The Atlanta Botanical Garden’s (ABG) plan to build a self-storage facility in Virginia-Highland has secured a key permit from the City. But silence since then leaves it unclear if the plan will include retail space pressed for by the community and Atlanta BeltLine advisors. On March 23, The Atlanta Department of City Planning approved a […]
Tag: Virginia-Highland
Posted inColumns, Maria's Metro
Proposed new storage facility at Atlanta BeltLine and Piedmont Park a blow to city’s urban design
You’ve got to be kidding. That is my initial reaction to the news that a new storage facility is being proposed along Monroe Drive – steps away from a major node of the Atlanta BeltLine, Piedmont Park and the Virginia-Highland community.
Posted inLatest News
Atlanta Botanical Garden moves to expand with $35M and a self-storage facility swap
A long-planned expansion of the Atlanta Botanical Garden is moving ahead with major donations and a $40 million land swap that would create a new self-storage facility in Virginia-Highland.
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
A Virginia-Highland preschool plan becomes a proxy for BeltLine and preservation debates
A Virginia-Highland preschool’s expansion plan has sparked one of those neighborhood battles that is about way more than just that site.
Posted inLatest News
Atlanta Botanical Garden buys BeltLine property in Virginia-Highland
The Atlanta Botanical Garden has purchased a vacant commercial building on the Atlanta BeltLine in Virginia-Highland for $13.5 million.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider
Let’s start talking highway removals in Atlanta
By: King Williams What started as an initial tweet on my Twitter timeline concerning freeway removals has led to a great online conversation on what to do concerning our highways. So hear me out before you say “we don’t have money for X, Y, and Z.” The city and state are willing to spend money […]
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Visioning plan for Atlanta’s first black suburb reveals anxiety about Falcons stadium, hope for BeltLine
A new visioning plan intends to guide the revitalization Atlanta’s first suburb developed for African Americans, a neighborhood where two thirds of residents who took a survey think the new Falcons stadium will have a negative impact on their community.
Posted inColumns, Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith
Crushed car windows beautify C Glass Jewelry
Corinne Adams’ artistic vision saw past the shattered window of her VW Touareg and admired the nuggets of safety glass scattered like diamonds on the ground. Today the Buckhead photographer and mixed media artist creates cuffs, earrings, belt buckles and more from the glass remnants of car crimes and misadventures. C Glass accessories convey a message of hope and redemption, and often are given to mark a loss or difficult life event, as a message that what is broken can become something beautiful.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
The Ray Barreras era ends in Atlanta
When Renaissance man Ray Barreras recently departed Atlanta, the city’s fabric lost a stabilizing force.
For 50 years here, he made the complex look easy, from teaching organic chemistry at the Atlanta University Center and Morehouse School of Medicine, to manning the WABE pledge drive for decades, to a gender-busting, prolific hobby of quilt making. That list only scratches the surface of his service, mostly behind the scenes and without pay, that helped Atlanta diversify.
Posted inColumns, Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith
In Steve Walton’s lights, holidays on the edge
Steve Walton’s Christmas display around his Virginia Highland bungalow features a manger and baby Jesus without mom and dad, a monstrous snowman’s head and the effigy of an elderly woman who apparently got run over by a reindeer.
There are no flashing holiday lights, dime store decorations or blow up Santas. His displays are funny and edgy, sometimes quite dark and suggestive of a sense of longing for an artist who has experienced considerable loss in his life.
He moved on with his life by turning discarded stuff into elaborate, seasonal lawn displays. After the death of his partner in 1989, “I started to see the yard as a palette, not a chore,” said Walton, 59, last week. “It was very therapeutic.”
Posted inDavid Pendered
Hip hop star Future keeps Atlanta’s music industry in national spotlight
Atlanta’s newest music ambassador is a hip hop artist from the Kirkwood neighborhood whose photo appeared this month on a section front of The New York Times.
At a time the region is receiving little in the way of good news coverage from media around the nation, the performer known as Future is keeping the city’s music industry in the national spotlight.
Future’s photo appeared this month in The New York Times with a 1,000-word story about Atlanta’s ever-changing hip hop scene. On March 2, Future will appear as a headline act in the 20th annual 9 Mile Music Festival, at Miami’s Virginia Key Beach – a beach where blacks could gather during the segregation era.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 2
Tom Murphy’s Moment led to a sustainable funding mechanism for local nonprofit, Open Hand
By Chris Schroder
Tom Murphy had been in the restaurant business for years serving nutritious and high quality meals at Murphy’s, his iconic Virginia-Highland restaurant, but it wasn’t until his mother passed away from ovarian cancer that he realized there was a segment of the market that wasn’t being served well.
He decided to fill that void and, in the process, created a sustainable funding mechanism that has earned millions of dollars for the Atlanta nonprofit Open Hand.
