The Edgewood/Candler Park station on MARTA’s train system serves as both a terminus station for the Green Line and a regular station for the Blue Station. Built in the 70’s (opened June 30, 1979) this particular station services the Edgewood and Candler neighborhoods, which are comprised of mostly working-class, blue collar workers. Interestingly enough, a quick but concise analysis of the station’s special rhetoric will show how it was built to serve this community in particular.

The layout of the building itself is simple enough. The station has two floors, the top being where people enter the station and the bottom being the boarding area where passengers get on/off the MARTA trains. On the outside of the MARTA station on either side are bus depots, surrounded by a sizable parking lot. Most of the incoming traffic of passengers is funneled through two tunnels that lead from the stairs to the second floor where you can access the MARTA train by either tapping your MARTA Breeze card at the gates or purchasing one at the card dispensers located only feet away from the gates and entrances. The basic idea the layout seems to emulate is practicality. The place was designed to allow everyone to get where the need to be and do what they need to do as fast and as hassle free as possible. Therefore, the station is fairly open in that the area around the gates is big enough to accommodate large crowds and the building itself is not closed off from the outside, so it’s less of a building, and more of an open structure. This leads to the presences of a very public and generic mood and tone. Along with the colors chosen to build for place (colors include a variety of white, pale, and mute colors with the occasional black), the materials used also work to add to the idea of simplicity the builders were going after. After all, the goal of MARTA is to create a practical transportation system that doesn’t discriminate and accommodates for all its passengers. Therefore, the platforms and materials are not too outlandish but instead are strong and sturdy looking and seem to deal with wear and tear pretty well. It would take more time and many more visits to the Edgewood MARTA station but overall the site seems to advertise exactly what its purpose is, and that is to serve the working class residents of the Edgewood and Candler Park neighborhoods.