Category: Sections

By Maria Saporta

Too many Peachtrees?

So thinks my friend George Vecsey, the famed sports writer and columnist who took a buyout from the New York Times in December.

Vecsey, who now has his own website — www.georgevecesy.com, was in Atlanta over the weekend visiting family when he “squandered an hour or two of my life trying to solve the maze of streets named Peachtree in the northern Atlanta suburbs.”

For Vecesey, he can’t understand why there are more than 70 streets in metro Atlanta with Peachtree in their name. He makes a valid case in his “How Baseball Could Solve a Terrible Problem” post.

“This suggests a staggering failure of imagination, if all the planners of the New South cannot do better than slap the name Peachtree on bisecting boulevards,” Vecsey said.

By Maria Saporta

A visibly-relieved Mayor Kasim Reed savored the moment. Yes, the new Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal will open Wednesday, May 16.

The city was able to announce an opening date just one day after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Wright on Monday denied a request from losing airport concession bidders asking to block the city from finalizing concession deals and stop all work to build out retail and eating establishments on the new international terminal and the rest of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

“It feels good,” the mayor said after Tuesday morning’s media briefing in the new terminal still under construction. “I’m really happy. I feel good today.

By Maria Saporta

A special appeal is being launched to get metro Atlanta’s transit advocates to vote on July 31 when a one percent regional transportation sales tax referendum will be on the ballot.

The “Fast Track Forward Initiative” is being spearheaded by the Livable Communities Coalition thanks to a “generous” $100,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, according to Jim Stokes, interim executive director of the Coalition.

In many ways this is a continuation of a relationship that was formed nearly two years ago when the Rockefeller Foundation gave a $100,000 grant to fund the successful Fair Share for Transit initiative.

By Maria Saporta

Atlanta media pioneer and philanthropist Ted Turner has always had a soft place in his heart for chimpanzees, apes and mountain gorillas.

On Wednesday night, Turner put money where his heart is. He announced a $1 million donation to the Atlanta-based Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International to help save endangered gorillas in eastern Congo.

“Our wonderful friend Ted Turner has stepped up to the plate, and he has given the Dian Fossey Fund the largest gift we have ever received, “ said Clare Richardson, president and CEO of the Fossey Fund, at a press conference at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. “Ted you are a hero.”

By Maria Saporta

For Monica Kaufman Pearson, United Way is personal.

Pearson, long-time anchor for WSB-TV, was the keynote speaker Tuesday at United Way of Metro Atlanta’s Tocqueville Society at the Vinings Club.

Her relationship with United Way dates back long before 1988 when she became the first African-American and the second woman to chair Atlanta’s United Way board.

By Maria Saporta

While the Atlanta preservation community is objecting to plans to demolish the historic home of the Atlanta Daily World, the parties behind the application released a lengthy statement Monday evening to present their point of view.

It is a joint statement from Alexis Scott, publisher of Atlanta Daily World and the building’s owner; and Valerie Edwards, an executive with the Integral Group, which wants to redevelop the property.

By Maria Saporta

At the First Monday breakfast of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, Georgia’s top economic development official made a passionate plea for the penny sales tax for regional transportation.

Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, said passage of the tax would be key to the state’s ability to attract new companies and jobs over the next decade.

Twelve regions in the state will be voting on July 31 whether to approve the sales tax, which then would build a host of transportation projects in their individual areas.

By Maria Saporta

Tax reform is still top of mind for Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.

Ralston was the breakfast speaker of the Commerce Society Thursday morning, when he provided an overview of what was in the works during this year’s legislative session.

In 2010, Ralston helped establish a Tax Reform council of business leaders and economists to look at how Georgia “could become the most competitive state in the nation in terms of jobs.”

The council went around the state to get public input before putting forth a set of recommendations that were presented to the state legislature for the 2011 session.

By Maria Saporta

A passionate campaign is underway to save the historic Atlanta Daily World building on Auburn Avenue.

The Integral Group has applied for a demolition permit of the Atlanta Daily World building, and the application will be heard at the Atlanta Urban Design Commission meeting on March 28.

Already, the news of the possible demolition has awakened historic preservationists and community activists who are deeply concerned about another legacy building potentially disappearing from Sweet Auburn District.

By Maria Saporta

One of Atlanta’s grand dames — Veronica Biggins — was inducted Tuesday morning into the Atlanta Business League’s Women of Vision Hall of Fame.

The Women of Vision breakfast honored 100 African-American women from Atlanta, but it Biggins who received the top award for her decades of involvement in local business community.

Biggins described her career as having had three different chapters.