After Atlanta provided the Georgia Aquarium with $80 million in financing at favorable terms in 2009 to build a dolphin exhibit, the aquarium’s revenues soared by 23 percent, compared to the year before the exhibit opened. The return on the city’s latest financial support for the aquarium – up to $7.5 million – remains to be determined.
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Posted inColumns
Remembering Martin Luther King Jr., preserving his teachings and saving Atlanta’s history
Sometimes we take for granted Atlanta’s living history as the home of civil rights.
That was reinforced to me on the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 5 when the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation hosted a program featuring the documentary – King in the Wilderness – on the last three years of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.
Posted inLatest News
New leader for public board that oversees State Farm Arena, zoo, others
The Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority, the obscure agency which supervises public facilities including Zoo Atlanta and the arena formerly known as Philips Arena, is getting a new leader.
Posted inColumns
‘The Wife’ explores role of the woman behind the man
He is a world-famous novelist. His life is all about lectures, conferences and picking up prestigious awards.
She is his wife. Her life is all about…well…him.
But appearances can be deceiving, as we learn a bit too ham-handedly in ”The Wife,” based on Meg Wolitzer’s far more caustic, socially observant 2003 novel.
Posted inLatest News
Alabama gardener, possibly akin to Celestine Sibley, to speak at Atlanta History Center
An Alabama gardener who created a place as storied as that of the late journalist and author Celestine Sibley’s Sweet Apple homestead is slated to speak Wednesday at the Atlanta History Center. Louise Wrinkle is to discuss her new book and her philosophy of treading lightly on the land near Birmingham.
Posted inColumns
Three landmark events at Atlanta Stadium in the 1960s – Were you there?
By Guest Columnist BO HIERS, who has ‘semi-retired’ from a 35-year career in the reinsurance industry and now volunteers at the Atlanta History Center
It’s difficult to imagine Atlanta without a professional sports stadium, especially when you consider the Braves, Falcons, and Hawks are now proud owners of three of the newest and slickest stadiums and arenas anywhere. But that was the case in 1964. Cue Milwaukee Braves owner William Bartholomay and the National Football League (NFL). Attendance was sagging at County Stadium in Milwaukee, and the NFL was looking to expand its geographic footprint into Southern states. There were plenty of twists and turns along the way, but the Braves and Falcons were on the way.
Posted inLatest News
Norfolk Southern eyes moving HQ to downtown Atlanta’s Gulch
The Fortune 500 company looking to move its corporate headquarters to the Gulch in downtown Atlanta is Norfolk Southern Corp.
The railroad company ranked as No. 284 on the Fortune 500 list, currently is based in Norfolk, Va. It opened its current 21-story headquarters in Norfolk in 1988. The headquarters relocation could bring as many as 1,400 jobs to Atlanta.
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MARTA OKs Gwinnett deal, while DeKalb demands services
As MARTA and Gwinnett move toward a possible embrace, some in DeKalb are feeling jilted.
Posted inLatest News
Oakland Cemetery launches $1 million campaign to protect shrinking tree canopy
By David Pendered
Oakland Cemetery is launching a $1 million fundraising campaign to preserve a tree canopy that has suffered a loss of about 50 percent since 1982. This is the latest push in the cemetery’s ongoing effort to promote and protect trees in the city’s original garden cemetery.
Posted inLatest News
Atlanta to end jail contract with ICE
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Thursday signed an executive order that will end a deal that’s seen the city jail house hundreds and hundreds of detainees on immigration charges on behalf of the federal government.
Posted inLatest News
Renew Atlanta’s budget millions short for fire station works, auditors find
A city borrowing program that promised Atlanta voters $250 million in improvements to roads, sidewalks, bridges and city buildings is delivering, delays and budget-busting fire station repairs, according to a new report by city auditors.
Posted inLatest News
Business as usual for federal prosecutors, despite intense Atlanta corruption probe
Even as the federal corruption investigation continues at Atlanta City Hall, the U.S. prosecutor in Atlanta is locking up other crooks – including bank robbers, scam artists who preyed on the elderly and a former medical examiner who doled out opioids in exchange for sex and romance.
Posted inSonam Vashi
Task force lays out affordability proposal at housing forum
HouseATL presents its affordable housing proposal to the public—including creating or preserving 20,000 units over the next decade.
Posted inLatest News
Northwest express lanes to open Saturday in bid to boost mobility for commuters, truckers
Georgia’s major initiative to ease traffic congestion along I-75/I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties is to open this weekend. The Northwest Corridor Express Lanes are slated to open mid-day Saturday, Gov. Nathan Deal announced Tuesday.
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With online “checkbook” register, Atlanta aims to get ahead of public, media questions
With a new website that shows Atlanta’s spending down to the checkbook level, city leaders are hoping for many things, including to head off the many folks writing in to ask questions about city spending.
Posted inColumns
Atlanta’s ‘Riverwalk’ along the Chattahoochee gets major boost
A vision to create a Chattahoochee River trail within the City of Atlanta is one big step closer to reality.
Invest Atlanta, at its meeting on Aug. 29, voted to approve a pivotal land swap between the city and the development group of Chattahoochee Trails LLC and Kovach Development.
Posted inLatest News
Atlanta’s role in Labor Day, as U.S. Labor Department erases day’s violent origins
A strike in 1881 by black laundresses in Atlanta was a precursor of strikes across the nation that led to President Grover Cleveland declaring the national Labor Day holiday in 1894.
Posted inColumns
“Operation Finale’ – a true story of Adolf Eichmann’s capture to face trial in Israel
Forget that, um, stuff someone once said about there being “very good people on both sides.” In “Operation Finale,” there are some very good people on one side and some very, very bad people on the other.
Which, frankly, is as it should be since “Operation Finale” is the true story of how, in 1960, some Israeli secret agents tracked down one of Hitler’s top henchman, Adolf Eichmann, and brought him back to Israel for a public trial (the first globally televised trial in history, we’re told).
Posted inColumns
Reskilling benefits workers, companies bold enough to invest in them
By Guest Columnist PATTY WATSON, senior executive vice president and chief information officer at Georgia-based TSYS
Rapidly changing technology has been the undoing of many companies – especially over the last decade. Today, many business leaders feel that they are under constant threat from disruptors in their industry.
Posted inColumns
U.S. Mint honors ‘pristine’ Cumberland Island as feds consider allowing new houses, rockets overhead
Even as the U.S. Mint releases a new quarter to honor the “primitive, undeveloped character” of Cumberland Island, two other federal entities are considering proposals to shoot space rockets over Georgia’s coastal island and to develop houses there.
