At 7 PM on June 10, dozens of people filled out Mayor’s Park–a small pocket of trees directly overlooking the Downtown Connector on Peachtree Street–to see the unveiling of a new neon light sculpture, “Where We Weave.”
The community event, hosted by the team behind The Stitch, featured free tacos, music and a raffle. More importantly, it served as a preview for how art and a public space could transform an area dominated by cars and asphalt highways.
The event was not just a neighborhood block party; it was a part of The Stitch’s plan to reconnect Midtown and Downtown Atlanta. The Stitch is an ambitious civic infrastructure investment initiative that aims to build a park atop the Downtown Connector, and the idea is anything but new.
“The Stitch has gone back, as far as I can tell, to before the [1996] Olympics when the city hosted the International Design Competition to redesign Peachtree Street,” said Jack Cebe, CEO of Stitch Inc. He added that “the winning entry included building a park over the interstate.”
While plans for The Stitch began to make headway in 2023 and 2024, the Trump administration recently cut $151 million from the project, pushing back the construction timeline.
Despite this setback, the lively atmosphere proved that momentum and community interest in the project have not stopped.
In a conversation with attendee Tyler Haber, a resident of the Atlanta area since early 2017, Haber noted that the completed park “would make it so much easier to move around Atlanta,” Haber said.
Cebe echoed Haber’s enthusiasm, emphasizing that the driving purpose behind the sculpture unveiling and the overall project is to bring people together. Specifically, he is excited about “creating opportunities for Atlantans and Downtown Atlantans to come together, to feel like they’re part of a community, to connect with their neighbors [because] that’s what parks and public space are all about.”
With future opportunities and more community events in the works, Cebe also encouraged people to subscribe to The Stitch’s quarterly newsletter as he returned to the crowded park.
As people from across Atlanta continued to fill out the neon green seats and eat free tacos, one thing loomed behind the scenes: the Downtown connector. However, despite the highway’s size and sound, the event, just like the construction plan, went on.
