Propped Up
Occupying a cavernous warehouse 15 minutes west of downtown, RJR Props is the city’s biggest prop house and the go-to source for Atlanta’s film and TV industry when scenes call for specific (or downright oddball) things: retina scanners, hand-crank telephones, replica assault rifles, a Huey helicopter, and extremely realistic prop money—to name a few.
Photograph by Christopher T. Martin
Meta Data
Google keeps the details of its Lithia Springs data center—a sprawling server farm inside a nondescript concrete building in Douglas County—close to the vest. What we do know: The Internet colossus has had a presence here since 2003, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into facilities that support everything from Gmail inboxes to YouTube cat memes.
Grave Theory
Conspiracy theorists posit that towering stacks of black “coffins” near I-20 in Covington are part of a government plan to manage an epidemic—or to exterminate a portion of the population. What passersby actually see is about 130,000 burial vaults and grave liners stored at the Vantage Products Corporation’s 32-acre manufacturing plant.
Money Talks
Officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta—a 10-story tower in Midtown—would rather not divulge how much cash the vault can hold. Hint: The Atlanta Fed has enough greenbacks to supply 2,300 banks in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. A standard container filled with $20 notes holds $10 million, and the facility can handle thousands at once.
This article originally appeared in our February 2015 issue.
