http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/home.aspxViews on Atlanta by Rebecca Burns en-usCopyright 2012, AtlantaMagazine-NAMon, 20 May 2013 13:18:52 GMTMon, 27 Feb 2012 21:48:52 GMT1http://emmisinteractive.comIn the Atlanta spirit of rebuilding and rebranding, we're revamping this blog as part of upcoming additions to atlantamagazine.com. All the ATL history and landmarks coverage (plus more!) will become part of a new city guide section of the site. I'll be weighing in on news, politics, and issues in the Five Points blog. Yes, there will be more griping about sidewalks and lack thereof.http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10353278rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10353278Mon, 27 Feb 2012 21:48:52 GMTThis week, Georgia legislators kick off their annual huddle under the Gold Dome. I'll leave it to others predict the session ahead, and take a look at the Dome itself. Turns out the Georgia State Capitol offers a cautionary case study on political grandstanding and cheapness. Before the Capitol-with-an-O was erected, Atlanta had to secure its position as Georgia’s Capital-with-an-A. In the earliest days of Georgia statehood, Savannah served as the capital city. For the next century, the statehouse hopscotched all over, with five cities designated official capitals and other locales serving as temporary meeting places for politicos, as this handy timeline from the Digital Library of Georgia, reveals: 1777-78 Savannah1779-80 Augusta*1780-81 Heard's Fort*, miscellaneous sites in Wilkes County1781-82 Augusta1782 Ebenezer*, Savannah1783 Augusta1784 Savannah, Augusta1785 Savannah1786-96 Augusta1796-1806 Louisville1807-1864 Milledgeville1864-65 Macon*1865-68 Milledgeville1868-present Atlanta* Temporary meeting place How ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10333844rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10333844Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:50:49 GMTIn the late eighties, I had an internship in the internal PR department of the Department of Administrative Services, the “centralized procurement function for state of Georgia government entities.” Yup. About as exciting as it sounds. When my boss wasn't shopping for shoes at the old downtown Rich’s store, she regaled me with stories about my fabulous predecessor, super intern Jenny. Apparently Jenny was not only brilliant, but also tall and lanky and lovely — and fond of shoes. The highlight of my tenure was correcting grammar and spelling on memos from the office of then-governor Joe Frank Harris. The low point was writing an article for the internal newsletter about DOAS employees who had the same names as famous folks. The hardest interview of my journalistic career was chatting up Jimmy Stewart in the fleet management division, who was old and embittered because the only thing people thought interesting ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10319308rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10319308Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:53:26 GMTSince moving into the old Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill, we've spent far too much time on the rooftop deck or in front of our windows simply staring at the skyline. Every time a helicopter makes its way across the vista, we stop talking and silently track the chopper's flight path. Is this going to be an obnoxious display of wealth (hip-hop mogul en route to the helipad at the W Atlanta-Downtown? Newlyweds making a dramatic exit from their reception at Ventanas?). Or are we bearing witness to a life-and-death drama about to unfold as the helicopter heads for a landing at Grady Memorial Hospital? (For a few weeks this fall, there was a third alternative, cops swooping in to keep an eye on Occupy Atlanta, but those missions have abated of late.)When we realize that the helicopter is headed for the Grady rooftop, we reflexively hold our breaths ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10316241rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10316241Sat, 19 Nov 2011 23:12:46 GMTEarlier this week, when members of Occupy Atlanta announced their intention to, Abbie Hoffman style, levitate the Georgia-Pacific Center, the notion struck me as charming — and not just because of its sixties-influenced kookiness. The sheer massiveness of the targeted building somehow made the notion even nuttier. Levitate the elegantly spired Bank of America Plaza? Maybe. Perform psychokinesis on the torpedo-smooth cylinder of the Westin Tower? Yeah, I could see that. But elevating the colossal modern ziggurat that dominates Atlanta's skyline? Even George Lucas would have a hard time with that particular special effect. Before the Occupiers start griping at me again for not taking them seriously, yes, I realize that the tower was not selected as a target because of the unique challenges it presents to the laws of physics. The protestors' beef is that it houses Georgia-Pacific, the Atlanta-based wood and paper multinational that became a subsidiary of ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10307192rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10307192Sun, 30 Oct 2011 02:12:02 GMTCustomers outraged by Bank of America’s new debit card pricing policy and participants in last week's Occupy Atlanta march to BofA Plaza should take heart in this piece of irony: the company that owns the Bank of America building is facing foreclosure at the hands of another banking giant — Wells Fargo. Back in February, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported that BentleyForbes, the company that now owns BofA Plaza, was on the brink of default, and its loan had been turned over for “special servicing.” (If BentleyForbes was a person, this would mean getting nasty collection calls and preparing ready to move from the 1% to the 99%. And, on that note, if there was a person called Bentley Forbes, he probably would have had a miserable middle-school experience, walking around with a name like that.) Bentley F. bought the tower from a partnership, developer Cousins Properties and BofA, for ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10304186rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10304186Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:43:11 GMTOver the weekend, I posted a  piece on Occupy Atlanta, voicing my view that they lack a specific and coherent mission —  unlike the civil rights and antiwar efforts of the 1950s and 1960s. What do you think about Occupy Atlanta? >> Take Atlanta magazine's survey and share your thoughts. Or, feel free to keep commenting below.  http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10303210rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10303210Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:13:48 GMTThis morning, we set out for a walk from Cabbagetown to the Sweet Auburn Curb Market, and decided to detour around Woodruff Park, hoping to catch a sample of speeches, or at least protest chants, from the members of Occupy Atlanta, who’ve been hunkered down there since last week.  “Are you sure we’re headed the right way?” my husband asked as we crossed Courtland. “You think we’d hear drumming or singing or something.” When we reached the park, the only music was the Easy Listening jazz piped through speakers near the gazebo at the park’s south end, where I recognized some of the habitual chess players. Although there were small tents set up across the grass — many of them pricey models with logos from companies like REI and The Northface — the park was quieter than it is on a typical weekday. (I walked past Woodruff Park on my way ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10301774rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10301774Sat, 15 Oct 2011 22:52:52 GMTIn this era of lingering economic downturn, it’s easy to gripe about the obvious signs of fiscal affliction: shuttered storefronts, foreclosure signs, the protesting campers occupying Woodruff Park. And I do my share of griping. That’s why I found it particularly heartening to take part as a judge in this year’s Atlanta Downtown Design Excellence Awards (ADDEA) and to get a behind-the-scenes look at projects that are making a difference in the city and the lives of its residents. It is a sign of the times that this year’s ADDEA contenders were primarily focused on renovation, remodeling, or restoration instead of the glittering new construction or (take for instance, the W Downtown or Russell Federal Building annex) that dominated over the first few years of the program.The 2011 nominees range from a massive overhaul of the Georgia Pacific Center lobby and Hyatt hotel atrium to modest homegrown efforts, like ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10300901rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10300901Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:30:56 GMTYou can tell if an Atlantan is of a certain age (and by that, I mean roughly as old as me) if he or she refers to this building as “the IBM Tower.” Youngsters (and by that, I mean anyone under thirty-five) are jaded by the march of skyscrapers along Peachtree Street and into the exurbs. But when construction began on this building back in the mid-eighties, it was truly mind-boggling. A skyscraper, in the middle of Midtown? The neighborhood was best known for the shabby mansions surrounding shady (and by that I mean sketchy, not leaf-dappled) Piedmont Park. It was a bohemian enclave still permeated with residual hippie spirit from its sixties heyday as the epicenter of the Southeast’s counter-cultural movement. The only sizable structures were seedy apartment buildings and down-on-their heels hotels. RuPaul worked as a go-go dancer at a club called Weekends and plastered phone poles with ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10295913rburns@emmis.com (Rebecca Burns)http://www.atlantamagazine.com/peachtreepanorama/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10295913Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:00:22 GMT