For the purposes of this photo series, I concentrated on commercial buildings that are still standing and either vacant or have been remolded and repurposed, with one exception that had been rebuilt in a similar style during the 1930s still prior to the Great Acceleration ("Five Points at Peachtree"). While a further branch of this photo series could grow to include areas where commercial buildings once stood and have been demolished post-1964, I wanted to underscore the ways in which the builders and urban planners of Atlanta have grown the city around existing structures, and in many ways adapting these structures for modern-day living. By having the commercial building from the historical reference image as a constant, we can better note the vast developments, skyscrapers, and changes to the landscape in the surrounding areas.

 

As an example, in the photos "George Muse Building, Woodruff Park" and "The English-American Building," the roughly 70-year difference in the original images and the present-day images shows new skyscrapers towering over the buildings which were once nearly the tallest buildings in their respective blocks, as well as the creation of Woodruff Park, a 6-acre public park opened in the 1970s, across the street from both buildings. Although Atlanta's first skyscraper, the Equitable Building standing at 118ft, was built in 1892, the city underwent a building boom between the 1980s and 1990s, during the anthropogenic Great Acceleration, and the majority of the 39 skyscrapers in the city today were built after 1985. To balance the urban development, however, Atlanta has also built a great number of public parks since the 1980s, such as Woodruff park pictured in the two aforementioned images. According to the Trust for Public Land (TPL), Atlanta is home to 415 parks and ranks #42 nationally on the ParkScore scale. Additionally, TPL notes that only 6% of land in Atlanta is used for parks and recreation, well below the national median of 15%. Similarly, the photo split "Peachtree Battle Strip" highlights in a similar time-frame the anthropogenic effects on one small shopping strip in the heart of the city; on-street parking and the telephone poles are no longer to be seen, but large billboards atop the building and a modern glass apartment building have been developed.

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The vast majority of the photos in this section of the series demonstrate the positive ways Atlanta has repurposed existing structures in some of their most popular downtown destinations, thereby arguably minimizing their anthropogenic effect on the city by limiting demolition and new construction. However, the costs of remolding and materials used to get buildings up to code in the 21st century do tip the scales back a bit, especially when the cost of "going green" in construction is so high that many companies opt for less environmentally-friendly methods. Perhaps the most well-known example of this is demonstrated in the mixed-use development Ponce City Market, formerly a Sears, Roebuck, and Co. building with a retail store, warehouse, and regional office opened in 1926. On any usual (not socially-distanced) weekend, the building would be surrounded by cars and packed full of people shopping, brunching, or enjoying the rooftop entertainment. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Two further demonstrations of the repurposing of historic buildings include the Georgia State University's transformation of the former Hosch & Son Grocer building, pictured here from 1893, into their current Baptist Student Center, and the transition of the former Macy's building into a multi-use office, event, and dining space. While the 1893 photo's vignetting prevents us from clearly seeing the surrounding buildings, its 2020 counterpart shows clearly the infrastructure built around the historic building. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Peachtree Street Macy's stood as the largest department store south of Philadelphia at its completion in 1927. When the store closed its doors in 2003, investors jumped to transform the iconic space into an event space in the lower levels and office space in the upper levels. Interesting to also note is the changes that took place around the famous building; the former Grady Hotel was demolished and replaced by the modern Westin, trees were planted along the sidewalks and many chain restaurants opened across the street. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A factor also to perhaps be further explored in future photo series is advertisements in historical photos and still standing today. Between the 1948 image of the Campus Grill, located down the street from Georgia Tech's campus on North Avenue, and the 2020 recreation, the restaurant name and style of the billboard have changed, but much is still the same.

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The exception to the still-standing commercial building rule is "Peachtree at Five Points." The name of the popular downtown district "Five Points" refers to the intersection of five major Atlanta streets: Marietta Street, Edgewood Avenue, Decatur Street, and two sections of Peachtree Street, parts of which were formerly named Whitehall Street, making it the former fifth point. Despite the buildings’ similar flatiron shape, their same location at the center of this key intersection, and the irony that 130 years later, a drug store again occupies the same corner, the 2020 image actually showcases the Olympia Building, which wasn’t completed until 1936 (Green). 

 

 

 

 

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Another anomaly in this rendition of the series is the "Abandoned Atlanta Constitution." The Atlanta Constitution Building, built in 1947 by Robert and Company for a sizable $3 million, housed the newspaper for only six years before James Cox’s purchase of the newspaper in 1950 and subsequent merger with his paper, The Atlanta Journal, caused the media to move to a new address at Forysth Street. After a string of temporary tenants, the building has been vacant since 1972, often serving as a sanctuary for the local homeless population. While rumors of demolition and new construction of a so-called Atlanta Multi-Modal Passenger Terminal by the Georgia Department of Transportation circled around the late 2000s, the building sold in 2017 to a developer for $2 million and was slated to become income-restricted housing and loft-style office spaces (Bueno). Construction was meant to begin mid-2018, with the offices complete by May 2019 and the residential building open by February 2020; however as evident in the photo from March 2020, none of these goals were fulfilled, and no plans seem to have been enacted nearly three years post-sale (Kahn). The lack of utilization of the five-story building located in “The Gulch” of downtown Atlanta in any capacity whatsoever in the last almost 50 years demonstrates the wastefulness and squandering of our society. 

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These first installments in the Commercial Buildings section of the photo series illuminate the vast changes Atlanta has undergone since its founding in 1847 and since Lewis and Maslin's proposed start for the Anthropocene in 1964. Although the repurposing of commercial buildings is a fine way to minimize the already outrageous affect humans are having on the planet, the surroundings of the commercial buildings must also be taken into consideration to fully understand our impact on the world in which we live. 

 

 

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