Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 18, 1990 TAG: 9003182536
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: George & Rosalie Leposky
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Long
In August, The World of Coca-Cola Pavilion will open three floors of displays devoted to America's best-selling carbonated beverage.
On Sept. 8, the 7,000-square-foot Heritage Row will begin luring visitors down a time line where exhibits depict Atlanta's history.
Underground Atlanta occupies the space beneath a viaduct built in the 1920s at the second-story level on Alabama, Central, Pryor and Wall streets to move traffic above multiple rail crossings. In that 12-acre area, merchants moved their shops up a floor and abandoned the ground floor to service and storage for almost half a century.
In 1969 the city opened Underground Atlanta as a shopping and entertainment district, but crime and construction of Atlanta's subway system chased people away. It closed in 1981.
The next year, then-Mayor Andrew Young launched an effort to redevelop Underground Atlanta. As retail leasing agent, the city hired The Rouse Co., manager of 76 "festival marketplace" shopping centers in the United States and Canada. The city also commissioned Cooper Carry/Turner, a joint venture of two Atlanta architectural firms, to oversee a $142 million renovation and expansion to more than 200,000 square feet, encompassing three city blocks and parts of three others.
Underground Atlanta reopened on June 15, 1989, with better lighting, a highly visible security staff, and convenient access from the Five Points station where Atlanta's north-south and east-west MARTA subway lines meet.
"In its first nine months of operation under Rouse management, over 3.5 million people have visited Underground Atlanta," said Blanche R. Blackwell, assistant marketing manager.
"Atlanta changed a city ordinance to allow street performers to entertain weekend visitors, and from April to October we schedule free outdoor concerts ranging from classical to country to jazz. The stage is on Upper Alabama Street, and the audience sits below in Peachtree Fountains Plaza."
First anniversary
Special events are planned to celebrate Underground Atlanta's first anniversary week in mid-June, Blackwell says. For a schedule, contact Underground Atlanta, 50 Upper Alabama St., Suite 007, Atlanta, Ga. 30303, phone 404-523-2311. The schedule also lists events for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and the citywide National Black Art Festival, a biennial event planned in 1990 for July 27-Aug. 5.
Entering Underground Atlanta, you step back in time to 19th-century architecture and cobblestone streets. Historical markers explain how the city evolved. Shops on Lower Alabama Street are in the original Underground; those on Upper Alabama Street are in new space developed by Rouse.
Underground Atlanta has 52 shops, including well-known national franchises and 15 local businesses, an assortment of pushcart vendors, 19 restaurants and nightclubs and a food court with 21 fast-food outlets.
A highlight is hobbyist Frank Lowrie's model train layout, with models of the Georgia State Capitol, Martin Luther King's boyhood home, the 25-story Fulton National Bank building, Rich's downtown department store, and Lowrie's own boyhood home. "It's taken me 15 years to re-create in model form the way downtown Atlanta looked from 1940 to 1960," he says. For a bit of whimsy, Lowrie also included models of the Bates Motel and house from the movie "Psycho" and Tara from "Gone With The Wind." The display, at 66 Lower Alabama St., is open noon-9 p.m. daily except noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Free, contributions accepted.
Antiquities Historical Galleries, Ltd., at 190 Lower Alabama St., sells framed presidential and celebrity photos and signatures, maps and "Gone With The Wind" collectibles. Ask a salesperson to show you a rare George Washington signature.
Habersham Vineyards and Winery of Baldwin, Ga., operates a tasting room on Lower Alabama Street's Packinghouse Row. For $1, you can taste three wines. If you buy a bottle, the tasting fee applies to the purchase.
For a moderately priced lunch or dinner, try the American cuisine at Buck's Underground. You can enter the two-level restaurant at 75 Upper Alabama St. or 75 Lower Alabama St. Menu items include traditional Southern regional favorites: chicken pot pie, Southern fried chicken fingers and fresh fruit cobbler. No reservations.
Dante's Down the Hatch, a fondue restaurant featuring jazz and folk music, was the last business to abandon Underground Atlanta in 1981 and the first to sign a lease with Rouse. Dante's reoccupied its former quarters in the basement of a building constructed in the early 1850s as the Planter's Hotel. It served as a hospital during the Civil War, and later became a candy factory. Open from 5 p.m., Dante's has a cover charge of $2 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. and $5 after 8 p.m. For reservations, call 404-577-1800.
Near the east entrance to Underground Atlanta on Central Avenue stand the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot built in 1869 (one of Atlanta's oldest surviving structures) and the new Georgia Railroad parking garage and station at 90 Central Ave., where excursion trains depart for Stone Mountain and a loop trip around Atlanta. For New Georgia Railroad information and tickets, contact the Georgia Building Authority, 1 Martin Luther King Drive, Atlanta, Ga. 30334, phone 404-656-0769.
South of the depot, the four-story, 45,000-square-foot building housing Coca-Cola's pavilion will cover a city block on Martin Luther King Drive between Central Avenue and Washington Street. "The Coca-Cola Co. is building The World of Coca-Cola Pavilion because of consumer requests," says Harold Jackson, the firm's media-relations manager. "Consumers have a special affinity for Coke."
The pavilion will have a three-dimensional sign with a flat center and an outside cylinder rotating in opposite directions. In motion together, the two parts will look like a huge red ball.
"Exhibits covering 100 years of Coca-Cola history will include touchscreen video displays correlating Coca-Cola and world history at five-year intervals, the world's largest collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia, a miniature bottling plant, displays and tastings of Coca-Cola products produced in 160 countries, and an old-fashioned soda fountain offering free tastes of Coca-Cola products," Jackson said.
The pavilion will be open 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m. daily, except noon-6 p.m. Sunday, and will be directly accessible from Underground Atlanta. Tickets will cost $2.50 and will be sold in advance for a specific entrance time. For information: The Coca-Cola Co., P.O. Drawer 1734 Atlanta, Ga. 30301, phone 1-800-GET-COKE (438-2653).
Historic theme
Heritage Row will be on Upper Alabama Street between Pryor Street and Central Avenue, across from the New Georgia Railroad depot and garage. Its $3 million chronology of Atlanta's history begins when Indians lived along Peachtree Creek and an engineer surveyed the first railroad line into the city.
Other exhibits include a bomb-proof shelter where Atlantans huddled during the Civil War, the 1895 Cotton States Exhibition, a 1920s trolley car, the pulpit from Ebenezer Baptist Church and recordings of Martin Luther King's speeches, a cockpit from a Delta jetliner, and a Cable News Network display. The tour ends with a 15-minute video on modern Atlanta, which will be shown every half hour.
Heritage Row will be open 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday. Admission will be $4 for adults, $3 for children. Information: Heritage Row, 55 Upper Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga. 30303, phone 404-584-7879.
For the moment, the closest hotel to Underground Atlanta is the Ritz-Carlton Atlanta, three blocks away. The 25-story luxury hotel has 454 rooms and 24 suites, a gourmet restaurant and Continental cafe. The Ritz-Carlton "Underground Excitement" packages (single or double occupancy) are $125 a night on Friday and Saturday, $149 a night Sunday-Thursday. For information and reservations, contact the hotel at 181 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta Ga. 30303, phone 1-800-241-3333.
In November, a 157-suite hotel is to open inside the Underground complex in the shell of the Connally Building, which dates from 1915.
by CNB