From the Magazine

Eighteen years old and a senior at Paul Duke STEM High School, Sarah Jane Von Hagen has plenty in common with the Indigo Girls, not least her striking resemblance to a young Amy Ray—a role Von Hagen recently found herself playing, opposite the real, adult Amy Ray, in a music video for Ray’s new single, “Subway.” Von Hagen’s friend Iris Rubin costarred as young Amy Ray’s girlfriend.

In 2013, the City of Atlanta agreed to fund $200 million of the $1.6 billion price tag for billionaire Arthur Blank’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. However, that covered only upfront development costs and did not account for operating and financing expenses, which will be paid with nearly 40 percent of the city’s hotel tax over the next 30 years, for a total investment of roughly $700 million. Blank pegs private dollars at $850 million, leaving 40 percent of the total cost coming from public coffers.

Darin Givens—cofounder of ThreadATL, a nonprofit advocacy organization that aims to influence city planning and policy—explains why this cross-section of Forsyth and Poplar streets in the Fairlie-Poplar District has it all.

Atlanta’s long-neglected subterranean corridor is having yet another renaissance, this time as a DIY arts destination. But as redevelopment looms, the creative community wonders: how long can it last?

West End was named in the 1860s after London’s famed theater district. Connected to downtown by horse-drawn streetcars, the suburb soon attracted affluent residents, including mayors, a governor, business owners, and Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus tales. Though the neighborhood experienced white flight during the mid-20th century, it has long benefited from its proximity to the Atlanta University Center—drawing prominent residents like Dr. O.T. Hammonds, whose grand Victorian home is now an art museum. In recent years, the Atlanta BeltLine’s Westside Trail has brought new development—such as the sprawling Lee + White complex—along with the mixed benefits of gentrification. Through it all, strong local leadership has ensured that the “Best End” keeps its sights on the future.

With numbers steadily increasing since the 1970s, Caribbeans officially account for 85,000 of metro Atlanta’s 6 million people. That number will shock some readers for a couple of reasons. The first is what I like to call “undercover Caribbeans.” There are a lot of people in this city who you would never know are Caribbean.

My childhood at age seven was nothing like my daughter’s now. My world was defined by fire and brimstone belching from the pulpit at Spring River Assembly of God. I didn’t know a Black person, and I sure as hell didn’t know what a lesbian was—much less consider a happy couple as part of my family.

After its 1995 founding, the Delta Flight Museum started holding sales a few times a year in its circa-1940s hangars. “We’ve sold a lot of unique items over the years, including a pressurized DC-9 door, an aircraft lavatory, aircraft crew rest bunk beds, and even overhead bins,” says the museum's director of operations.

In June, lightning struck St. Catherines Island 157 times, sparking massive fires on land already parched by drought. An uninhabited sea island south of Savannah, St. Catherines is privately owned and home to numerous wildlife conservation projects, with animal residents including ring-tailed lemurs, sandhill cranes, and sea turtles. Scorching more than 2,000 acres, the blazes threatened historical and archaeological sites including the remnants of a 16th-century Spanish mission—but some animals may have benefited.

Black Art in America, a 4,000-square-foot art gallery–artists studio–gift shop and 8,000-square-foot sculpture garden in East Point, is intended, says CEO and founder Najee Dorsey, as “a space to document, preserve, and promote African American visual culture.” Dorsey, who is also a self-taught artist represented by Arnika Dawkins Gallery, has made that focus his life’s goal—ever since he opened a gallery in the corner of an Arkansas beauty salon in 1998.