Make Downtown Great Again

My earliest memories of Downtown Atlanta – and, yes, I’m about to give away my age –are from 1976 when I was 6-years old. I was in the backseat of my parents’ puke-green Ford LTD, excitedly leaning between the seats to get a better look out the front windshield at the round cylinder that towered over the city. It was our destination – the newly opened Peachtree Plaza Hotel. At the time, the Plaza was the tallest hotel in the world, and it was both awe-inspiring and a little frightening.

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After flipping out over the sadly long-gone lagoon in the hotel’s lobby, we took the glass elevator – I might have peed a little in my Underoos – to take in the view that seemed to stretch forever. Here’s what I remember: the gold dome of the State Capitol, the blue flying saucer atop the Hyatt Regency, the marquee of the Lowe’s Grand Theatre where “Gone With The Wind” premiered (now the site of the Georgia-Pacific building), the futuristic Omni Arena and Hotel (now Philips Arena and CNN Center), the grand old Rich’s Department Store (now the Sam Nunn Federal Center), and in the distance, Stone Mountain. It was magic up there.

AUGUST 15-20

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This was to be a momentous Sunday. After the Peachtree Plaza, we went to Underground Atlanta – the old Underground before it got turned into a boring shopping mall in the late 1980s. And then on to the Omni to The World of Sid and Marty Krofft, located on the upper levels of the building where CNN’s headquarters is now located. Riding the long escalator was the best part, because the trippy, whacked out mess of an amusement park only lasted six months. I was there to meet H.R. Pufnstuf (He was your friend when things got rough!), but it was three floors of uninspired rides, bored teenagers in bad costumes and not-very-good souvenirs.

That Downtown is gone, but a bigger and better one is on the way. It’s been coming in fits and starts since since the 1996 Summer Olympics and the creation of Centennial Olympic Park. Right now, Underground is getting the makeover its needed for 40 years; South Downtown is about to undergo an amazing transformation; and the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium and entertainment complex planned for the sunken parking lot of The Gulch will radically alter the heart of the city. You can read more about it on Page. 6. I can’t wait to be awe-inspired once again, to feel that magic.

Here’s a Twitter hashtag I can get behind: #MDGA