Making the scene at Zoo Atlanta.
We’ve been transformed! Downtown Atlanta’s Woodruff Park got a 1970s-New York-era revamp as part of the set of “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues”
You don’t get Tony awards for playing in Atlanta, but “Zorro,” featuring music by the Gipsy Kings, is now playing at the Alliance Theatre and might just be the best new musical on a stage anywhere in the U.S.
The most walkable cities are the healthiest cities — economically, environmentally and emotionally. Designing our streets, sidewalks, public spaces and buildings for pedestrians could be the soundest infrastructure investments we could make — on multiple levels.
That’s the overarching message made by Jeff Speck, author of a new book called: Walkable City: How Downtown can save America one step at a time. Speck was in Atlanta last week speaking to a group of the Midtown Alliance and conducting an all-day workshop for the Congress of New Urbanism – Atlanta.
Unfortunately, Atlanta is not well portrayed in Speck’s book, a fact that made him sound almost a bit apologetic. It is no secret that among that intellectual group of urban planners and architects, Atlanta has developed a bad reputation over the years for being a bastion of sprawl and unbridled development.
Eugene Robinson writes:
My Post colleague Valerie Strauss, a veteran education reporter and columnist, wrote Friday that while there have been “dozens” of alleged cheating episodes around the country, only Atlanta’s has been aggressively and thoroughly investigated. “We don’t really know” how extensive the problem is, Strauss wrote, but “what we do know is that these cheating scandals have been a result of test-obsessed school reform.”
It is time to acknowledge that the fashionable theory of school reform — requiring that pay and job security for teachers, principals and administrators depend on their students’ standardized test scores — is at best a well-intentioned mistake, and at worst nothing but a racket.
I mean that literally. Beverly Hall, the former superintendent of the Atlanta public schools, was indicted on racketeering charges Friday for an alleged cheating scheme that won her more than $500,000 in performance bonuses. Hall, who retired two years ago, is also accused of theft, conspiracy and making false statements. She has denied any wrongdoing.
Also facing criminal charges are 34 teachers and principals who allegedly participated in the cheating, which involved simply erasing students’ wrong answers on test papers and filling in the correct answers.
Maria Saporta writes:
Atlanta can be such a disorienting city. One day a building can be standing on a corner waiting for you like a old friend. And the next day it’s gone. No warning. Just gone.
That’s what happened to me a few weeks ago when I was driving on Ponce de Leon Avenue going west towards Peachtree Street. A vacant lot at Juniper Street hit me in the face where a familiar building once stood.
The first office building ever designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei had vanished — just like that. Once again, Atlanta had erased an important part of its physical history with barely a whimper.
Atlanta City Councliman Kwanza Hall tweeted this photo of tracks finally being put on the ground for Atlanta’s new streetcar today. A beautiful sight!
This is on Edgewood Avenue, near the Sweet Auburn Curb Market.
It’s fitting that the tracks for the first modern streetcar in the city…
This sidewalk in Atlanta’s Inman Park is far from the worst in the city. But it is treacherous enough. The broken paving stones are totally uneven and most move in a rickety fashion when you step on them. The city says home owners, not the city, are responsible for maintaining the sidewalks the city installed in the first place. But, aside from the fact that the city is abdicating responsibility for the amenities it should maintain, it does nothing to require maintenance from anyone else. Who’s in charge here? People who walk and run would like to know.
