This Olympic Legacy Needs to be Gone

I got this note:
"You are correct, the kiosks in the photos were installed in late 2009. The management, leasing and upkeep of the kiosks is handled by a contract that the City of Atlanta has with General Growth Properties a retail/mall management company. The program has had some challenges and is currently being debated by City Council about how to proceed."

Atlanta's 1996 Olympic kiosks are still here. As pretty as they are, I wish we could find them a nice home, somewhere else.

I don't spend much blog time complaining. I hope you'll excuse me this time.


Here we are at Peachtree Street and Ellis Street looking north. I walk past here 4 times a week. It's pretty, it's well kept, it's solid and sturdy. It's blocking the sidewalk and blocking my view.


Is it open? No, but you certainly can't tell from here. Is there someone on the other side waiting to mug or panhandle me? You can't tell from here.

Is it scaled for human comfort? I think it mocks puny humans.


Can I see all the wonderful Peachtree sidewalk life? No. Can I see the zen view all the way through SONO to Midtown? No. Can I see the parade coming, or going?

It's a bad experience for the operator: She can't see north, she can't see south, she can see east. She has a narrow field of view facing a wall. Potential customer whiz by; they don't even know your are open until they are right there.

It's a bad experience for the customer: You can't tell it's open. You don't comfortably approach a person from a distance. You go from not seeing the operator to seeing him for the first time from a few feet away.

It's a bad experience for the pedestrians.

I am not against street vendors or kiosks. This one is a few few blocks north.


No explanation needed.

Let's re-purpose the kiosks and and find them a nice home somewhere else.


Let's find a way to liberate Peachtree. And let's hold in those tummies while we're at it.

This Church Caused My Bloggers' Block

When I can get 3 or 4 coherent sentences together, I've got a blog post. There's no shortage of ideas, inspiration, motivation, it's the coherence, the focus that troubles me. I lost it "Sunday week."

I was rocking The Phoenix Flies for 2012, gathering enough pictures for a month of posts.


Things were going well. We'd finished 2/3's of the Downtown Progressive Organ Recital. I was surprised and delighted to find a John August Swanson exhibit at Central Presbyterian. Imagine that: un-ironic, contemporary religious art. Let's hope Earl Scruggs is enjoying this band right now.


Yes, things were going quite well. We were headed to a place I'd never been, Trinity Methodist (W. T. Downing 1911), the third capitol church. It's the one kitty-cornered towards the southwest from the Georgia's state capital building.


Old and new City Hall to the north, traffic court to the west, expressway gulch to the south, it's a serious sight. It doesn't seem very big in all that space.


We were about to hear Trinity's great theater organ, the refurbished 100 year old Austin.


We anticipated the organ and those giant stained glass windows.


This is where I lost it. Churches impress, Trinity was no exception. It's brick, minimal, with a greenish-yellow light. There was a smell of age. I don't think it was love at first sight.

This is where my brain has been stuck for 10 days, not in a bad way, not in a good way, just stuck.


This is the east window, it's big but my impression was slender, vertical, yellow/green, the motif - slender lampposts.


The north and south window elements are wider.


The symbolic elements are compact and elevated. I couldn't take them all in. Has anyone photographed them for the record?


The pipes blend with the brick rather than "pop" with a bright shiny finish. It's line and texture in monochrome, windows too. The old woodwork is what "pops." The pews are 1856, from the old church that burned. Sherman slept his troops on these pews.


Organist Bruce Wynn told is a bit about the church and organ.

You can see some of the brick and wood details.

The brick tricked me: my brain felt more outside than inside.


The view from the chancel. The choir loft is small, Bruce said it was intended for 2 quartets.


Theater organs are voiced differently than church organs, it was certainly different to my ears. We were happy to hear Bruce demonstrate.


We walked inside the wind box / air box / air chest. When Bruce turned on the air, the box went air tight and you couldn't open the door.

It is a 100 year-old example of handmade functional woodworking. It's not furniture but it is beautiful.


There is a bit of fresh wiring.


"Austin developed the Universal Air Chest System" "During the second world war the company contributed gliders to the war effort."

That wasn't all.


The pipe room extends behind the sanctuary into this room where Bruce can play from a second console.


This hexagonal, balconied room is a tiny Victorian chapel surrounded by a kitchen and Sunday school rooms. It took my be surprise.

I'll let it go there. I hope this cures my bloggers' block. I may have to return to the scene.

Thanks to the Atlanta Preservation Center and to the Atlanta Chapter — American Guild of Organists.

Pretty Good Week: Old Music, Bobby, Lions, Squirrels, Meadows, Parade, Now Painting, Demolition, Occupy Atlanta

After a Yeah Burger lunch with our old friend Jim Olson, JoAnn and I did some cruising to finish the week.

You have to look up to find the lions in bow ties at Trinity and Pryor. I don't think "bow tie" is the proper architectural term. Can you help me out on that?


We saw lions at The Westside Foundry too.


JoAnn loves the boulders in the Oakland Gate Meadow. The proposed "Capital Gateway Park" will run from here along Martin Luther King all the way to the capital. But we hope they don't tear down Daddy D'z BBQ in the process.


The meadow is right outside the gate.


The week started last Friday night with a eclectic Oktoberfest party at Melvin Gallery in the Virginia Cotton Docks. We met the awesome "Now Painter" Janssen Robinson who painted to the tune of our buds, the Muleskinner McQueen Trio. Little kids danced in person and cows danced on video. It was a fun for the whole family and a heck of a night in the Old 4th Ward.


I heard more old-time music on Saturday, I'm talking medieval French love songs from Asteria Musica at Agnes Scott College. I blogged it at "Asteria soundchecks Château de Germolles."


The new tenants moved into our rustic Morningside charmer.


We enjoyed some brick painting on Zimmer.


No week is complete for Architecture Tourists without some good old fashioned demolition. These are the remains of Building 6 at Emory's Briarcliff Campus. They tore down buildings 7 and 8 too. We could hear the crunching from our front porch. These will not be missed.


It was a particularly good Tuesday. Bloggers and many others celebrated at the Beacham & Company, Realtors® "Beacham Series” release party at a McAlpine-Tankersley house. Wahoo. I blogged it at "Bobby's Big, Big Door and More at the Beacham Party."


The recycling truck trashed our circle again. What are we going to do?


Gordon visited. This is one of his favorite houses in Atlanta. It's one of ours too. "It's ironic ... humble is always the most expensive thing you can do." - Bobby McAlpine


On Thrusday I visited Occupy Atlanta at Woodruff Park.


What do you know, the Georgia State Homecoming Parade came through. The band marched down right down Broad Street.

I love a parade.

Brickwork with Pinking Shears - Walking Edgewood with Dashboard Co-op and Terrence Jackson

"On October 8th (2011) at 6pm, EIGHT artists will fill FIVE vacant buildings along Edgewood Ave with work specific to each space. This exhibition will encompass a series of individual shows that are each challenging and poignant while simultaneously activating 5 vacant buildings along a street that needs a lifeline." - Dashboard Co-op's Ground Floor.

So the Architecture Tourist Art Patrol did a slow evening walk on Edgewood.

For most of my life here, Edgwood was an interesting area I just wanted to get through safely. It's on the way from downtown to Inman Park. now it's an emerging hip area retaining a bit of rough seediness.


The slow walk in the dark let us "see" a few things for the firs time, like this crinkle cut brickwork in light and shadow.


It's tighter than 90 degrees.


I'd guess this building is 80+ years old. The corner shows some wear and tear.


It's now home to U Space Gallery.


Here is Terrence E. Jackson @uspace, the U Space boss for 8 years.


This is one of Terrence's. I like it.


He's giving the ceiling a major "do" but he's not finished.


I may have more tales about Edgewood and Dashboard Co-op's Ground Floor. You should'a been there.

My Final Stop: North Avenue Presbyterian Church - APC Sacred Spaces Tour

North Avenue Presbyterian Church was my 5th and final stop for the Atlanta Preservation Center's first "Sacred Spaces" Tour on September 25.



My first visit was in the fall of 1968 when my fraternity's "God Squad" visited. My latest visit was for Kate's (friend of the family) wonderful wedding.


If there is a church on a busier noisier stretch of Peachtree Street, I don't know it. Imagine a line of Harley's cruising Peachtree. This is the North Avenue facade. Trucks need to "gun it" to make it up the hill.

There are interesting stories about the mix of styles. In fact, they planned to demolish the sanctuary in favor of the more elaborate style of the building behind it. The Depression intervened. The change of roof materials show the expansion to the sanctuary.

This is where Westminster School started. It's traditional that the pastor of NAPC serve on the Westminster board as Senior Pastor, D. Scott Weimer, does today. Many prominent Atlantans worshiped here.


The Peachtree facade is not overwhelming. This is the way most folks see it, when the light at North is red and you have a chance to look.


It's pretty common for folks to sleep beneath the arches. The Atlanta Task Force for The Homeless is down the street and this is a downtown church.

The first service in this building was on Thanksgiving Day, 1900. The granite is from Stone Mountain, owned for a time by the Venable family, church members then and now.

They don't claim the sanctuary as the most beautiful or the biggest. An expansion put the big transept windows and oculus a bit off. It not something you can't put your finger on.

You notice the windows.


The big north window.


The big south window.


The pre-expansion windows are from Tiffany.


The "newer" windows toward the chancel are from Willet.


This is a Willet.


Windows of a different era and style in the Narthex.






A modern window in a lobby.


Thanks to Carlisle Young (center) our tour guide from North Avenue PC for the tour and to Mickey Leso (right) volunteer from the Atlanta Preservation Center.