poor craigie house

the owners just took out a building permit to rebuild, and i hope they are successful in preserving what's left, which is still a landmark --- but the historic building is gone --- the atlanta chapter of the d.a.r. removed the three stained-glass windows when they vacated the building ten years ago and most of the interior finishes had been stripped out while the property was tied up in bankruptcy court --- the windows are going on display at the d.a.r. headquarters in d.c. --- my history of the building will go, too

a tour of the gulch

i had seen parts of the triangle of railroad lines around which the city developed, but never walked from one end to the other --- a young architect, jeff morrison, led the tour and was a little surprised at the 75 people that showed up to take it --- it so irritates me that the state still has the zero milepost closed up in a stupid little building where it can barely be seen ---

i have to figure out what this bit of stone work was part of

this view north from the tracks at cone street still gives a sense of the change in grade between marietta street and the tracks that gave rise to calling the railroad corridor "the gulch"

they'll be demolishing the spring street viaduct sooner or later --- it's in purty rough shape but still sound enough for traffic, just not for the big-ass trucks and what not for which the d.o.t. likes to build

the yellow wall covers giant steel buttresses for the railroad tracks that run beneath the aren

a whole lot of parking-lot waste land down in there

old as dirt

the routes of some of the city's oldest roads remain in use today, roads that pre-date the city and that had their origins in ancient indian trails, some of which themselves followed primeval tracks worn by woodland buffalo and other pleistocene megafuana --- parts of peachtree road, moores mill road, arden road, dekalb avenue, and cascade road, to name but a few ---

but none of those are nearly so well-preserved as a section of the old marietta road in the far reaches of crestlawn cemetery in northwest atlanta --- it shows up in the state's land-lot survey in 1821 as one of the existing trails and paths through the area and, although it has been paved with asphalt, it was never widened beyond the old wagon road ---

the road runs along a high narrow ridge with wonderful views of the city on one side and, though harder to see today, the river on the other --- in july 2014, the outer line of the confederate defensive works on the north and west sides of the city began on this ridge

the wilds of dunwoody

i've been kindly busy, as my grandma used to say, and neglected this here blog --- longest hiatus in posting i've had, i think ---

but today i had to venture otp, so i figured that's worth a post ---

playing possum

east point possums --- really ? in east pernt?

a great evening for a great cause: raised $25k for homeless lgbt youth

beltline saturday

met with the wng guys this morning for a little belt-line cleanup --- the rudbeckia is making a show --- the plastic fence not so much

as we were doing that, we were passed by what we were told were 500 bicyclists making a tour of the entire beltline

a colossal waste

now, over ten years later, iraq is falling apart, the fall of baghdad may be imminent, and they're blaming president obama for not standing tough --- ought to blame this asshole for starting the war in the first place --- a shameful day in our history that was

it is vietnam all over again: the same sickening feeling as i watched the fall of saigon in 1975 --- we haven't lost as many soldiers this time, but the toll on the iraqi civilian population  has been horrendous --- and this time we have pissed away trillions of dollars for absolutely nothing

trillions

abg

 too many damn lines ---

summer monsoon

a nice storm rolled through over night and then another one late this afternoon --- maybe it's the erratic barometric pressure but my brother, cousin, and main client called, for different reasons but after long silence and just when i was beginning to wonder if they were all in a coma ---

but it was a good walk over there

i told robert the va-highland summerfest would have been comfortable in a suburban shopping mall

i need to move like this every day . . .

walking the rails

nice little rainbow to start the day

i joined a hike of the southeast beltline today, from old fourth ward to chosewood park --- the city hasn't actually acquired a lot of that right-of-way yet, so it's all still a bit of a mess --- and then back up boulevard through grant park and the cemetery

this was an interesting feature, left over from an old concrete factory: trains emptied loads of sand through the grates into dump trucks below

this wonderful fountain (1896) didn't last twenty years on its original site at the downtown intersection of peachtree and w. peachtree --- at least it still exists even if there are weeds growing up in the cracks and the fountain itself hasn't worked in decades

coming up summer

got the walk in before a big-ass storm blew through --- followed by a magnificent sunset, to which my photography does not do justice