Atlanta Stories

66 Peachtree Street : Herndon’s Crystal Palace

Atlanta Stories, ,

It’s hard to miss if you’re hungry.  

Number 66 Peachtree Street is surrounded by lunch bucket delights: Moe’s Southwest Grill; Blossom Tree Korean; BT Burgers; Strikeout Wings –– even a Mediterranean cafe and hookah joint. All facing Woodruff Park, the sometimes bedroom community of Atlanta’s ever-expanding downtown homeless population. Folks there likely don’t know that over a century ago it was home to the Crystal Palace Barber Shop. Of the three elegant salons owned and run by Atlanta’s first black millionaire, Alonzo Herndon, a former slave who epitomized the rags-to-riches possibilities that Gilded Age Atlanta held for a new class of black entrepreneurs, it was the most finely appointed. Today its interior is sadly empty, while externally, three story-structure differs little from Herndon’s day.1  

By design, the grandness and sheer scale of his shop was unparalleled in the Gateway City. Herndon already had significant experience in barbering2 and knew, that to be successful, not only did his shop need to fit in, it needed to stand out3 in a downtown commercial center that included some of Atlanta’s most prestigious buildings, including the Candler, Healy, and Equitable Buildings; the Piedmont Hotel, Grand Opera House, and Georgia Savings Bank; and, by 1931, Haverty’s Furniture, a movie theater complex as well as assorted restaurants, photo shops and other sundry businesses.4 The customer base was fittingly well-off, and perhaps grateful that Herndon had replaced 66 Peachtree Street’s previous funeral home occupants.5 By the time of his shop’s establishment in 1902, Herndon’s reputation for exceptional service had him on the radar of every top mover and shaker in the city, as well as with in-the-know travelers disembarking at Atlanta’s nearby railroad terminus. On any given day, his barbers might serve state supreme court judges, influential lawyers, wealthy planters, bankers, businessmen, ministers, and politicians from every part of the Atlanta white community.6 Prominent men like Methodist minister Arthur J. Moore; Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, and Mills B. Lane, president of the Citizens and South National Bank were regulars.7 

This was the golden age of color-line barbershops, establishments which served only white, upper-class customers. By 1913, following an inspired European-style remodeling, The former Herndon Barbershop –– survivor (but for a gruesomely murdered bootblack and two smashed windows) of the mayhem of the 1906 Massacre –– was newly rechristened the Crystal Palace. In scale and opulence it had no equal. The well-trained,8 all-black, all-male barbering team groomed from 8 am to 8pm on weekdays, and until Midnight on Saturdays.9 Customers would be ushered through massive sixteen foot tall mahogany and beveled plate-glass front doors (now gone) into a… 

“…long, elegant parlor lined with French beveled mirrors and lit by crystal chandeliers and wall lamps. Ceiled in white pressed-tin and floored in white ceramic tile, the room accommodated twenty-three (sic) custom barber chairs that were outfitted with porcelain, brass, and nickel, and upholstered in dark green Spanish leather. ‘Everything in my shop is the best procurable,’ Herndon boasted. It was a brilliant display. Even the boot-black stands were of nickel and marble.”10

There, they could get a haircut for 50 cents, a shave, shoeshine, or even their clothes pressed. They could bathe in one of the 20 baths and showers located on the lower level. Other services included those of a Chiropodist, Dr. Clifford W. Thomas, who specialized in “ingrown nails, corns, bunions, callouses and all arch problems…positively cured, or money refunded.”11 It was a huge enterprise in a huge structure that ultimately stretched a full city block westward from Peachtree to Broad Street.12  Based on Herndon’s 1902 account book, many of his customers visited his shops daily, most likely for shaves, but also for other services described above. White men enjoyed being served by blacks; it functioned as a reminder of the elite white privileges of the past,13  while black barbers saw opportunities to profit handsomely from the Lost Cause. Still, considerable Old South “trust” was needed: Trust by whites that the razor at their throat would stay dutifully true and nonlethal; and, almost as importantly, trust that any gossip or secrets (even racial conversations) they shared in that intimate environment would remain as invisible to the world as the men who shaved them. 

To be sure, grooming entitled ex-confederates and Jim Crow segregationists required exceptional tact and deference, which Herndon and his team readily offered. “I came to Atlanta with the determination to succeed,” Herndon noted, “and by careful conscientious work and tactful, polite conduct.”14  It was a prudent approach no doubt given the simmering resentments of working-class whites to the new black affluence, and more generally, the unrequited longing of many southern whites to return to the time before the “Lost Cause.”15  To shave whites in effect was to “groom whiteness –– how white men saw themselves in relation to blacks [and vice-versa]…in a way that reproduced antebellum images of racial superiority.” It was part of the fantasy many white patrons happily paid for.16 

For their part, barbers like Herndon understood the tradeoffs and benefits that color-line barbering entailed. Shaving whites was lucrative to be sure, but barbers like Herndon also hoped for the “potential favors and benefits they might extract from this patron-client relationship, favors and benefits many African Americans hoped barbers would deliver to their communities.”17 The Atlanta Independent observed: “He thinks he can do the race more good by creating jobs for them and furnishing them opportunities to help themselves than by discussing the race problem.”18 Even so, his own community would never experience any measure of his skills. White men would not be shaved with the same razor, clipped with the same shears, or sit in a chair that might have touched the face, head, or bottom of a black man.19 Many ludicrous rationales were offered for this –– colored men were harder to shave, for example, was a popular trope.20 Bluntly put, white men would never patronize a shop where black men were barbered. Even his black staff was forbidden to enter through the front doors. Herndon quietly challenged this taboo by installing identical mahogany doors on the Broad street side of the shop to uplift his barbers’ dignity when they arrived for work in the morning.

Another tradeoff was market-driven. The times demanded that even the original elegance of Herndon’s flagship 66 Peachtree Street barbershop would need upgrading. According to Douglas Bristol, author of the seminal Knights of the Razor : Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom, Herndon’s aspirations to such grandeur was more than a honeymoon inspiration; it was necessitated by the expectations of a changing marketplace: 

During the Gilded Age, growing affluence and the rise of mass consumption transformed the marketplace in which black barbers operated, raising the bar for attracting prosperous white customers. 32 Those who wished to remain competitive had to keep pace with the growing American appetite for luxury. The most prosperous black barbers rose to the challenge…21 

By 1928, a year or so after Herndon’s passing, color line barbering was decidedly on the decline in Atlanta and nationally. Shaving had been a key business driver, but King Gillette’s new safety razor put a huge dent in the need for a barber’s daily scrape. About the same time, the country’s institutional focus shifted toward skilled haircutting conducted under the most stringent sanitary conditions, a trend increasingly reflected in Herndon’s advertisements.22 Additionally, new, stiffer city ordinances restricting barbers hours and clientele were championed by the white barber’s union with City Council. But not all whites favored the idea. Following a strong backlash from white citizens, Herndon other barbers sued successfully in Georgia Supreme Court to overturn it.23 Apparently, the white community was concerned that such restrictions would mess with “the black servant workers, and southern tradition” where African-Americans “served the nation best by serving white people.”24 

Black businesses in Atlanta were forced out of the central business district as a result of the race riot of 1906, intensification of Jim Crow laws, and specific efforts by city council to restrict blacks from leasing downtown commercial space.25  City directories point to the urban shift of black barber shops from downtown business districts to black neighborhoods,26 like nearby Auburn Avenue. The following chart illustrates the change over time: 

Shown are number and locations of Atlanta Barbers between 1880 and 1930.

Despite the trend away from color-line barber shops, and despite building owners splitting the premise into two business spaces in 1941, at 66 Peachtree Street,27 the tradition of Herndon barbers exclusively cutting white hair persisted up until late 1965. Then, fourteen black demonstrators from Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference occupied all of the barber chairs and demanded service, but were denied.28 F.D. Cooper, who would be the shop’s final owner, finally relented after a four day standoff. The past had careened into the present and a new future, at least for the Herndon Barber Shop, was defined.  One of the first blacks to cut his hair there was then Georgia State Representative and civil rights activist Julian Bond. But the boom days were finished. On July 3, 1973, Herndon Barbers, Inc. shuttered their doors for good.  

At the time of closing, a Herndon Barber, Inc. haircut cost $2.25.29 Shave or shine, extra.  

NOTES

  1. “PEACHTREE TRACT FIGURES IN DEALS OF HALF-MILLION,” The Atlanta Constitution (1881-1945); May 28, 1922. https://www.proquest.com/hnpatlantaconstitution2/docview/498440555/2B1CD5C5B98343C8PQ/12accountid=11226&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers
    The dimensions of the space were 27.5 feet frontage on Peachtree Street, 26 feet on Broad Street with an average of 87 feet in length between. The length varied due to how the building was angled to fit the two converging streets. Some sources cite 90 feet. ↩︎
  2. After rejecting sharecropping and day labor as insufficient to his entrepreneurial fires,, Alonzo Herndon had twenty five years of barbering experience and was sole or joint proprietor in 9 barbershops by the time he opened what became his flagship shop at 66, Peachtree Street. ↩︎
  3. Henderson, Alexa Benson. Atlanta Life Insurance Company: Guardian of Black Economic Dignity (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990)As an entrepreneur, he understood the importance of vision and setting his establishment apart from the rest. 8(p.48) ↩︎
  4. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Atlanta, Fulton County, GA. 1931 — 1932, Vol. 1931, Sheet 8. https://digitalsanbornmaps-proquest-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/browse_maps/
    11/1377/6155/6523/97851?accountid=11226 ↩︎
  5. Listing, “Miller and Bowden, Undertaker,” Atlanta City Directory, Atlanta: 1902 
    https://archive.org/details/atlantacitydirec1902mutu/page/324/mode/2up
    Listing, “Herndon, A.F. (C) barber, 66, Peachtree…” Atlanta City Directory, Atlanta: 1907
    https://archive.org/details/atlantacitydirec1907foot/page/834/mode/2up  ↩︎
  6. Bristol, Douglas W. Jr., Knights of the Razor : Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, https:// ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docID=3318538.Bristol, p.138) ↩︎
  7. “Herndon Barber Shop Shuts Down,” Waycross Journal Herald, (1875––) Aug. 24, 1971. https://books.google.com/books id=khNaAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA5&dq=%22Alonzo+Herndon%22&article_id=3034,5086912&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixz8T6hWMAxW2SjABHenUL7Y4HhC7BXoECAQQBw#v=onepage&q=%22Alonzo%20Herndon%22&f=false ↩︎
  8. Hornsby, Alton and Hornsby, Alton Jr. African Americans in the Post-Emancipation South : The Outsiders’ View, University Press of America, Incorporated, 2010. ProQuest EbookCentral, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docID=794113.
    It wasn’t just that barbers made good money at Herndon’s shops, though a full-fledged barber could earn $15 a week from their chair, and up to ___% of tickets totalin $35. In early 20th century Atlanta, it was a decent wage, especially for a black man. Herndon often took in men whom he trained in barbering skills and tradecraft so that they too might become entrepreneurs. They repaid him with fierce loyalty.  ↩︎
  9. T.B.D.—Shop hours ↩︎
  10. (Evangeline Holland) ↩︎
  11. “Display Ad 5 — no Title.” The Atlanta Constitution (1881-1945), Sep 11, 1919. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/display-ad-5-no-title/docview/497392429/se-2. ↩︎
  12. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Atlanta, Fulton County, GA. 1931 — 1932, Vol. 1931, Sheet 8.  ↩︎
  13. Mills, Quincy T. Cutting along the Color Line : Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docID=3442271. MILLS, 68 ↩︎
  14. Merritt, Carole. “The Herndons: Style and Substance of the Black Upper Class in Atlanta, 1880–1930,“ Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South, Vol. 37, No. 3(Atlanta: Fall, 1993)https://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/digital/collection/AHBull/id/ 18211/rec/7 ↩︎
  15. Godshalk, David Fort. Veiled Visions : The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations, The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. ProQuest EbookCentral, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docID=42713Godshalk, 30—31 ↩︎
  16. Mills, 62, 70. ↩︎
  17. Mills, 71-72. ↩︎
  18. Atlanta Independent, February 26, 1925, quoted in Henderson, Atlanta Life Insurance Company. Over his career Herndon employed 75 barbers and approximately 1,000 others across his Insurance, real estate and charitable activities. ↩︎
  19. Mills, 62. ↩︎
  20. Mills, 83-84. ↩︎
  21. Bristol, 138. ↩︎
  22. “Display Ad 13 — no Title.” The Atlanta Constitution (1881-1945), Feb 10, 1918. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/display-ad-13-no-title/docview/497217715/se-2. 
    In an advertisement dated February 10, 1918, entitled IMPORTANT NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC: “Herndon’s Barber Shops have been doing for years all the sanitary things now being required by the government of many Atlanta shops. Every barber changes his white linen suit daily. Every barber sterilizes his hands as often as necessary. Every towel, razor, comb, brush, and shaving brush is sterilized before and after using. Compounds calculated to kill any possible germ are used in washing the floors…Porter are required to clean all brass and mirrors twice daily.”  ↩︎
  23. “Negro Barber Shops Are Closed,” Atlanta Journal, September 25, 1906.   ??????? ↩︎
  24. Mills, pp.135, 140. ↩︎
  25. Mills, 151. ↩︎
  26. Mills, 8. ↩︎
  27. “Shoe Concern Gets Lease on Peachtree,” The Atlanta Constitution (1881-1945), Dec 21, 1941. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/neuhoff-buys-big-tract-s-georgia/docview/503905228/se-2. ↩︎
  28. Britton, John H. “GA. NEGRO BARBERS FINALLY AGREE TO CLIP NEGROES; HAIR,” December 16, 1965. Pp. 16–18. https://books.google.com/books id=YLkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA16&dq=herndon+barber+shops&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxjfCTiWMAxUzRTABHQzrEYoQuwV6BAgEEAc#v=onepage&q=herndon%20barber%20shops&f=false ↩︎
  29. “Herndon Barber Shop Shuts Down,” Waycross Journal Herald, Aug. 24, 1971. ↩︎

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Bristol, Douglas W. Jr. “From Outposts to Enclaves: A Social History of Black Barbers, 1750–1915.” Order No. 3078215, University of Maryland, College Park, 2002. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/outposts-enclaves-social-history-black-barbers/docview/305525715/se-2.
Harris-Lacewell, Melissa Victoria. Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought. Princeton University Press, 2004. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ j.ctt7s44h.

Milewski, Melissa L. Litigating Across the Color Line, 182—183. Oxford University Press, New York, 2018. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Litigating_Across_the_Color_Line/HJc4DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=herndon+barber+shops&pg=PA183&printsec=frontcover
Ogbar, Jeffrey O. G.. America’s Black Capital : How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy, (New York: Basic Books, 2023)

Prieto, Leon C. and Phipps, Simone T. A.. The Servant History of John Merrick and Alonzo Herndon, African American Management History: Insights on Gaining a Cooperative Advantage, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docID=5833988.

Ogbar, Jeffrey O. G.. America’s Black Capital : How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy, (New York: Basic Books, 2023)

Prieto, Leon C. and Phipps, Simone T. A.. The Servant History of John Merrick and Alonzo Herndon, African American Management History: Insights on Gaining a Cooperative Advantage, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docID=5833988.

Hurt Park

Atlanta Stories
postcard of Hurt Park from 1941
Postcard view of Hurt Park, ca. 1941. (from Robert M. Craig, Atlanta Architecture, Art Deco to Modern Classic, 1929-1959)

Hurt Park is a two-acre park located at 25 Courtland St SE. Opening in 1940, the park transformed “an area of rambling, obsolete and run-down structures into a rolling stretch of green lawns.”1 Named after Joel Hurt, one of the most influential people in the city’s early history, the park is now co-owned by the City of Atlanta and Georgia State University after a recent renewal. But what was the history behind the land and the man it was named after?

Continue reading →

Georgia State Convocation Center

Atlanta Stories
GSU shuttles line up outside Convocation Center to pick up students.
GSU shuttles picking students up from the Convocation Center1

In 2020 contractor Brassfield & Gorrie broke ground to build Georgia State University’s Convocation Center.2 This premier facility has already been incorporated into GSU’s operations, hosting athletics and graduation ceremonies, among many other events. Occupying an entire block across from GSU’s Blue Lot, its presence looms large in Summerhill. The center has yet to see a class from freshman convocation through commencement, and this newness raises a question: how did GSU acquire the land, and what was there before?

Continue reading →

Techwood Homes

Atlanta Stories
Tanyard Creek
Image of Tanyard Bottom

In 1936, Techwood Homes became the first-ever public housing project in the Nation. It was located northwest of Downtown, between the Coca-Cola headquarters and Georgia Tech’s campus. Its construction replaced a de facto integrated low-income neighborhood known as Tanyard Bottom. At the time of its opening, Techwood Homes was established as a “whites only” complex. It would remain this way until white flight infringed on the city after integration was brought on by the civil rights movement. Over the years, federal funding was not properly allocated toward housing projects such as Techwood. As a result, the neighborhood became a blight to the city with failed revitalizations, high crime, and high poverty rates. In 1990, it was announced that the Summer Olympics would be hosted in Atlanta, and thus began the revitalization of poor neighborhoods such as Techwood Homes. Sixty years after its creation, Techwood Homes would be demolished and replaced by a mixed-income housing project called Centennial Place which still stands today. The initial development and then redevelopment of Techwood Homes are both terribly similar as both times business and political leaders sought to replace a blighted neighborhood and, in the process, ended up disproportionately harming some of the city’s most vulnerable communities.

Continue reading →

Oakland Cemetery Origins

Atlanta Stories

Oakland Cemetery Entrance. Photo by John Chapman (4 April, 2016)

Oakland Cemetery Entrance. Photo by John Chapman (4 April, 2016)

Oakland Cemetery serves as one of the key landmarks of antebellum Atlanta, Georgia. Oakland Cemetery sits in stark contrast to the rest of the city with its towering trees, rather than towering building, and its old brick roads rather than hot black asphalt. Oakland Cemetery serves as a monument to Georgia’s past while simultaneously growing and morphing with the present. It is general knowledge that some of the city’s most influential characters, such as Margaret Mitchell and Bobby Jones, lay at rest within its walls and it is the oldest cemetery in Atlanta. However, who in the city knows about the erection of the eastern wall or the problems that had to be handled in Oakland’s early years? A great deal of Oakland’s history remains a mystery to the people of Atlanta and throughout this analysis I will shed light on its origin story. Continue reading →

The Professional Career of Bobby Jones, Jr.

Atlanta Stories

Despite his relatively brief career, Bobby Jones is universally recognized of one of the greatest golfers of all time. His name, in the minds of the sporting world, does not sound out of place spoken among the names of far more contemporary players such as Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods or even those whose fame and feats are even more recent than they. The same can be said for few other athletes of his time- Jones retired from golf at the age of 28 in 1930. By that time, he had won 13 major championships. In the year of his retirement, he won all four, making him the only golfer in history to win the impregnable Grand Slam. The very next year, however, he would not compete in one tournament. Wrote the great sportswriter and best friend of Jones, “the greatest competitive athlete of history closed the book, the bright lexicon of championships, with every honor in the world to grace its final chapter.”[1] And yet, Jones never made one penny from playing golf. He was always keen to remind fans that “some things were more important than winning.”[2] This decision spawned from an intense modesty for which he is famed. On several occasions, Jones called penalties on himself in major championships- penalties that would not otherwise been assessed; one of these that cost him a victory.[3] And yet his scrupulous honesty, stringent self-governance and vivacious energy to achieve were not just limited to golf.

Continue reading →

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium: Mayor Allen’s Impact on Atlanta

Atlanta Stories

Growing up thirty minutes outside of Atlanta has its perks. For me, the best thing about it was going to Braves games. By the age of 10, I considered myself a dedicated Atlanta Braves fan. I’d stay up late fantasizing about inviting Braves players to my birthday party or playing for the team in the big leagues. The main reason I live in Atlanta today is because those games made me fall in love with the city. Atlanta has so much life and energy so I’ve always been intrigued by its history. While Turner Field became the permanent home of the Braves following the 1996 Olympics, I never got the chance to witness a game in the Braves’ former ballpark, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Yet, the remnants of the coliseum still stand tall and firm, casting a long shadow over the infamous Turner Field ‘blue lot’ reserved for commuting fans. My passion for the Braves and curiosity of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium inspired me to identify the party responsible for bringing my favorite team to the city; that search led me to a familiar name, Ivan Allen, Jr. An individual whose impact on Atlanta stands tall and firm much like the memorial wall wrapping around the blue lot today.

Continue reading →

John Wesley Dobbs Plaza

Atlanta Stories

Photo shot by author

Photo shot by author

Talking a walk down Auburn Avenue is an experience that many Atlanta residents and tourists have enjoyed. When walking down Auburn, it is easy to be taken aback by how beautiful the birth home of Dr. King is. It is easy for residents and tourist to stop and admire the burial site of Dr. King and his wife Coretta Scott King. Tourists and residents are blown away when they view the massive mural of civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis. With all of these civil rights giants in one small street it is easy to understand why the John Wesley Dobbs Plaza on the corner of Auburn and Fort Street does not get much attention. Hundreds of people drive or walk pass the plaza on a daily basis and yet one does not find many people stepping inside the plaza and admiring the statue of John Wesley Dobbs. The plaza is overshadowed by the presence of Dr. King’s historical site and John Lewis’ mural, which is an appropriate metaphor as to how the legacy of Mr. Dobbs has been largely forgotten by the mainstream public.

Continue reading →

Atlanta’s Carnegie Library

Atlanta Stories

The history of Atlanta’s Carnegie Library is the story of a building, the story of the people who used its services and the story of the systems that were built to maintain and take advantage of it. Unknown to most Atlantans is that the public library system, seen as an everyday, normal part of life in Atlanta, had its very beginnings in that building. The story of this old building is particularly difficult to grasp because it has been torn down and replaced with the new Atlanta-Fulton Public Library on the same piece of land. In this report, I found it important to embrace the human element by discussing the works of individuals to create the Carnegie Library system, such as Anne Wallace and Andrew Carnegie. But I also did not wish to ignore the social and economic factors that affected it, such as the racial politics of the Jim Crow South. The connections between an international system of Carnegie libraries and the specific Atlanta branches helped to bring historical context and answer questions of continuity and perception.

 

Continue reading →

George Muse’s Clothing Company

Atlanta Stories

Hello! I’m Diana, student at Georgia State University located at the heart of Downtown Atlanta. As a student, I have embraced this great city and its history. One of my favorite buildings in Atlanta is the Muse Building. This structure was once the site of one of the largest retailers in the city, and perhaps, the Southeast. I have had fun researching and learning about this Muse’s and I hope that fellow residents, newcomers, and students enjoy reading.

Continue reading →

The Secret Mysteries of Kell Hall

Atlanta Stories

Myke Johns, "Georgia History:100 Years of Georgia State University." Atlanta's NPR Station, Nov. 22, 2013.

Myke Johns, “Georgia History:100 Years of Georgia State University.” Atlanta’s NPR Station, Nov. 22, 2013.

UPDATE: KELL HALL WAS DEMOLISHED IN 2019-2020

If you attended Georgia State University, Kell Hall is forever ingrained in your memory. It was the old building where classrooms were frustratingly hidden away in bizarre half-level floors. There was an odd rampway that you climbed arduously to reach science labs on 4th, 5th, and 6th floors. You remember the gray and beige exterior that seems aesthetically questionable. What If I told you that these features were purposely designed by well-renowned engineers? What if Kell Hall was meant to be a beautiful and technological marvel? What if Kell Hall had a secret past in a different life? In search of these answers, let’s journey into the mysteries of the secret past of Kell Hall.

Continue reading →

Turner Field

Atlanta Stories

Growing up, I was a little boy who was in love with the sport of baseball.  Wherever I went, I had a ball and glove close by me.  If somebody had a question about who was leading the league in home runs, or who won the World Series in the most random year, there was a high chance I knew.  This love was sparked by a Major League Baseball team that resided just an hour south of where I grew up: the Atlanta Braves.  Continue reading →

Tringali’s Ristorante Italiano

Atlanta Stories

View of 94 Pryor St. in 2015. Photograph taken by Author.

View of 94 Pryor St. in 2015.
Photograph taken by Author.

This building, which is the result of a sequence of viaduct constructions that began in 1899, lies on top of what is currently known as “Underground Atlanta”.[1] A viaduct project commenced in response to the growing traffic problem. The automobile’s growing popularity clashed with the preexisting railroads. The rise in the automobile’s popularity contributed to significant increases in traffic congestion as well as accidents on the city’s roadways.

Continue reading →

Thomas E. Watson

Atlanta Stories

Across the street from the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta lays a small enclosure at the intersection of Washington and Mitchell Street called Talmadge plaza. When you stroll past Governor Herman Tallmadge’s statue there, a twelve-foot tall bronze figure can be seen overlooking the small square. The somber epithet “Honor’s Path He Trod” is chiseled beneath the figure’s feet. It’s the statue of the infamous Southern demagogue himself, Thomas E. Watson. Continue reading →

Dixie Coca-Cola Plant

Atlanta Stories

Buildings come and go as technology and the world around them change, and in Atlanta this trend is not any different. However, some buildings like the Dixie Coca-Cola Bottling Plant have withstood modernization for almost one hundred and twenty-five years. It’s not the building itself that is important; rather, it’s the history and usage of the building that makes it compelling.

Continue reading →