names to make up for it.
• Where more than one town in the same county has a road to the same place, the smaller towns have their own name prefixed to it, while the county seat does not. The road need not go directly to the other place, but may connect through other roads. Examples include Due West Road west from Marietta, Kennesaw Due West Road southwest from Kennesaw, and Acworth Due West Road south from Acworth. Some are usually hyphenated, like Peachtree-Dunwoody Road, Ashford-Dunwoody Road, Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, and Chamblee-Tucker Road.

This opus to the metropolitan statistical area is INCREDIBLE! I imagine some first-year city planning student turned in his or her last paper last week, got drunk off of a bottle of Three Wishes cab sauv and thought, “Now that the semester is over I can finally write what’s in my heart.” Well done, child.

…only to fall in love.

Real life? No, we’re talking about In the Flesh, an independent gay film shot in 1997 Atlanta.
It is so gay, it is so ’90s, it is so Atlanta. Eat your heart out, Gregg Araki!

The first thing that tipped us off that In the Flesh was no ordinary movie was the really intensely detailed Wikipedia entry, in which the section summarizing the movie’s plot is longer than the same section for The Godfather‘s Wikipedia page. Then there are the polarized Netflix reviews. Naturally, we needed to see this for ourselves. (Please watch the trailer here to really get a “feel” for the movie before proceeding.)Oh yes, this movie starts out on Cypress Street! That can only mean one thing – it’s about a hooker with a heart of gold and a dark past, Oliver:First, though, we meet the other protagonist, a cop…

Wait, no, FIRST, we are introduced to the heavy glass block motif that runs throughout the entire film.

Then we meet the cop, Phillip – undercover vice cop, that is.

He’s got a tough new assignment from his boss – to go undercover at the Blue Boy, “hustler bar, off of Ponce? Word has it they’re not just dealing boys, know what I mean?” This is a confusing assignment.

Here’s the outside of the Blue Boy:

“Is that…isn’t that…?” you ask.

Here’s the inside:

Those particular glass block windows are still visible from Ponce – the former MJQ space under the Ponce de Leon Hotel.

But now let’s look at MORE GLASS BLOCK!

..In the apartment of the heroin addict sister of the sweet little hustler.

…Outside the “Metro Police” HQ, which is clearly in the same building in which Oliver’s sister lives.

And let’s look at MORE BOYS OF THE BLUE BOY!

If you watch this movie – and you will – the boys are the best part. Oh, and also the lesbians that keep getting kicked out for being girls:

The second best part is how ’90s everything is. 79% of Atlanta and 86% of Atlanta’s gay community is still decorating like this:

“What? The ’90s were a great time! Ever heard of THE OLYMPICS??? Ever heard of Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid???” you’re saying.

The music is also really good! There are just three songs but they are played CONSTANTLY throughout the film. There is even a casual plug for one of the artists on the soundtrack!

How ’90s are those song titles? “Kamera (A Photographic Memoir)”?

Based on the really heartfelt plot synopses of In the Flesh that we’ve read, we are supposed to know that Oliver is a college student because he is always carrying a backpack around Charles Allen Drive and Piedmont Park.

Beyond the Goat Farm, MJQ, a brief but really intense scene at Coronet Club, and some Midtown shots, there’s not much more to say about In the Flesh except that everyone should see it. It’s just a simple love story of two dudes, one a prostitute and one a cop, just trying to keep from being accused of murder  by corrupt police officers in a heroin ring so they can live in their cool masculine urban loft together and fix cars and benchpress for fun.

Previously: A brief filmography of Xernona Clayton

Scottdale also pioneered beefing it up.



You know you’ve driven by those antiques stores a few times and wondered if they were any good. Well, they’re not, not really. The most intriguing merchandise was a giant box of mix CDs someone made with titles written in Sharpie like “30 and Fading” and “Bad Teacher” and “Take it Slow.” But we just weren’t willing to pay real money to find out what they sounded like.

Oh, fine, we know you only looked this far to watch the Charlie Boy Gang’s BRAND-NEW “BEEF IT UP” MUSIC VIDEO!!!!

And here’s how regular people beef it up at Scottdale Day.

Previously: Pecanne Log’s Suburban Explorer (Pine Lake)

Previously: Another modest proposal

Atlanta, Indiana by Flickr user J. Stephen Conn

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.

Atlanta, Kansas: This tiny town has STOLEN OUR HEARTS. First of all, read this:

It’s a compact little town, four blocks in each direction. What makes Atlanta special is the way the town works together. The big round table in the Branding Iron Cafe, the heart of town, is a good example. This table, and the other furniture, was built by local volunteers when they were rebuilding the building that houses the cafe; over 5,000 hours of volunteer labor. The building itself is owned by a community economic development group that makes sure that Atlanta has the essentials, including a cafe. Other community projects are an outstanding volunteer fire department and a local first-response team for medical emergencies. Community efforts also keep the downtown buildings maintained and occupied. The old movie theater is still used as a community center. The 1921 City Hall has a tiny jail inside, but the building is mostly used now for preparing utility bills.

Right now you are like, “Tiny jail!!! TINY JAIL!!! SO CUTE!!!” But get this: Atlanta also has Willow Roc MINIATURE HORSE FARM!!! They accept Paypal and have a 30-day layaway plan!!!

Atlanta, Texas: A mini-cyclone hit downtown Atlanta in August of last year and the city is still repairing some stuff. Meanwhile, the First Baptist Church is raising money to build on a nice addition.

Atlanta, Texas Mayor Keith Crow

Atlanta, Indiana via www.atlantaindiana.com

Atlanta, Missouri via www.ci.atlanta.mo.us

Atlanta, Missouri: You can have fresh eggs delivered from the Dausman Hobby Farm for $1/dozen, and a pint of honey from the Creech Bee Farm for $7. A Main Street Burger with cheese is $3.25 and an Atlanta Burger with cheese is $3.75 at the Olde Atlanta Locker Restaurant, “where meats no longer hang around but our friends do.” Enjoy this photo essay – and do give Kelly a call the next time you are passing through Atlanta.

In the interest of Christmas cliches, we have compiled our annual naughty and nice list. Do you want the good news first or the bad news first?

Naughty
1. Kim Severson
2. Robbie Brown
3. Kim Severson and Robbie Brown on the same byline

Everyone’s still buzzing about Severson’s latest thing, “that pecan article” (come on, Hawkdogg hasn’t updated his MySpace page since March!), and we’re probably still rolling our eyes over Severson-Brown’s “black Hollywood” piece. (Good inventory of subtle offenses here.)

Oh, and let’s not forget Brown’s Waffle House crime story.

These are the issues that Atlanta and the South face. THESE ARE THE THINGS NEW YORK TIMES READERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TO CONTINUE SHAPING THEIR WORLDVIEW which apparently begins and ends with that one scene from Mame where Lucille Ball goes to Savannah to meet Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside’s family.

But these articles to which we’ve already alluded barely scratch the surface of what Severson and Brown are capable of! Sometimes they cover the ho-hum trend pieces for which The New York Times is famous, or they’ll hone in on one person in a human interest profile and won’t try to convince the readership that this one Bogart man or “Windy” (=Gone With the Wind fanatic) represents the whole of the South, all of it, every last person. But then there are the times they get carried away, lost in some grotesque scattershot caricature that they know readers from other geographic regions will read with glee.

Behold some of their most offensive clippings and anecdotes from the past year or so:

In some cities, residents have decided to celebrate Halloween on Saturday to preserve the purity of the Christian Sabbath, while others would rather not choose between Halloween and college football.

- “The Tricky Business of Halloween Sunday”, 10/28/10

What people in the South don’t know about cold is a lot. When it gets chilly like this — and mind you, 20 degrees is really cold here — morning news anchors remind viewers to wear warm coats, hats and gloves.

- “Uncommon Cold Strikes in Georgia”, 12/8/10

Here is a sign of how brutal the weather is — at least by Georgia standards: Before canceling the ball, Mr. Deal even called off the scheduled prayer service, as drastic a move in the South as canceling a football game.

- “South Snarled by Second Snowstorm in Weeks”, 1/10/11

While many new residents of Atlanta — transplants of more homogenous areas of the Deep South — would be much happier spending their free hours getting blazed and shooting snakes from a second-floor deck in an exurban apartment complex, the bars of Buckhead still offer a much-welcomed opportunity to snag a drunk Auburn graduate looking to settle down with someone, anyone, named Carter or Trevor.

- We just made that one up for kicks.

And the worst one yet:

In Atlanta, where a giant peach drops from a downtown building each New Year’s Eve, a driver can get lost among all the streets with variations on the name Peachtree.

- “Peach Rivalry Becomes War Between the Tastes”, 7/29/10
If someone could promise us we would never have to hear that platitude about too many Peachtrees again as long as we live we would gladly support the renaming of all streets in the City of Atlanta to honor living Central Atlanta Progress board members. GLADLY.

Nice
1. This is the place where, a year ago, we would have said Thomas Wheatley. But now we’re going to say Thomas Wheatley’s mom, because she casually shared with us that Thomas spent a portion of his formative years at the Cheshire Motor Inn – WE ARE NOT LYING ABOUT THIS. That information is our Christmas give to you, readers.

2. The person who sent us the last P-Hut holiday card we’ll ever receive again, a classic scene of three lesbians lovingly trimming a Christmas tree in 1991.

3. The bears in the window of Atlanta Period Furniture.

Previously: Just thankful that “hick” rhymes with “sticks”

Shortly after this song debuted, Bad Street was renamed “Atlanta’s Historic Livingston Mims Motorway” to shed itself of negative connotations with the notorious and sloppy wrestler vs. punk blood feud that plagued the thoroughfare for the majority of the ’80s.

If I had to pick a real-life Bad Street Atlanta G-A, maybe I would go with the very south end of Moreland Avenue, past Coco Loco de la Noche. There are just a lot of beige nearly-windowless “sports” bars that seem like weathered men go in there every night and come out with nosebleeds, either from brawls over whether to play trashy honky-tonk or thrash metal in the jukebox, or because of snorting too much hillbilly heroin.

Now a real road – Auburn Avenue.
“Auburn Avenue” by The Spirit of Atlanta (produced by the legendary Tommy Stewart, from the 1973 soundtrack to the never-made film The Burning of Atlanta)

This whoooooole album is sooooooooooo goooooooooooooood. I can only imagine what the movie for which it was recorded would be like. What was the plan for “Buttermilk Bottom“? I am dying to see the heavy nightlife scene for which that was likely intended. There’s also “Hunter Street” (now MLK Drive – thanks jolomo) which is clearly scored for a police chase scene. And if you like funk woodwind and brass riffs, you’ll love the instrumental “Down Underground“!

Here’s one last song with street undertones, while we’re on the subject of Tommy Stewart.
“Atlanta Get Down” by Tommy Stewart (from the 1976? self-titled album)

Do any of those streets or radio stations that get shout outs exist anymore? Simpson Road, no. WQXI was Dr. Don Rose’s station. Someone find out out about the rest.

Now do what the ladies say! GET DOWN!

Previously: Atlanta’s music scene

Woman in corn field, surrounded by harvest vegetable crops, holding a live turkey, Georgia, 1930s

Man holds an axe, looking down at turkeys in front of him, November 1940

Thanksgiving food donation display, 1970

Thanksgiving food donation cornucopia, 1970

Parade float with live turkey dressed as Miss America, named the Turkey Queen, Molena, Georgia, 1940s

Earliest known Thanksgiving proclamation issued in Georgia, November 1954

All photos from the GSU photographs special collections.

Previously: Hot trainny mess

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?”

“1992 Chattahoochee, by way of Buford Dam and the Atlanta Waterworks.”
Who controls the water? Has it always been this way? Who else controls our lives in this metropolitan region – without us even realizing it? That’s what this program is going to tell us.

These puppetmasters are the “alphabet agencies” that may or may not have any real power. But for the sake of this episode, let’s pretend like they do!
“In this program, we’ll look at how and why this alphabet soup of agencies came into being and what their roles have been in the often bitter controversies that Atlanta experience as it emerged from a city into a region.”

To get anywhere, we have to go back in time. In the 1940s, the city did everything – water, roads, trash. By the ’50s and ’60s, as the city expanded beyond its boundaries, the counties started stepping in and doing more. Eventually, the state started exerting some influence in the urban areas, building roads (DOT) and creating agencies that crossed municipal boundaries (ARC, MARTA).

Even further back, in the ’20s, the city hired its first planner and in 1924 hired John Beeler to create what would become just another holy grail to Atlanta transportation planning nerds, the Beeler Plan. Beeler invented the viaducts in an effort to raise car traffic above the railroads and relieve some congestion. “A by-product of that stroke of genius was Underground Atlanta.” The plan also had electric railway cars going as far as Marietta and Stone Mountain – “thus creating a framework for a regional city.”

The problem was the other cities! It always is!
Sidenote: One of the great injustices of post-modern Atlanta is that these “Welcome to Atlanta” and “Leaving Atlanta” signs on Ponce aren’t more iconic; they really should be replicated ad nauseum at craft booths at neighborhood festivals.

Opulent staircase number one: City Hall.
The Lochner Report comes out, ARC is invented, but Mayor Hartsfield resists and just tries to annex everything to the City of Atlanta.
“Meanwhile, on the outskirts of town…” [sinister organ music plays]
“Here in what was then the DeKalb County Courthouse sat Hartsfield’s wily nemesis, Commissioner Scott Candler.” He built up the state’s first urban county through the deeply unsexy work of water plants and sewage treatment. You know what you can’t do without water and sewers, though? GROW! And expanding and developing after WWII was all anyone in the south could think about. “He put the water pipes and the sewer pipes in and made it possible for us then to politically turn it from a cow county to a big thriving urban government with every power that a city has except one or two.”
Dr. White takes us into his secret chamber – his Emory University office.
Here’s some gossip: He’s currently retiring and slowly emptying his library, giving away some special books to special students! If anyone can snag a signed (by him) National Geographic (he has so many!) I’ll be forever grateful.

The whole reason he invites us into his office is to show off yet another plan for the city’s growth – the first regional comprehensive plan, Up Ahead. Booooooring?
Except that Mayor Hartsfield wanted the plan to plan, as plans are wont to do, for the expansion of black neighborhoods. “Up Ahead was damned as too liberal for recommending negro neighborhoods in all parts of the suburbs and too conservative for bowing to segregation. Up Ahead went up in smoke.“

Now the city is just 20% of the population of the 19-county region and it matters even less what the mayor wants…but enough of this policy administered by underpaid poor dressers, I want glitz and glamor! No, glamour! With a U! The History Twins sense this impatience and whisk me away to a romantic dinner at the Commerce Club, to a simpler time when “Atlanta ran things,” to “a place where even Dana White wears a tie.” Finally, we’re back to the luxury-oriented mood that the episode started with.

You guys, it is going to feel so good to have our lives back when The Making of Modern Atlanta is finally over. But for now, these are the cards we have been dealt and we have to get through this – together. We have to keep moving here and not focus on details like in the last episode. If you signed up for the email list (You: “What email list??!!” FIGURE IT OUT.) then we can talk about details later. Just know that this happened: Why not?
Then they go to the Georgian Club, just to prove that there was more than one exclusive institution for fancy white men who worked for Coca-Cola or banks to hang out and eat cottage cheese and boiled salmon.
The point in all of this is, “Today, there are many more players in the field and their spheres of influence are much smaller.” (IT’S LIKE THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT ATLANTA INTERNET!!!!)

Cruelly, the next shot after Dr. White makes his point about small spheres of influence is “unofficial mayor of Buckhead” Sam Massell sitting nearly alone at a board room table covered in ashtrays.

TMOMA then launches us into a montage of people pointing to maps and models of the city because THAT IS THEIR JOB.

CAP (Central Atlanta Progress):

APC (Atlanta Preservation Center):
(Obviously these are the “artsy” bureaucrats – because that one guy looking at the map is wearing a black turtleneck.)

Another day, another marble staircase. (R.I.P. City Grill.)
Enough about these provincial losers at BC, CAP, and APC, let’s talk about the real map lookers of the region, ARC and DOT.“DOT’s plans for I-485, the Presidential Parkway, Georgia 400, and an outer perimeter have caused more strife than any other realm of public policy during the last quarter century of Atlanta history.”

“Just after World War II we had this what I think’s a wonderful innovation called the freeway, a highway that allowed travel without interruption. And the freeways, it seemed to me, then served as a formative element.”

“We continue, unlike almost any other city in America, to build expressways inside the city which will continue to have the same devastating effect. Georgia 400 is the latest example of pulling development out of the city to the suburbs.”

“I think 400 was a terrible precedent. The kind of quote ‘progress’ or ‘expansion’ that will gut a city’s heart for the automobile is an absolutely terrifying precedent.”

This was 1991? when the following things were discussed. Maybe 1992 at best:
“But we will become dramatically more balanced during this time in history than has been the case from ’74 up until today. We’ve got to spend more energies on rail.”

“We’re looking, as you know, at establishing commuter rail service into the city. We need to talk about inter-city rail service within the state. Amtrak service should and can be expanded. We drastically and desperately need to find a way to get MARTA out of its two-county shell.”

“We must truly earn the title ‘Department of Transportation.’”

Okay, we know there’s perpetually this drama over roads in metro Atlanta, but the real life-or-death issue is water. Chattahoochee River, etc., etc. Dr. White pronounces “resources” (as in DNR) “reh-zources“. “Nobody at ARC carries a badge and a gun.” That’s why local governments have to enforce regional policies – and some local governments don’t want to play along. WHICH COUNTY COULD THIS BE?

To set the stage for this historic conflict between neighbors and an attempt at secession, there’s some weird Civil War re-enactment as a metaphor. This should also be your first clue. “A temporary truce is established. Soldiers return to camp…As Atlanta’s first architect of urban renewal noted, ‘War is hell.’”

We can’t even bear to go through some of the big picture ideas that a few people throw in at the end here. What was supposed to be a fun frolic through a quirky 20-year-old GPB series has become a reminder of every prominent failure of Atlanta to live up to much. Can the History Twins lighten things up a bit for us here, at the end, in our hour of need?

Dr. White: “If we Atlantans want a say in Atlanta’s future development, we’ll have to come to terms with the alphabet agencies.” “Will we find an ARC, a DNR, or a DOT in our soup?” We were seriously laughing for a full week after seeing this image:
“Or will we be forever in hot water?”

Dr. Crimmins’ thoughts always bring us a little closer to tears, but maybe he’ll get to sum up some heavy ideas in the next episode. Forgive us our apathy this episode – maybe when we’ve all had time to reflect on blessings for which we’re most thankful we’ll have a little more vigor to bring to the table.

Next: Part Seven – “Cultured Pearls in a Sea of Grits”

Previously: History Twins, will you mayor-y me?

“Mr. Mayor, Professors Crimmins and White are here to see you.”“Who?”“Tim Crimmins and Dana White – the professors doing the public television series on the making of modern Atlanta.”“Oh yes, the History Twins!”Mayor Jackson and his scheduler, Brenda Johnson, share some light banter and quote Bernard DeVoto and Thomas Carlyle to each other. Needless to say, she delays the History Twins’ visit with the mayor until the end of the show. The first rule of television is you can’t just start out an episode of anything with a Maynard Jackson interview. You have to build up to that.

The Twins stroll through City Hall and introduce what this particular program will cover: the five mayors who shaped modern Atlanta, starting with William Hartsfield. “For many, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind is the Atlanta book. But for some of us, Floyd Hunter’s Community Power Structure is not only a more important book, it’s also a better read.”Ya burnt, Scarlett O’Hara!The “Regional City” described in Hunter’s study was a thinly-veiled Atlanta, and its Mayor Peter Barner was really Mayor Hartsfield who served, more or less, from 1865 to 1962. I mean, you try and name one pre-Hartsfield mayor! Do it right now!

Charles Josey, journalist, explains Hartsfield’s three political rules.

1. Never call the press unless you have something for them to take a picture of.
2. Never let anyone be your enemy or your friend too long.
3. When you really wanted to make progress, the quieter you could be about it the faster you could move.

And with whom did Hartsfield most like slipping under the radar, slinking around behind the scenes? Robert Woodruff, king of Coca-Cola.“Hartsfield said once, openly, on the record, that he never made a single decision in politics in his entire career without first thinking how it would affect the Coca-Cola Company.”

The city tripled in size (square miles) under Hartsfield’s annexations and 1951 plan. There was so much stuff going on at this time – the Federal Highway Act, the Lochner Plan, the Federal Housing Act, etc. Interstate construction and urban revitalization were going positively gangbusters in the 1950s! I wonder which segment of Atlanta’s population will be most negatively impacted by this progress???

Hartsfield, political beast that he was, realized he couldn’t really leave anyone out of progress, especially in a city with a sizeable and well-organized middle-class black population. “He also knew that ballots didn’t have any color and he became a more thoughtful, reasonable man with which to deal.”
But Hartsfield’s major intentional contribution to his dear city was the airport – oh, the airport.

“If Floyd Hunter’s book Community Power Structure is the old testament of Atlanta politics, then this book is surely its new testament.” (Dr. White just went there!) If you have ever taken a class in certain disciplines then you already know what this sacred tome is, even without its dustcover.
“It’s Clarence Stone’s Regime Politics. It’s about how public bodies and private interests work together to govern the likes of you and me. It’s about one special time in the 1960s, and one special place – Buckhead.”

IT’S IVAN ALLEN, JR. TIME! IVAN ALLEN, JR. TIME! (1962-1970)
If you haven’t noticed, this episode basically assigns you a reading list. It’s almost winter; you’ll have time.
The Buckhead Boys! “We were white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Atlanta. Business-oriented, non-political, moderate, well-bred, well-educated, pragmatic, and dedicated to the betterment of Atlanta as much as a Boy Scout troop is dedicated to fresh milk and clean air.” (From Allen’s Mayor: Notes on the Sixties.)

“Mayor Allen’s monument to Atlanta was the building of the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, and the luring of a major league baseball franchise to the city.” We already know about that! When the sporty people were pleased, he got the Civic Center built. Look at these amazing wealthy artistic types so delighted to enter the Civic Center!!!

While Hartsfield accidentally stumbled into the beginning of some semblance of civil rights in the city, Mayor Allen really understood and embraced those rights as “a matter of decency and dignity.”

But, “The Duke of Buckhead chose not to succeed himself, and an era ended.”
“But a new one was not yet ready to begin. As the cracker Camelot crumbled, no once and future king stepped forward to claim the crown.”

Wow, I guess there were really low expectations for Sam Massell, Atlanta’s first Jewish mayor (1970-1974), who now holds a title much more powerful than Allen’s rinky-dink “Duke of Buckhead” – Mayor of Buckhead.

He built the Omni Coliseum, which was cooler than Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium because it was indoors and hosted not one but two teams.
But his real monument was MARTA.“Yes, I’m predicting that circumstances are such at this time in history that we will either end up with the best transportation system in the country, or with no transportation system at all.”

There were other, more complex pieces of Massell’s single term. His “think black, think white” speech, which is hard not to wince through. His campaign slogan, “Atlanta is too young to die,” when he ran for re-election against his vice mayor, Maynard Jackson.

Speaking of MONUMENTS, how about some commentary from “Manual” Maloof?
He says some stuff about how Massell’s “too young to die” message was misunderstood.

“The Father of MARTA didn’t survive long enough politically to become the first mayor to ride our rapid rail.”
“That distinction went to his successor – the big M.” (Maynard I and II, 1974-1982)

You guys, I know this is taking forever. We have two mayors left. Just stop reading this and dive into Regime Politics instead if you’re so bored.

“Youthful and energetic, Maynard Jackson was there for Atlanta – through thick and thin.” [Montage of Jackson's various weights/sizes; his ride on a MARTA bus; his fight with Muhammad Ali; Ali saying to reporters, "He's so big, he's like a balloon! If you hit him, he'll bust! I couldn't bust him."]
Atlanta’s strong mayor system had arrived.

Jackson’s monument: the airport’s international terminal. And the groups he worked hard to include in the city’s power structure – African-American small businesses, women – got a piece of that. Needless to say, the “downtown business community” – i.e. powerful white guys – were miffed.

Next up was Andrew Young (1982-1990); unlike the his modern predecessors, he took a step down accepting the post of mayor after a career as a fancy diplomat.

He drove the Democratic National Convention, the redone Underground Atlanta, a City Hall expansion, the Georgia Dome (now finished – in the last episode, if you remember, it was not), and the 1996 Olympics.

And while he didn’t need the “downtown business community” to get elected, he quickly made them his allies.

His enemies were a lot of the people who first voted him in – the neighborhoods, the anti-Presidential Parkway activists, black people, poor people. This wasn’t long after our beloved and insane Neighborhood Planning Unit program was first created, so the NPUs were especially baffled to have their power stripped so quickly.

Dear lord, even Dan Sweat says that Young was “a little too pro-business”! (P.S. While we’re assigning books, let me throw Imagineering Atlanta on the pile.)
“One time I said, ‘Why don’t you and I just have a fight?’ I said, ‘Like Maynard and I used to, and maybe that’ll just help you out.’” (Nice inkjet printer, Dan Sweat!)

“Action Jackson” comes back for his third term (1990-1994) but the History Twins don’t have a lot to say on Maynard III yet. It’s time to offer some concluding thoughts.

“Over the past 50 years, managing Atlanta has come to mean more than just running the city. Today, it means managing a sense of the region, a 19-county metropolitan region.”
Perfect segue for their next episode.

Oh, and if you thought the stars of the Wits’ End Players all passed away between 1991 and 1993, you’re wrong – they sing “What a Friend We Have in Maynard” through the closing credits.

Friends, we have realized we cannot fully capture the magic – and especially the sweeping cinematography, the precise choreography, and stirring theme music – of The Making of Modern Atlanta on this very limited blog. If you are interested in whatever the future may hold in regards to TMOMA (whatever that means), please include your email address here so we have it on file for said future.

Next: Part Six – “The Alphabet City”

Previously: The episode with the inevitable Field of Dreams allusions