Photograph by Jean Shifrin/AP
Atlanta has no qualms with tearing down historic buildings, and it has a knack for destroying stadiums. Roughly one week after imploding the Omni to make way for Philips Arena, demolition crews laced the 32-year-old Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium with 1,250 pounds of dynamite and, according to a TV reporter covering the carnage, 350 pounds of charges designed by NASA to separate rockets after takeoff. Mayor Bill Campbell pressed the button to ignite the explosives, sending an estimated 140 million pounds of concrete plummeting to the field where the Beatles performed their only Georgia concert and Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home-run record. The site would become a parking lot for the new Turner Field. Nearly 20 years later, the Atlanta Braves would ditch the city for Cobb County, and now, the property is being transformed once again; a team of developers, including Carter, is partnering with Georgia State University to build a mixed-use complex on the roughly 30 acres of land.
This article appears in our August 2018 issue.
