ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 20, 1996 TAG: 9607220063
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Our eyes in Atlanta
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
NOTE: Above
CENTENNIAL OLYMPIC PARK offers a welcome respite from high temperatures, high-rises -and high prices.
Starting with the torch relay run through these parts by William Tecumseh Sherman more than 130 years ago, Georgia's capital city always has seemed to be rebuilding or just building, period.
One of the finest pieces of construction will be part of the legacy of the XXVIth Summer Games. Surprisingly for Atlanta, it's not a high-rise. With a tribute to the Olympics' Greek origins - and perhaps a tip of the cap to the fictional Tara, too - it does have columns.
The Braves will get a new stadium after half of the home of Friday night's Opening Ceremonies is dismantled, and Georgia Tech's campus has a solar-roofed aquatics center that should bring more world-class water events to this city.
However, the most impressive addition to this capital of commerce is Centennial Olympic Park. And the good news for Olympics spectators is that you don't even need a ticket to see it.
``Really, it doesn't cost anything to get in,'' a security guard told an elderly - and stunned - Olympic visitor at the gate Friday.
That's more amazing at these Games than $636 for an Opening Ceremonies seat.
Only about one in 20 expected Olympic visitors had one of the 83,000 tickets for the Opening Ceremonies. The new park is expecting an average of 100,000 visitors on each of the Games' 17 days.
There will plenty of time to see the place. It will be open for 20 hours daily during the Olympics, 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. Even with oodles of sponsor pavilions occupying the grounds now, the park's incongruity is striking.
Here, in the midst of a downtown that has been building mostly skyward for decades, is a 21-acre, tree-lined park in which you mostly walk on grass and brick.
What points to the sky are the plumes of water from the fountain that follows the form of the Olympic rings, the world's only fountain in that form. It is the centerpiece of the Centennial Olympic Plaza, which appropriately for these Games in particular, measures 100 x 100 - meters, of course.
It has 251 jets, each ring is 25 feet in diameter, and the water plays off more than 500 red and yellow lights.
The water height is from 4 to 20 feet or more, with the spray and lights accompanied by five songs in various arrangements, including the theme from ``Chariots of Fire'' and the ``1812 Overture.''
And children of all ages are allowed to play in and under the water. The only requirements? No running, and keep your shoes on your feet.
I actually tried it Friday afternoon. It was very refreshing; and with the heat, by the time I walked three blocks back to the Main Press Center, I was mostly dry.
I also have one fewer shirt to wash in the motel washer.
The park has the stuff to rekindle emotions and memories. It eventually will have 325,000 bricks, and many of them are engraved, having been purchased for $35 each.
There is one brick in memory of our former assistant sports editor, Tony Stamus, who died four months ago. The Atlanta Constitution, where Tony last worked, has purchased another as a tribute to him. It will be installed by the first of the year.
On Friday, visitors were lined up at several kiosks within the park, hoping to locate bricks with familiar names via the park's computer system. It's not unusual to see folks walking slowly, backward and forward, with eyes to the ground, scanning the pavement.
When the Olympics close Aug.4, the sponsor pavilions will vacate the premises and the surrounding parking lots, offering an even more esthetic experience.
The park will reopen to the public in stages. There are plans for an Olympics museum on the site. The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce has its home on the grounds, which, geographically speaking, sit in the shadow of the Omni, CNN Center and Georgia World Congress complex.
The park cost more than $50 million to build, half of that figure from Atlanta contributors. The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games chipped in $15 million.
The city has done a lot of paving and planting to give the Olympics a nice home, but it is the largest downtown park developed in the United States in the past quarter-century that is just what the city needed, and not just because the site was home to a crumbling housing project and dilapidated warehouses.
During the Games, Centennial Olympic Park is the gathering place for free concerts, pin-trading, and ``official'' Olympic merchandise sales.
As an Olympic venue, it is unique and, unlike much of the Olympic Stadium where the first Summer Games in the South got their start Friday night, the park has staying power.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 linesby CNB