Downtown Atlanta is for the most part the usual big-city
concentration of glimmering skyscrapers, transformed and overhauled
for the 1996 Olympics. Its highlight, however, and the only place
open after dark, is Underground Atlanta (or "the
Underground"), a four-block subterranean maze of shops, stalls,
restaurants and bars on the original site of the city (effectively
buried in the late nineteenth century by the construction of
railroad viaducts). In the 1970s the district, ranged around Five
Points MARTA station, was a crime-ridden wasteland, but, thanks to
Andrew Young's dream of a revitalized downtown, it's now one of the
liveliest - albeit very touristy - pockets of the city. The
underground labyrinth of cobbled gas-lit streets, restored to their
original appearance and dotted with historical markers, is reached
by steps from a piazza buzzing with street performers.
The eastern side of the piazza is dominated by the super-glossy
World of Coca-Cola pavilion (June-Aug Mon-Sat 9am-6pm, Sun
11am-6pm; Sept-May Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun noon-6pm; $6, children $3;
tel 404/676-5151). This three-story spin through Coca-Cola's
history, from its origins in the non-air-conditioned
nineteenth-century Hotlanta, through the evolution of the famed
contour bottle "embraced by generations" to "the Real Thing," is
surprisingly fun. On the third floor you can quench your thirst
with a whole host of coke products from all over the world, such as
Stoney Ginger Beer from South Africa or Japan's Vegita Beta.
Northwest of the Underground, the CNN Center - a
structure that was originally an upmarket shopping mall, and still
holds a few small stores - daily achieves a global reach undreamed
of by Coca-Cola's founders. The Cable News Network is just one of
eleven television networks in the empire developed by Ted Turner,
and sold to Time-Warner in 1995. Aptly, among the thousands of MGM
classics now stamped with the Turner logo is Gone with the
Wind - witness the plethora of Tara, Scarlett and Rhett
knickknacks in the giftshop. Unlike the Coke pavilion, this is a
working facility - adrenalin-fueled, forty-minute guided
tours (daily 9am-6pm, every 15min; $8) rush past frazzled
producers and toothy anchorpersons - but you can videotape yourself
reading the (real) news of the day ($15 in the giftshop). If you're
desperate to be on TV, time your visit to coincide with the 3.30pm
filming of TalkBack Live , when visitors are invited to be
part of the audience.
Several downtown blocks just northeast of the CNN Center were
razed prior to the 1996 Olympics to make way for the open space of
Centennial Park , intended as a focus for public festivities
during the Games; forced to close almost immediately by the
pipe-bombing that killed two revelers, the park has failed to find
a post-Olympic identity, and rumors abound that it too will soon be
redeveloped.
The Atlanta Public Library , in Margaret Mitchell Square
at Carnegie Way and Forsyth Street (Mon-Thurs 9am-9pm, Fri &
Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 2-6pm), has a room devoted to Gone with the
Wind author and Atlanta native Margaret Mitchell . The
novel (1936) and film (1939) helped perpetuate popular images of
the genteel plantation South - as well, of course, as the burning
of Atlanta. Fantastically popular, the novel took just six weeks to
sell enough copies to form a tower fifty times higher than the
Empire State Building. The tiny downtown branch of the Atlanta
History Center is also here, with videos on city history and
information on historical tours. Midtown's High Museum of
Art has a downtown satellite gallery at 30 John Wesley Dobbs
Ave at Peachtree Street, featuring smaller photography and folk art
collections (Mon-Fri 11am-5pm; free).