historic preservation Archives

Posts

Maria Saporta

Georgia Trust buys three parcels near Westside BeltLine

March 12, 2018, 10:12 am/1 Comment

It’s a new day for the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, which purchased three properties near the Atlanta BeltLine’s Westside trail in Washington Park and Mozley Park.

The Georgia Trust closed on the purchases Thursday – two houses and a vacant lot – with the intent of renovating the two homes and developing a new house on the vacant lot – all while keeping the properties affordable.

City of Atlanta moves to protect the Patterson-Spring Hill funeral home in Midtown

January 23, 2018, 10:58 pm/2 Comments

Update: The Urban Design Commission, at its Jan. 24 meeting, deferred action on this designation until its meeting on Feb. 14 at the request of the owner. The protections will remain in place during this period.

An Atlanta landmark built to serve the dead will soon get a new lease on life.

The City of Atlanta is seeking to give the H.M. Patterson Funeral Home on Spring Street near 10^th Street landmark status – a move that will protect the unique building from being demolished for new development.

Auburn Avenue’s long-awaited history, cultural project moving forward

September 4, 2017, 5:05 pm/0 Comments

A walk along Auburn Avenue can be described as inspirational, even spiritual. Soon the words educational and attractive may be added. A highlight of a pending beautification project is a huge mural and 10 big light boxes that are to tell the corridor’s history.

Around the King Home by Kelly Jordan

August 21, 2017, 11:19 am/0 Comments

Click each photo to enlarge

Around the King Home by Kelly Jordan

Guest Column

Demolition of Jordan Hall another sign of Atlanta’s dereliction of historic buildings

July 30, 2017, 6:09 pm/14 Comments

By Guest Columnist JAY SCOTT, a principal at Green Rock Partners, an Atlanta-based firm specializing in urban design, landscape architecture and planning

The Metro Atlanta YMCA is about to destroy a significant part of civil rights history in the African American Community, historic Jordan Hall. They are not doing it alone.

Their primary partners are the Woodruff Foundations and Invest Atlanta, who have given more than half of the $20 million necessary.

Photo Pick: Atlanta Civic Center by Chad Carlson

July 30, 2017, 1:12 pm/0 Comments

According to reports this week, the Civic Center could avoid demolition. The previous status was grim, but the city is back in talks about preserving this building. The following excerpt is from Maria’s column this week:

“Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is exploring “reactivating” the 18-acre Civic Center site and possibly putting it back on the market.

“We will have an announcement about the future of the Civic Center by the end of this month,” Reed told Atlanta Business Chronicle on July 19. A proposal by Houston developer Weingarten Realty to redevelop the site as a $298 million mixed-used project collapsed last October.

Reed said he is exploring several options including a public-private joint venture with the Atlanta Housing Authority to build a significant affordable workforce housing development on the site.”

Take a look at some of the photos Chad Carlson, reader & preservation activist, sent in this weekend. He says “buildings like these are best appreciated as a form of sculpture.”

What do you think?

Civic Center in Atlanta by Chad Carlson

Maria's Metro

Georgia Trust’s tour of Southwest Atlanta helps us appreciate the history in our town

June 12, 2017, 12:31 am/4 Comments

Frances Westbrook of Brookhaven was having lunch Saturday in Adair Park – a southwest Atlanta community that she did not know before signing up for the Georgia Trust’s Southwest Atlanta Expedition.

“I thought it would an excellent opportunity to see this area, which I had never been to before,” said Westbrook, who has also been on the Atlanta BeltLine tour. “It’s really a superb opportunity to get to know another part of Atlanta.”

More than 200 people visited the 20-plus sites on the Southwest Atlanta tour – which included houses, industrial buildings and some of the incredible academic institutions that have anchored the communities for more than 100 years.

Photo Pick: Southwest Atlanta by Chad Carlson

June 11, 2017, 1:24 pm/0 Comments

Chad Carlson shares highlights of some of the historic industrial buildings in southwest Atlanta from yesterday’s Georgia Trust tour. It was a fantastic tour, with over 200 registrants, which included a wide section of buildings, including residences and industrial buildings. – Maria wrote a preview here if you want more details about the tour.

Capitol View Masonic Lodge #640 F&AM at Dill and Metropolitan Credit: Chad Carlson

Complex B artist co-op on Murphy Ave.

At Tift Ave

David Pendered

Oakland Cemetery restores graves in African American Grounds; seeks volunteers on MLK day

January 13, 2017, 7:31 pm/0 Comments

Oakland Cemetery has restored the graves of two black women who accomplished the unthinkable at the turn of the 20th century. One was graduated from medical school and her sister served as a lawyer and professor at Morris Brown College.

Lithonia promotes rock solid revitalization

January 2, 2017, 3:40 pm/0 Comments

By Guest Columnist MELODY HARCLERODE, who promotes significant historical, cultural, and natural sites as an architect, non-profit consultant, and writer

The city of Atlanta receives much press as the financial, cultural, and transportation hub of the metropolitan area, yet small cities in this region also offer amazing stories for the public to appreciate. Consider the city of Lithonia, a town with approximately 2,000 residents covering a radius of one square mile of land north of I-20 and outside I-285.

A year after fire, questions plague future of Gaines Hall

September 5, 2016, 4:30 pm/19 Comments

Second column in a two part-series. Last week: Revival of Hancock County’s Courthouse in Sparta, Ga.

The story of two eerily similar buildings reveals a tale of two cities.

The Hancock County Courthouse in Sparta caught fire on Aug. 11, 2014. Atlanta’s Gaines Hall caught fire Aug. 20, 2015. Both designed by the same architect – William Parkins – before the turn of the 19th Century.

But the similarities end when we look at how both communities have responded since their respective fires.

Save Atlanta’s Olympic Cauldron, move it to Centennial Olympic Park

August 26, 2016, 10:50 pm/21 Comments

By Guest Columnist NICK STEPHENS, a writer and Atlanta native, interested in historic and environmental preservation

Over the last few weeks, as the 20th anniversary of Atlanta’s Olympic games came and went, much of the discussion of this city’s Olympic legacy naturally focused on the successful continuing use of so many of the games’ facilities, a rare feat for any city. But in an Aug. 8 interview on WXIA-TV, Olympic organizer and former Atlanta Mayor Andy Young admitted that one crucial component of the Olympic infrastructure was never as great as it could have been – and remains an under appreciated and mostly ignored relic.

Deadline nears on state historic preservation plan; archaeologists worry about roads

June 27, 2016, 6:01 pm/4 Comments

Georgia’s sometimes competing interests in balancing road construction with historic preservation are unfolding as a deadline looms for public comment on part of the state’s five-year historic preservation plan. Meanwhile, no members have been appointed to the Georgia House Study Committee on Historic Preservation.

Oakland Cemetery contains some 872 remains in African American section

June 10, 2016, 10:13 am/2 Comments

Some 872 probable human remains have been discovered in the African American section of Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery. Information about upcoming preservation efforts are to be provided Saturday during a Juneteenth program sponsored by the Historic Oakland Foundation.

Georgia’s road policies draw fire from Muscogee (Creek) Nation

April 21, 2016, 8:44 pm/1 Comment

A potentially messy battle over Georgia’s road projects could unfold if the Muscogee (Creek) Nation pushes hard over its concerns that artifacts of ancestors could be paved over by state road projects.

Photo Pick: Save Gaines Hall by Chad Carlson

August 24, 2015, 6:02 pm/1 Comment

Arthur Blank says he is committed to honoring the history around the stadium. This is tailor made (Photo by Chad Carlson)

From Chad (with a couple of edits):

“We the citizens of Atlanta bought this building earlier this year. Not to save it would be a tragedy. It is one of the oldest buildings in the city – (1869) on the campus of one of the first African American higher educational institutions – the Atlanta University Center (Spelman, Morehouse, Morris Brown, Clark Atlanta). This building significance is beyond its beauty. It was where W.E.B. DuBois gained fame as a professor at Atlanta University. His book, “The Souls of Black Folk,” was a clarion call for black consciousness around the world. He was as important for African American determination in the first half of the 20th century, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was to the second.”

Jamil's Georgia

Newnan’s Carnegie Library — the reclamation and return of a lost legacy; and a Southern Litfest featuring “bourbon on the porch”

June 1, 2015, 5:01 pm/0 Comments

This week guest contributor LAUREN JONES, Newnan Carnegie Library Foundation member, and a Georgia Humanities board member, tells the story of the Carnegie library in Newnan, from its creation to its decline and rebirth.

If a building could have a soul, the Newnan Carnegie Library might be a shining example. The library was built on dreams and determination through an unlikely alliance.

In a city never too busy to demolish, Peachtree Street’s iconic buildings on display at Ga. Tech

May 8, 2015, 7:39 pm/2 Comments

In a city that doesn’t hesitate to tear down old buildings, Georgia Tech is providing glimpses of the iconic structures that created Atlanta’s marquee Peachtree Street corridor.

Stories that move us and make us — a tale of freed slaves who started their own community, schools, and businesses

April 13, 2015, 5:11 pm/1 Comment

Georgia is one of the oldest states in the country and holds many seminal stories, historic episodes, and unusual occurrences that have influenced the course of American history. But there are countless stories of brave and determined Georgians who have changed the course of their family’s or their community’s history, if not that of the nation.

Photo Pick: Olympia Building Rehab By Wendy Darling

April 3, 2015, 9:23 am/1 Comment

Olympia Building Rehab by Wendy Darling

Wendy has been capturing photos showing progress on the rehab work underway at the Olympia Building, located right at Five Points in Downtown. By the end of 2015, this historic building will have a new use as a Walgreen’s.

Operation HOPE

CDC Foundation

Georgia State University

Dentons

Arts & Culture Seen

Metro Atlanta Chamber

Park Pride

Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta

St Vincent de Paul of Georgia

Atlanta Regional Commission

Southface

MARTA

Posts

Seen in Atlanta, Kelly Jordan

Maria’s Metro

David Pendered

Jamil’s Georgia

Eleanor Ringel Cater

Tom Baxter

Lyle Harris

Seen in Atlanta

Photo Picks

WABE

ATL Business Chronicle

Stories of Atlanta by Lance

Maynard Eaton

Moments by Chris Schroder

Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith

Saba Long