The Kinks, Willie Nelson, and ZZ Top left their handprints on Peachtree Road 17/19
Jump to… 19 things you didn’t know about Atlanta’s past Swimmers and boaters once flocked to a six-acre lake in Grant Park Atlanta was founded on sprawl—and hospitality W.E.B. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk at Atlanta University Zoo Atlanta was founded with animals from a defunct circus There’s a hidden cave in Chastain Park Little Richard and James Brown cut their teeth at the Royal Peacock Atlanta’s first celeb chef was the mother of modern Southern cooking Rich’s downtown hosted annual fashion shows that drew the likes of Pucci and Hubert de Givenchy Atlanta’s first talk radio station launched national voices The country’s deadliest hotel fire prompted new national safety codes Atlanta once had its own “Berlin Wall” Atlanta had its own version of Haight-Ashbury In the 1970s Atlantans hit the ski slopes in Vinings The Sex Pistols made its American debut in a Piedmont Road shopping center Pleasant Peasant brought casual fine dining to Atlanta Eastside Atlanta neighborhoods were almost split by an interstate The Kinks, Willie Nelson, and ZZ Top left their handprints on Peachtree Road Smokey and the Bandit II blew up Atlanta’s most famous roller coaster CNN Center was once the site of the world’s largest indoor amusement park
1975: ZZ Top leaving their prints in concrete at Peaches Records and Tapes Photograph courtesy of the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center
The Allman Brothers. ZZ Top. Dolly Parton. The Beach Boys. Willie Nelson. Lou Reed. The Kinks. In the late 1970s, you could find all of their handprints—and many more—in the sidewalk outside Peaches Records & Tapes, a record store and local hangout on Peachtree. “The biggest ‘get’ was probably Paul McCartney,” says Jeff Cochran, who started at Peaches as a clerk in 1975 and eventually became the regional advertising director. But after the company filed for bankruptcy in 1981 and the Atlanta store closed, the prints were unceremoniously destroyed, says Cochran, “smashed to bits in a single afternoon.”
17/19
Jump to… 19 things you didn’t know about Atlanta’s past Swimmers and boaters once flocked to a six-acre lake in Grant Park Atlanta was founded on sprawl—and hospitality W.E.B. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk at Atlanta University Zoo Atlanta was founded with animals from a defunct circus There’s a hidden cave in Chastain Park Little Richard and James Brown cut their teeth at the Royal Peacock Atlanta’s first celeb chef was the mother of modern Southern cooking Rich’s downtown hosted annual fashion shows that drew the likes of Pucci and Hubert de Givenchy Atlanta’s first talk radio station launched national voices The country’s deadliest hotel fire prompted new national safety codes Atlanta once had its own “Berlin Wall” Atlanta had its own version of Haight-Ashbury In the 1970s Atlantans hit the ski slopes in Vinings The Sex Pistols made its American debut in a Piedmont Road shopping center Pleasant Peasant brought casual fine dining to Atlanta Eastside Atlanta neighborhoods were almost split by an interstate The Kinks, Willie Nelson, and ZZ Top left their handprints on Peachtree Road Smokey and the Bandit II blew up Atlanta’s most famous roller coaster CNN Center was once the site of the world’s largest indoor amusement park