Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 21, 1991 TAG: 9104210301
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: George & Rosalie Leposky
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Long
A train arrived just as we did, nearly empty and providing seats next to an open space designated for luggage and wheelchairs. The car was new, clean and air-conditioned; it gave us a smooth, quiet ride.
At each station, several passengers got on. By the time we reached Five Points, the tri-level downtown station where the north-south and east-west lines intersect, more than half the seats were full.
At Five Points, a tidal wave of humanity gushed down the stairs and into the train. A rock concert had disgorged its audience, and thousands of teen-agers were homeward bound to Midtown, Buckhead, Chamblee and other points north. We gave our seats to two cheerful children who actually thanked us. Their standing friends politely opened a path to the door so we could get off at the next stop.
We found ourselves in Peachtree Center Station, a cavernous engineering marvel carved from solid granite similar to the outcroppings at Stone Mountain east of town. One of the world's longest and steepest escalators carried us 120 feet up to street level, within half a block of our hotel.
The entire trip from the airport took 20 minutes and cost us a grand total of $2.
With the 1996 Olympics still five years away, Atlanta already seems ready to move throngs of people around town. MARTA carries more than 461,000 bus and rail passengers a day. We were among them during a recent long weekend, using $9 weekly passes to ride the system just about everywhere we wanted to go.
We found MARTA easy to use - and safe. Enough Atlantans ride it, even late at night, so we never felt alone and vulnerable on a train or in a station. Also reassuring was the presence of uniformed MARTA police.
When we went places the trains didn't, we took a bus from the nearest train station in most cases. Transfers within the MARTA system are free - even for the lengthy trip to Stone Mountain.
If you want to go somewhere the buses don't go, taxis wait for fares at most MARTA stations and will come to others with a phone call. Late one evening we called a taxi to take us to a restaurant to the closest MARTA station. The driver was happy to oblige and said many Atlantans also do that.
Also, many hotels in north Atlanta and the airport area run shuttles to MARTA.
A Tennessee family with three young children shared a No. 31 bus with us back to Five Points from Grant Park, site of Zoo Atlanta and the Cyclorama (a Civil War museum that portrays the Battle of Atlanta in 1864). A desk clerk at their motel had told them how to get around using MARTA.
Atlantans are proud of their transit system and eager to advise visitors on its use, but we learned to reach our destinations without asking for help.
Many tourist attractions are within an easy walk of MARTA stations. For instance, Five Points Station connects directly with Underground Atlanta and is near Heritage Row, The New Georgia Railroad and the World of Coca-Cola Pavilion.
Cable News Network's studio tour, the Georgia World Congress Center and the Omni Coliseum are closest to Omni Station, one station west of Five Points. Parking in that area is scarce and expensive, and you may have to wait several hours to tour CNN. Only 20 people can go each tour; tickets are sold each day on a first-come, first-served basis.
The author of the Uncle Remus tales, journalist Joel Chandler Harris, lived on Atlanta's west side in a home called Wren's Nest, which you can tour. Much of the original furniture and many of Harris' books remain. Built in 1867, Wren's Nest later acquired a Queen Anne facade. The home is in an urban-renewal area with infrequent bus transportation, so the best way to get there is by cab from MARTA's West End Station.
Passengers often carry flowers aboard the eastbound No. 3 bus from Five Points to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change, where the staff will place flowers in front of King's tomb.
The bus stops near Ebenezer Baptist Church at 407-13 Auburn Ave. In the Sweet Auburn neighborhood where King was born and reared, the National Park Service administers a national historic district. Rangers lead 15 people at a time on tours of King's birthplace, a Queen Anne-style home built in 1895. The house, at 501 Auburn Ave., is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. June-August; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. the rest of the year.
Also east of downtown is the Carter Presidential Center, housing a library that contains Jimmy Carter's papers and a museum depicting his achievements in office from 1977 to 1981. You can board MARTA's No. 16 bus to the Carter Center at Five Points Station or ride a train to the Toman Park-Reynoldstown Station and catch the No. 16 bus there.
North of downtown, SciTrek - Atlanta's hands-on science museum for children, with more than 100 exhibits - is a two-block walk along Ralph McGill Boulevard from MARTA's Civic Center Station. In anticipation of the Columbus Quincentennial, a two-thirds-scale replica of one of his ships, the Nina, will be on display at SciTrek until May 31.
A covered walkway connects MARTA's Arts Center Station with Atlanta's High Museum of Art. Half the fun of visiting the High Museum is watching people stroll up and down the ramps connecting floor to floor within its semicircular atrium. The four-story, 135,000-square-foot building designed by architect Richard Meier opened in 1983.
The High's permanent collection of over 8,200 objects includes a cross-section of European art from the 14th through 18th centuries, 19th and 20th century American paintings, a fine decorative-arts collection, Sub-Saharan African art, and some 2,700 images by 19th and 20th century American and European photographers.
To visit the Atlanta Historical Society, take the train to Lenox Station and transfer to the No. 23 bus. Ask the bus driver to let you off at the corner of Peachtree Street and West Paces Ferry Road, then walk three blocks west to Andrews Drive.
Permanent exhibits in the history museum depict Atlanta's Civil War experience (including the Battle of Atlanta), and the city's history from Reconstruction to the present. You can also tour two house-museums on the 32-acre site: Swan House, a 1928 classical-revival home designed by Philip T. Shutze; and the Tullie Smith Farm, a rural farmhouse and outbuildings that date from 1840.
Atlanta Historical Society and the Southern Order of Story Tellers will hold their annual Atlanta Story Telling Festival May 3-5 in tents pitched on the grounds. The program includes the Afro-American dances, games and songs of the Georgia Sea Island Singers; and Boston storyteller Joy O'Callahan.
Each year Atlanta Historical Society re-enacts the Battle of Atlanta at an Atlanta Civil War Encampment, at which hundreds of men, women and children demonstrate camp life, including open-fire cooking and firing muskets. The encampment this year is July 19-21.
How MARTA works
For a MARTA system map and bus schedules, write MARTA Headquarters RideStore, 2424 Piedmont Road N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30324-3324.
The $9 passes are good for seven days and its best to buy them at a MARTA RideStore as soon as possible after you arrive in town.
There are RideStores next to the Lindbergh Center Station, at Airport Station and near the Peachtree Street entrance to Five Points Station. Hours vary.
For information on Atlanta's attractions, hotels and restaurants, contact the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, Suite 2000, 233 Peachtree Street N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30303, phone 404-521-6600.
George and Rosalie Leposky are a husband-wife team of widely published travel writers and live in Miami. He teaches college writing classes; she has taught cooking. Ampersand Communications
by CNB