Friday, October 24, 2008
Road Trip — House Museums from Atlanta to Salt Lake City
Posted by: lain // Category: Challenges!, House Museums, Marketing Tricks, Road Trips, Shirking Responsibility, Trail Blazin' // 10:06 am
When my mom asked me to help my sister drive to Salt Lake City in November, I took it as an opportunity to geek out like whoa.
While I’m happy to help Susie and her dog Hazel get to Salt Lake City, I’m mostly excited to see as many house museums as possible along the way. I even mapped some out.
You can find the full map here with descriptions and pictures of each museum.
The basic plan is to visit house museums in and around Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver.
If I can find cool house museums in Topeka, Lawrence, and Manhattan, Kansas, we’ll cut across that way. Otherwise, I have not been to Iowa or Nebraska, so we’ll stop in Omaha and Lincoln.
Here are the burning questions at this point–
- Which are the best house museums along the way? The worst?
- How can we best document our story–blogging, podcasting, twittering, video recording, what?
- Will this be the single lamest road trip ever undertaken?
- What do we do with the dog when visiting house museums?
Southern Literary Trail Website is Up
Posted by: Amelia // Category: Shameless Promotion, Southern Literary Trail, Trail Blazin' // 11:45 am
… and awesome. Take a gander for yourself.
We’ve told you about the Southern Literary Trail before, so you surely recall that we’re jazzed to be included. But man alive, I didn’t expect to be so quickly inspired to pack up the ol’ jalopy and hit the road.
But please, someone else drive- I’ve got some reading to do.
Comments: 5Auburn Avenue Podcast Tour With Andrew Young
Posted by: lain // Category: Burritos and Other Fine Foods, Celebrity Requests, Storytelling, Technological Advances, Trail Blazin' // 3:12 pm
The Center for Civil and Human Rights Partnership just released an audio tour of Auburn Avenue. It’s kind of amazing.
For those of you not from Atlanta, Auburn Avenue is what Fortune Magazine once called the “richest Negro street in the world.” The MLK childhood home is there, as is a whole mess of other civil rights sites.
Speaking of celebrity endorsements, your host for the podcasts is none other than Andrew Young.
You know, Andrew Young–civil rights leader, Atlanta mayor, UN Ambassador, and the guy who once gave me his slice of pecan pie.*
Cool, no?
The podcast is broken up into sixteen segments. Here’s one of the shorter tracks–
While you listen, pretend like you’re standing in front of Big Bethel A.M.E. Church.
(picture: Edward R. Canda. Thanks, dude.)
You can download the Auburn Avenue Tour straight from the CCHR’s website, or search for it in iTunes.
* I was 17, and had previously shunned pie of any sort. I happened to sit next to Andrew Young at an event for a high school newspaper field trip. We happened to be eating lunch. He happened to not want his pie. Andrew Young offered up his pecan pie. I didn’t say no!
Surprisingly enough, the pie wasn’t so bad.
Comments: 3The Beltline Begins!
Posted by: Amelia // Category: Atlanta, The Beltline, Trail Blazin', West End // 2:55 pm
Today Lain, visiting chum(p) Heather and I went to the West End Trail Groundbreaking. This is the very first (!) step towards the construction of the Beltline project, which will eventually be the greatest combination of rail, trails, and parks approximately ever in Atlanta.
Here’s Mayor Shirley Franklin giving the opening address, with Atlanta City Councilwoman Cleta Winslow to her right. And an important man wearing the t-shirt I also own to her left. Booyah!
There was a pretty good turnout, complete with camera crews, politicians, many of local folks, the man (Ryan Gravel) who came up with the idea for the Beltline as his thesis project (!), and an assortment of schlubs like ourselves. Plus one man confused about where to look.
For the real go-getters there were shovels to get in on the action. With a camera in one hand and a brownie bite in the other, I was not considered a go-getter, so much as a go-observer.
For people like ourselves who are Beltline supporters through and through, this was a pretty darn good way to start our day. Plus, did I mention there were brownie bites?
Comments: 11President Lincoln’s Cottage Is Opening to the Public, Sure Wasn’t Cheap
Posted by: lain // Category: Big Money No Whammies, Historic Preservation, Really?, Trail Blazin' // 6:40 pm
There’s a new house museum on the block. If by “block” I mean “east coast.”
It’s Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home, the home where President Lincoln vacationed for a total of about 13 months during his presidency.
(Thanks for the slideshow and heads up, New York Times)
The house is about three miles north of downtown D.C., and Lincoln often commuted during his stay.
Here’s what’s weird–nobody can confirm if Lincoln actually stayed there. In fact, he could have stayed down the street, according to the NYT article.
Also strange–those preserving the home did not exactly recreate the home. It’s restored, yet sparse. The little that is there is not an attempt to recreate the home as Lincoln would have had it. This is unusual.
Oh, and by the way–the project cost $15 million, including a visitor’s center in a nearby structure.
Note to those of you playing along at home: that is a lot of money.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Let’s pretend that the pending restoration budget for the Wren’s Nest $210,000 (it very well could be). That is not $15 million. No friends, it is just shy of 1.5% of $15 million.
Granted, they more or less started from scratch and, I’m sure, left no stone unturned. Obviously, we do not have that much work to do. But oh my.
Luckily, the good people at the Lincoln Cottage have put their Preservation Journal online so you may follow their work.
Their website gives also plenty of information about the cottage and grounds, plus they’ve maintained an impressive blog that I will thoroughly enjoy reading tomorrow. Goodness.
Comments: 3Beltline Funding Falls Through, Buckhead Library May Be Demolished
Posted by: lain // Category: Atlanta, Cruel Games, Good Questions, Historic Preservation, The Beltline, Trail Blazin' // 12:17 pm
So far it’s been a dark day for Atlanta preservation and development.
Literally. This is what it looked like on my way to work this morning.
Funding for the Beltline, Atlanta’s proposed loop of transit, trails, and parks, has fallen through.
One man legal show John Woodham contested the funding mechanism for the Beltline, and the Georgia Supreme Court was like, “Dude, he’s kinda right.”
Problem is, the funding mechanism–the TAD–has become an important revitalization tool for the city of Atlanta. Things like Atlantic Station wouldn’t exist without it.
Either way, it’s by no means clear how this will affect the stretch of the Beltline (supposedly) already under construction near the Wren’s Nest. Look to Fresh Loaf for answers throughout the day.
Next up–Ben Carter, the Streets of Buckhead developer, wants to demolish the Buckhead library.
The Streets of Buckhead is this huge mixed use project going up across town. The developers tore down a few city blocks to create Atlanta’s answer to Rodeo Drive.
The library in question is right in the middle of their development. According to a few folks who know more than I do, it also happens to be one of the most important buildings in Atlanta built during my lifetime.
I can’t say I’m surprised, but you’d figure that we’d have learned from our mistakes by now. I wonder how many more buildings we’ll lose before we realize that historic structures are important culturally and economically.
Update: Some save the library! people have created a blog. Go team!
Related: Place in Peril 2008, Beltline Cleanup, Atlanta Preservation Center, Atlanta Time Machine
Comments: 2Atlanta History Notes, January 2008
Posted by: lain // Category: Atlanta, Historic Preservation, Trail Blazin' // 1:44 pm
While they were in town to play the Hawks over the weekend, the Portland Trail Blazers took some time to visit the MLK childhood home, as well as other places in the King district.
Pretty sweet. Who knew there were program directors for basketball players? Neat that since he’s a black history buff, that’s just what they end up doing wherever they go.
Incidentally, the Wren’s Nest has the unique opportunity of being a site folks visit specifically for black history and a site that folks won’t visit because we’re racist toward blacks.
Next: in keeping with Atlanta’s history of renaming, rebuilding, and rebranding, the powers that be have taken the liberty of nixing Bishop St. in favor of the far more numerical 17th Street.
At this point I think they’re just trying to confuse Amelia as much as possible.
Speaking of MLK and street name changes, one of the ladies who ran the Wren’s Nest long ago refused to open her mail once her street name changed. What was once Hunter Street became MLK Blvd. She wrote “return to sender” on all her mail with the MLK address.
Does anyone know if Harris Street was named after Joel Chandler Harris? I’m having a hard time digging that one up.
Finally: Governor Perdue wants to turn the old world of Coke into a new state history museum.
Peach Pundit isn’t so sure it’s a good idea, and I’m not sure if the adjunct proposal to turn the DOT building into a parking lot is (a) sweet, sweet irony, (b) poetic justice, or (c) an unsettling omen.
Comments: 0