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How odd that Atlanta should continue to emerge as HockeyTown South.  Atlanta has two, count ‘em TWO hockey teams in the play-offs.

First, The Atlanta Thrashers finally have made the playoffs.  Not only that, they will finally get to hang a banner in Philips Arena as they are the NHL Southeast Division Champions.  Now come the play-offs.  Despite ownership disputes and very expensive tickets, the Thrashers seem to have ingratiated themselves into the city and it’s culture.  Certainly, many more people are wearing Thrashers wear than that of the Atlanta Hawks.

Second, as with every year they’ve been here, the Gwinnett Gladiators have made the play-offs.  The Gladiators are the ‘AA’ affiliate of the Thrashers and play at the Gwinnett Center.  Further, their goalie, Dave Caruso, is actually from Roswell!  Defenseman Jon Awe is from Memphis.  So when you root for them, you’re rooting for the local boys.  Another difference between the Gladiators and the Thrashers is that the most expensive play-off tickets for the Gladiators are $18.  For the Thrashers, the very top row of the nosebleeds will cost you $15.

So why has Atlanta derived such a Hockey culture?  Most people will point to the immigration of so many northerners.  Still more people have moved from smaller communities in the south than have moved from the North.  It seems that everyone who can get out of South Carolina has moved here.  The influx of northerners could neither save the Atlanta Flames, nor the Atlanta Knights (The only team that ever won a championship in the Omni).

Instead, it’s the next generation that has made the difference.  The influx of northers has made a difference.  It created a market for ice rinks.  Kids begged to play hockey and when the kids are interested, the parents become interested.  The parents bring the kids to the games, go to college hockey games, and then get hooked on seeing the pros.  That’s what’s driven the demand.  Now, the question is whether it will continue.

The Gladiators made the Kelly cup finals last year and did not see a noticeable increase in attendance.  If the Thrashers get passed the first round, will weekday game tickets be harder to get?  Stay tuned.

Since MARTA is making money now and since they need to recover their public service momentum, there are two steps they could easily take help riders.

First, they could install a mechanism to measure capacity in the parkings lots and decks and keep real time information on the web about it.  Atlantans would use less gas and would get where they were going more efficiently.  Key would be keeping the information up to date.  20 minutes would have to be the longest lag between updates.

Second, since the train lines are now color coded, they should reflect that on their signage and voice overs.  Just as in Boston, one hears “Red Line!  Park Street“, one could hear “Red Line, North Springs!”  It would clarify the transfer process, especially for tourists and help give each line an identity.

Would this cost money?  Yes.  However, in making the system easier and better to use, MARTA will continue to attract ridership, and that will raise revenue to help offset the cost.  It will also improve the systems public image.

So What will smart people be doing Tuesday night, March 13th? They’ll be at the Woodruff Arts Center in Symphony Hall for ‘From the Top‘ a national radio show that taps school age classical musicians, pairs them with experts and lets them rip!

The show is at 7:30 and will feature Christopher O’Riley on piano! O’Riley is famous for taking pop songs and creative classic arrangements for them, so his portion of the show should be fun!

Come hear some of the best the south has to offer!

Want definitive proof that the Lindbergh area is changing?  Zesto’s has changed back.

There had been a Zesto’s on Piedmont Road for years.  In the 1990s they did a major overhaul sprucing the place up and then a couple of years later creating Burrito Brothers.  They still had ice cream, but the cuisine changed to pretty good affordable Mexican food and they even served beer!  Tecate Sundaes anyone?

Why did they do this?  Because the Lindbergh area was so predominantly Hispanic.  Then MARTA hit the real estate market, and all the affordable apartments that housed all the Latin Americans who are Buckhead’s chief employees began to be plowed under to create much more expensive homes near the station.

Wealthy White people want to take their kids for a foot long hot dog and some onion rings, so now following the trend, the traditional Zesto’s menu is back.

When the fast food joints change formats you know change is in the works.  The question is where will the Hispanic community that has formed around Lindbergh go?  This is something with which all Buckhead businesses should be concerned.  The folks who live down there are an important part of the Buckhead economy and if they can’t live near where they work, business costs go up.  Higher absenteeism, folks wanting to work fewer hours, and fewer people applying for jobs will only be the beginning.

Then again, this is going to be an increasingly difficult problem all over the metro.  Affordable housing is becoming harder to get, especially walking distance from train stations.  Mayor Franklin?  Have we got a new challenge for you!

The Decatur Square is on its way back. For two years, the city and MARTA cut the square in two in order to renovate and improve access across downtown Decatur. They’re not done yet, but the key half of the square is again accessible.

The space is improved; there are now about 10 torch columns which keep the space illuminated and tiles over the station have grooves which make illustrations. Still one would have hoped for more.

The reconstruction made a huge impact. Stores and shops on the south side of the square really suffered. Sage stopped serving lunch. Other restaurants cut their hours back and the ability to serve people al fresco was severely diminished. The process took over two years and went over budget. They used Chinese marble rather than Georgia stone. They sealed several sections before inspectors could check them out.  Given what the merchants suffered, these mistakes are horrid.
The changes, however, are more aesthetic than practical. While improving the beauty of public spaces is a very worthwhile goal, adding practical improvements would have made a bigger difference. One improvement is a wheelchair ramp, but other than the lighting, that’s about it. Adding another stage, or at least the pre-production electrics, DMX patches, and anchors would have been great.  Swings would have been fantastic.
Yet even with improvements they did make there was another cost. The Decatur station used to have sky lights. Now they are gone. Natural light helped make the station work. Lighting the station will cost more for lower quality light.

Hopefully, the results will pay off. It would be great if more people came on the train for a night in Decatur and if that traffic moved MARTA to keep the Bankhead line running to Decatur all night. A new restaurant, Pasta Please has opened and Sage will soon resume its lunch plans.

Whether the improvements will make a difference you’ll have to judge for yourself.  The city certainly needs to make sure they finish everything else on budget and on time for a while.

Tonight February 24th and tomorrow, the 25,  ‘The Meeting‘ is playing and you should go see it.  Moreover, when you do, pay attention to everything.

For those unfamiliar with the play, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) and Martin Luther King Jr. battle mentally and physically in a Harlem Hotel Room on Valentines day 1965.  They come to a truce of sorts, but each set of ideas is explored and it is something to see how relevant some of the ideas are today and how some of them have indeed passed on to history.

Sweet Auburn Theatre company is presenting this show in Javaology at 466 Edgewood Ave at the corner of Boulevard.  There is parking behind the building.

They are upstairs and you can bring your coffee into the show!  Being upstairs has the advantage of making the show more realistic.  The atmosphere of the room helps with the production.  You hear an urban street and boulevard is a character in the show.  You also hear and see what Shabazz and King were thinking and feeling as they went forward in time.

So you have a show, a space, and a place all growing together.  Despite all the attention paid to Auburn Avenue, it’s Edgewood that is developing.  High end clothing boutiques, restaurants, coffee houses, and with the introduction of theatre at the space, a growing arts component which will only feed things.

This is all to the good, but it happens in stark relief from the area around it.  North of Auburn Avenue, past the Freedom Parkway exit for roughly a mile, Boulevard is blighted.   Auburn Avenue has never had the renaissance people wanted for it.  This is a case where government planning has not helped.  Yet, Edgewood prospers and does so because people think they can make a go of it.  They’ve found cool spaces to renovate and transform and they can afford it.  The road leads straight into Chandler Park and so there is some customer base close by.

The coffee house is the capstone of the first holon of the redevelopment of the area.  It shows there is enough upper socio-economic traffic to support a spot of that type and in thriving it provides for a necessary service to launch the next step of development with better housing and the re-introduction of more non-retail business into the area.

All of this has happened without the deep investments and governmental workings that have gone into Underground or to Auburn Avenue.  It’s all happened from market demand and that should make all the libertarians smile.  They should.  While markets can’t be the sole determinant in deciding where aid, development money, and particular kinds of business go, they often rescue downtrodden and blighted areas and rebuild them.  It happened in East Atlanta, Castlebury Hill, and Decatur.

The business and real estate people would be smart to take notice of the theatre company.  By bringing in new folks, the theatre company grows awareness and interest in the community all in a positive light.  If cities such as Lawrenceville can think that way, it would behoove folks such as Charles Brewer and other developers to think about the importance of arts in their communities as well.

Witnessed at P’cheen was the end of the ‘Salsa’ era in local cuisine.  As the population of Hispanic Americans grew in the US, salsa or picante sauce became more popular than catsup.  Then kaboom!  Chips and salsa were on menus everywhere!  Soul food joints had them.  Irish Bars had them.  Even white table cloth restaurants had them.  Taquerias were everywhere.

Now the fad has turned to fade.  We’ve simply incorporated a better understanding of Latin American culture and cuisine into our own and are ready to move on the the next thing.

And what is the next thing?  Curry.  P’cheen made the move because they will selling 3 orders of nachos per week.  Their curry trio sells like hotcakes.  There are two more items on their menu that have curry in them and other items inspired by cultures where curry is prevalent.

Not that Atlanta diners are unfamiliar with curry; Thai & Indian restaurants are all over the place.  Now, however, we are seeing curry proliferate to be come the next staple item on menus.

When Americans think about the national architecture, they don’t think much of Atlanta.

The American Institute of Architects surveyed two thousand Americans at the end of 2006 to find out what buildings they valued.  They don’t value Atlanta much.  No Atlanta building ranks in the top 50 and there are only 2 out of 150 on the list.  The High Museum makes the list at #96 & The Hyatt Regency downtown makes the list at #103.

The poll was conducted by Harris and shows that Atlanta really isn’t on the national radar for great architecture.  There is a certain irony in this as some of the leading architecture firms have started here or put key offices in Atlanta.  The cities on the radar include New York City (25 Buildings), Washington DC (17), and Chicago (16).

We’re in the same category as St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Austin.  Further, the national perspective does not match our own.  In survey after survey, Atlantans choose the Fox Theater as their favorite building.  The High Museum would also likely be up there, but one would guess that the Hyatt would not be the first choice of Portman buildings for Atlantans or even their third favorite building.

Hopefully, Atlantans will wake up to the importance of good solid design.  Renzo Piano’s addition to the High Museum is successful not only for the attention he brought, but because the additions work well.  They made the space better.  They are good spaces in which one can see art.  That is what will keep the building important for a long time.

It’s a tumultuous time for Brookhaven Station. Two of it’s main tenants have turned over in 45 days!

First, Jocks and Jills is gone. The sports bar had been the most successful tenant of that space. Also gone is the 101 group’s representative, Meehans. Though another Irish pub has replaced it, losing two locations of Atlanta’s restaurant stawlwarts raises the question of what’s going on over there.

One reason may be that the rent climbed aout the $25-$27 per square foot that was being charged. Another may be that Atlanta’s restaurant scene now faces so much competition that chains are looking to branch out to other cities.

Jocks and Jills now operates in Colorado and North Carolina. The 101 Group is opening at Saint Simons beachfront location. There is now enough Atlanta competition that smaller markets are ripe for Atlanta chain pickings.

In the meantime, there is now a big hole waiting for someone to fill walking distance from the Brookhaven MARTA station. Though it’s probably not going to happen, wouldn’t that space make a great Trader Joe’s?

Right now, the Atlanta History Center is the opposite of the High Museum.  Both the History Center and High brought a big name exhibit, but where as the High’s other collections were more interesting than the Louvre exhibit, the History Center’s exhibit of the King Papers is worth your time.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… “More Doctor King?  Come on, we get enough of it every year.  I have a dream in which we’re not beaten over the head with this stuff!”   This is different and better.  First, this exhibit does not hit you over the head.   Most selections are from his papers and library.  There is some A/V stuff, but it’s ancillary to the mainstay of the exhibit.  It’s really about seeing the evolution of his ideas through the process of writing his speeches.

The researchers have been meticulous.  They’ve found the books with notes scribbled in the margins which directly relate to the speeches that set our culture forward.  Dr. King was truly a scholar in addition to being a first rate rhetorician.  He drew knowledge and lessons from Descartes and Galbraith as well as the bible and Gandhi.  Those lessons went into crafting his ideas and there are several speeches in which you can read the first and second drafts before you listen to the final versions.

There are also a few telegrams of note.  How they are crafted reminds us that 40 years ago, we truly communicated differently.  Letters were more formal.  People created eloquent sentences to manifest elegant ideas.  Our current age sees stretching the language as superfluous.

However, what we lack in language, we more than make up for in visual symbolism, and the center, again like the High, addresses that through quilts.  Again, the History Center exhibit is better.  The quilt exhibit features both excellent abstract expressionist pieces and more literal works.  It shows how advances in sewing have lead to more precise designs and given artists more room to grow.  It also shows how more multimedia elements have been incorporated into the design.  The quilt entirely made from neckties was especially neat.

Allow enough time.  The King exhibit alone will take an hour to ninety minutes.  Add a tour of Swan House or Tullie Farm and the other exhibits, and you should really give yourself the afternoon; three hours minimum.

Visiting the Atlanta History Center serves as a reminder that although most are newcomers and many have tried to tear down the past, Atlanta has a history!   Understanding that history is important to seeing the underlying currents which still flow throughout decision making today.  The change is inevitable.  Understanding where the currents of change started lets us better direct its flow.