The 57 Reasons We Love Atlanta News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
The rest of the year, we highlight the best and worst people, places, and things of the moment. But for Thanksgiving, we thought we would honor those things about Atlanta we forever love — the attributes of the A that we cite when someone asks, "Why do you love Atlanta?" Well ... |
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Because Piedmont Park is picture-perfect News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Originally designed by Joseph Forsyth Johnson, the landscape mastermind who sculpted Central Park in NYC, Piedmont Park is a flourishing green oasis nestled between Midtown and Virginia-Highland. |
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Because repping our city is a rite of passage News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
To become a cultural ambassador in Atlanta, one only needs a mic and a mixtape. In fact, there'd be no "ATL" without the city's hip-hop scene. Ever since OutKast turned Hartsfield's three-letter airport code into a verbal boast back in 1994, damn near every rapper from the A has followed suit. But the unofficial city anthem has to be Jermaine Dupri and Ludacris' "Welcome to Atlanta." |
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Because like tipper circa 1982, we like our gore every week News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
On the second Tuesday of each month, the Splatter Cinema series brings world-class horror joints to the Plaza Theatre. Night of the Living Dead, Hellraiser, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Creepshow, The Gate, and too many other bloodbath classics to name here have all been splashed across the marquis of this staple ATL movie house. |
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Because the corner of Boulevard and Edgewood Avenue is the most fun intersection in the South News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Old Fourth Ward has become a nightlife destination, and the bars that sit on the corner of Boulevard and Edgewood do our city proud. Stop and look around the next time you're sitting in Church surrounded by ping pong aficionados and Jesus paintings, or dancing to a DJ at the Sound Table with one of the coolest, most integrated crowds around. These bars could only exist in the A, and we love 'em. |
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Because Cyclorama makes history cool News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
The "Battle of Atlanta" painting featured in the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum is a magnificent antique depiction of the Civil War bloodshed that ravaged the red clay on which modern ATL stands. There's only a handful of Cycloramas still standing, and this one offers a vital history lesson about the Old South — good and bad. |
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Because we're the only city easily identified by just one letter News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
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Because our airport is a great place to visit News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
I've just downed the last sip of a perfect Manhattan at a restaurant almost too fancy to warrant my presence beyond this barstool. Moments ago, I was face-to-face with a massive installation by one of the 21st-century's most renowned living artists, the vision of his sprawling multimedia collage looming as gloriously in my head as it still is over a moving crowd a few hundred yards behind me.... |
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Because Buford Highway takes us far east News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
When we want exotic surroundings but only have a quarter-tank of gas, Buford Highway offers a cultural mashup of Vietnamese pho shops, Japanese stationers, Chinese herbalists, Korean bakeries, Mexican taco joints, and a slew of grocery stores selling things you wouldn't know how to cook if you were starving. |
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Because second-hand" is a compliment" News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Not only do we have some pretty great thrift stores here, but you can spend an entire day in Sandy Springs, Roswell, Jonesboro, Avondale Estates, and other suburban pockets blissfully jumping from one to the next to paw through other folks' cast-offs. Talk about heaven. |
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Because our bartenders kick ass News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
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The sense of community within our city's bartending community must make them happy. And everyone knows, happy bartenders make better drinks. We appreciate all the passion, creativity, and brotherly (and sisterly) love these booze-slingers bring.
Because ... Outkast! News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
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Because we have many universities, but we're not a college town News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown, Clark ... we're loaded with inner-city colleges that add to instead of detract from the urban experience. Unlike many college towns, we're not an excuse for a constantly raging kegger. The students here are young adults who make Atlanta smarter and more vibrant. |
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Because of the 4 a.m. Happy Donuts and coffee runs News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
No matter how late (early?) it is, there's always fresh joe and a red velvet or maple-glazed nightcap at Happy Donuts. In fact, Olivia Newton John's "Magic" never sounds quite as good as it does a few hours before sunrise. |
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Because Living Walls paints a world-class picture News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
You'd expect an international street art consortium to spring up in graffiti capitals like New York, London, Berlin, Paris, or São Paulo, but probably not Atlanta. The city's graffiti battle lines were drawn long ago, but the annual Living Walls calls a kind of truce, inviting discussion on an international scale that continues to make a significant imprint on Atlanta's public art scene. |
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Because our urban charm won't bankrupt you News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
City living in Atlanta doesn't mean you have to sacrifice space and style for suffocating, roach-infested squalor in the name of fiscal responsibility. In Atlanta, living in a historic bungalow on a grassy plot of land around the corner from shops and restaurants is a right, not a privilege. |
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Because we'd celebrate a firm handshake with a festival News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Hardly a weekend goes by without a tent-filled lawn going up somewhere to celebrate a neighborhood, a holiday, art, beer, barbecue, beer, music, Greek orthodoxy, jerk chicken, authors, Jewish authors, LGBTs, strutting, the dead, the undead, and ... did we mention beer? |
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Because the Krog Street Tunnel is the original social networking site News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
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Because the intersection of Glenwood and Flat Shoals Avenues is a music crossroads News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
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Hang a left to catch some locals at 529. Turn right for a touring band at the Earl or to get dubstepped at Eastside Lounge. Go straight and you'll run into Mary's, the sweetest gay karaoke spot in Atlanta, next to the funkified iLounge before moving on for a set of DJs and live bands at the Basement. www.eastatlantavillage.com.
Because our strip club DJs break national acts News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Atlanta's nude entertainers break the records that make the whole world bounce. For more than a decade, getting spins in one of the city's numerous booty-shaking dens (Magic City, Strokers, Blue Flame, Kamal's 21) has been an artist's quickest route to mainstream stardom. Just ask a generation of rappers, from Lil Jon to Travis Porter. If your beats compel strippers to clap that ass, you could... |
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Because the Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway Bounce just doesn't have the same ring to it News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Whether it's due to sentimental attachment or failed memory, Atlantans have happily ignored city government's desperate attempt to tidy up the Dirty South by randomly renaming streets. No offense to the famed civil rights attorney, but Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway is still Bankhead in our collective psyche. Sure, Stewart Avenue's sketchy rep may not be the most desirable, but where's the... |
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Because you can ride the longest escalator in the Southeast News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Skip the lines at Six Flags and head to the Peachtree Center MARTA station, where you can ride the 192-foot escalator at the Carnegie Way/Ellis Street southwest entrance. |
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Because our cool arts groups don't suck up to the man News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Our grassroots arts groups have integrity. The Goat Farm didn't sell out. WonderRoot hasn't been co-opted. Street artists rep street artists, thanks to Streetela. And Atlanta's arts community is all the better for it. |
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Because it's cool to ignore pro sports teams News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
You'll never catch us rioting over the World Series or wearing a sports jersey out to eat. Props to Hank Aaron for beating Babe Ruth's home run record, but we're proud that professional sports aren't a religion here. |
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Because there's more than one gay strip club News Features
Wednesday November 23, 2011 01:00 PM EST
Along with Swinging Richards (which often won't let women in) and nights at Bliss, strip clubs like Coronet Club, Central Park, Wet in ATL, and Phase One have special nights just for the gay boys. Make it rain, bitches! |
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