@atlurbanist / atlurbanist.tumblr.com
I can't say anything about John Portman's Hyatt Regency that hasn't been said before.
On the inside it's a dazzling sight, elevating the art of atrium design to the level of architectural triumph. On the outside it's a mirthless monument to beige, hostile to the public realm of our sidewalks.
I enjoy being here for a conference and hearing from people (even locals) who are seeing it for the first time.
"Hey Darin, what's that big old building on Peachtree Street that's been sitting empty for as long as I can remember?"
An excellent question, my friend! This is the Medical Arts Building. It opened in 1927 to house medical offices. The architect was G. Lloyd Preacher, who also designed Atlanta City Hall building and the Carnegie Building.
"How long has it been empty?"
Sadly, it appears to have sat unused for about 1/3 of its life. The last time it was occupied was when the bottom floor had a retail space about 20-30 years ago.
"Why is it empty?"
In the late 1980s the medical tenants moved out because the streets around the building were blocked by a project to widen the interstate.
"Can't it just be torn down?"
No it can't. The building's lovely brick facade was donated to the nonprofit Easements Atlanta, which offers it protection from demolition.
"What about that news article from several years ago? I thought it was being converted to a hotel or something?"
Nope. Didn't happen. Probably funding issues. The work of turning this into a hotel is very expensive.
"What now?"
We wait. Maybe pray. Perhaps the city could purchase it and partner with a developer to put affordable housing here? This would also be enormously expensive, but it's also hard to put a price on the value of having a dead space turn into housing.
"Can't we just wait for The Stitch to be built? Surely that amenity will prompt a developer to turn this a very expensive, luxury boutique hotel."
Prithee, vex me no longer with your chattering. I bid you good day, sir.
"But surely this is..."
I said GOOD DAY, sir!
Saying goodbye, slowly, to the suburban experiment
Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) was an interesting guy. Among many other things, we was a fan of cities and good urban planning. He also gave a warning voice against the rise of car-centric suburbia as it was happening in the 20th century. Here’s a quote from him, emphasis from me:
In the suburb one might live and die without marring the image of an innocent world, except when some shadow of evil fell over a column in the newspaper. Thus the suburb served as an asylum for the preservation of illusion. Here domesticity could prosper, oblivious of the pervasive regimentation beyond. This was not merely a child-centered environment; it was based on a childish view of the world, in which reality was sacrificed to the pleasure principle.
Perspective: car-centric sprawl is a construct of the 20th century, one that clashes with the way human settlements developed and thrived for millennia. It reconstructed our living spaces on a scale meant for cars, making our neighborhoods inhospitable to the kind of pedestrian connectivity that engenders healthy interactions with our environments and with each other.
Some day that sprawl will be fully retro-fitted as the kind of walkable, compact environment that puts people in face-to-face contact more so than what happens now via windshield perspectives; respecting both basic human needs and also the land-space needs of nature. This is happening now slowly, in our lifetimes, but the damage is significant and the repair will take many years.
Future generations will look back on the suburban experiment of the 20th century as the bizarre, unnatural thing that it was. Knowing that makes me feel a bit better about how slow the process is of undoing the physical and psychological detritus of the experiment.
EDIT: I have no idea where that great graphic above comes from! If anyone knows the source, please contact me so I can attribute.
The rebuild of this Nelson Street bridge between Castleberry Hill and South Downtown is one of my favorite transformations from recent years.
The previous one was demolished & a new one was constructed in its place. Seeing crowds head to events at the Mercedes Benz stadium, across this colorful path built just for pedestrians and cyclists, is a real joy. Bonus points for the old Norfolk Southern offices converted to residential.
I'm once again asking our developers and architects to please stop dehumanizing the public realm with these soul-sucking parking decks that hover above the sidewalk.
Instead of putting eyes on the street, this new building in Midtown Atlanta puts headlights on the street.
I'm not asking for everything to look exactly like Paris or Amsterdam. I'm asking for urban design that respects our public spaces. Act like it's a city.
And in case you're wondering, this is not simply an issue of parking mandates. Because of its proximity to MARTA rail stations, no parking is required on this property.
DRIFT THE MAP at South-View Cemetery this Sunday March 16, 1 pm - 4 pm
Join ThreadATL's Drift the Map & Museum of Design Atlanta this Sunday!
Meet inside the entrance gate of South-View Cemetery, 1990 Jonesboro Rd, S.E.
We'll explore Atlanta’s oldest and largest African-American cemetery, the final resting place of Atlanta legends like baseball home run king Hank Aaron and civil rights leaders including Rep. John Lewis, Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, and Julian Bond.
For the first time, Drift the Map will feature a ramble down the railroad tracks which are the defining feature of old Atlanta neighborhoods. We will also visit the little-known Atlanta Federal Penitentiary Cemetery, only accessible from the tracks.
After the walk, there will be an opportunity to eat at El Progreso 14, the much-loved taqueria destination in the back of a grocery store known by aficionados as “Prison Tacos” for its proximity to the penitentiary.
We are excited to be joined by three special guest experts: Winifred Watts Hemphill (President of South-View Cemetery, founded in 1886 by six men who were born enslaved, one of whom was her great-grandfather), Ann Hill Bond (historian, journalist, and chair of the Fulton County Remembrance Coalition), and Atlanta cemetery historian Cynthia Jennings.
March 13, 2025
Mayor Dickens announced to the MARTA board of directors today that he wants rail to be built on the Southside of the Beltline first, and that he is no longer supporting the Downtown streetcar's extension to the Eastside Beltline.
"We are committed to building rail on the Beltline, however, not in the form that has been previously discussed," said Courtney English, the mayor's chief adviser.
The AJC article is very short right now, and it will be updated as more info is available.
This effectively kills the extension of the existing streetcar to the Eastside Beltline. Though it also puts the entire rail component of the BL into further doubt.
On its face, it's difficult to view this as anything other than an election year tactic. Dickens appears to be throwing a bone to the Eastside NIMBYs who oppose Beltline rail, while making Southside residents feel like he cares about them by announcing them as a priority.
Meanwhile, it seems likely that he has no intention of actually advancing Beltline rail while he's in office. He understands that this change will upend the timeline for Beltline rail by many years, far after he's gone.
For those of us who've been following Beltline planning since the beginning, and who believed that early promise of rail, this Dickens administration has been particularly frustrating. Many believed he would be the transit mayor.
Tower Square is a 47-story office tower next to North Avenue MARTA Station in Midtown Atlanta. About a year ago I heard that the building was completely empty. Anyone know if it's gained tenants?
It's sad that we have so much unused space next to train stations, while we have new developments built nowhere near trains.
BTW, the tower was completed in 1980. Famously, the original plan was to demolish the Fox Theater to make way for the tower's parking deck; but locals rebelled with a Save the Fox campaign and the plan was changed.
From seven years ago, my wife & son headed out to work & school in the morning (we lived in a Downtown building, prior to our current O4W condo).
I've reached that weepy stage of remembering the little version of my kid now that he's prepping for college later this year. Whatever shortcomings we've had as parents, at least he grew up learning to navigate a city on foot & transit.
by Darin Givens, March 4, 2025
A pedestrian was killed here on Peachtree Street a couple of weeks ago when he tried to use the faded remains of a crosswalk built for the abandoned Peachtree Shared Street project in Downtown. This image is from a few years ago prior to the gutting of the program.
If that doesn't break your heart on multiple levels, here's some background on how maddeningly preventable this death was:
Mayor Dickens wrongly pulled the plug on this good Shared Street program three years ago this month after being pressured to do so by a moneyed Downtown property owner, named Richard Bowers, who wanted the lanes of car traffic to remain unchanged.
Pictured here (this is from late 2021) is the first phase of the program, with two vehicular lanes removed and a bold crosswalk in the street. Various traffic calming devices are out of view, and more pedestrian-friendly goodness was on the way in subsequent phases.
But all of it was removed at Dickens' command, though the crosswalk was left to dangerously fade away.
And as if Dickens' office didn't handle this situation badly enough...after the pedestrian death their only action was to finally erase the crosswalk. This was an infuriating response.
That crosswalk at Peachtree Center was born from its common use as a sort of "desire path" with people running across Peachtree at that spot for many years. Getting rid of a desire path instead of embracing it with safe infrastructure isn't going to end the desire itself.
The correct response would have been to establish a safe crossing for pedestrian here.
Thanks to Councilmembers Amir Farokhi, Jason Dozier, and Matt Westmoreland for doing the right thing this week and formally requesting that the mayor install a pedestrian crosswalk at 225 Peachtree St., NE "by no later than May 31, 2025."
That needs to happen. Actually, it needed to happen three years ago. We'd say "better late than never" but even that seems inappropriate in the wake of a preventable death.
