From the Magazine

It’s a brand-new year, Atlanta, and we’re leaning into feeling good. Here are five ways to help others feel good from helping the unhoused at Hope Atlanta to helping grow food to feed your neighbors at Concrete Jungle.

Beau Estes decided to be a sportscaster at age eight. The kid who graduated high school in Norcross got his wish after NBC created an Atlanta Olympic Broadcasting certificate program for area college students. By 2008, he was a Turner mainstay working his dream job, creating content for Turner Sports (now TNT Sports) provided to NBA TV, including commentary for an NBA.com “Top 10” highlights reel.

On a Wednesday night in July, chess boards and timers crowd tables at Ladybird Grove & Mess Hall. About 50 people play chess elbow to elbow, and conversation drowns the room. Chess is usually a silent affair played in concentration, but through the Atlanta Checkmate Club, the game finds life at loud, crowded bars instead.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution print edition, 157, dies on December 31, 2025, succumbing to burgeoning digital news coverage. No service is planned. The paper’s survivors will include 40,000 Atlanta Journal-Constitution print subscribers. In lieu of flowers, readers are asked to refresh their browsers.

After nearly 30 years of performing, hosting house concerts, and teaching the traditional music of Ireland, Atlanta-based musician Bella Issakova is releasing her first album. Come in from the Rain, a collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Randy Clepper, offers a fresh take on Irish dance tunes. It largely features Issakova on the fiddle and Clepper on the Irish bouzouki.

Goodr began as a sustainable food-waste management company, bridging the gap between surplus food and Atlanta’s food-insecure communities. In July, the first Goodr Community Market debuted on Edgewood Avenue in Sweet Auburn. “We’re still doing the work we’ve always done,” Jasmine Crowe-Houston explains. “But now we approach it as, ‘How do we help more families who don’t live near fresh food, and make it affordable?’”

A new record store has opened in the heart of downtown Atlanta. CratesATL — a new offering from Darryl Harris, owner of Moods Music in Little Five Points — on Mitchell Street’s Historic Hotel Row, opened its doors this past spring, adding a new rhythm to the area’s growing mix of local businesses. The shop joins a wave of revitalization efforts reshaping South Downtown, bringing music, culture, and community to one of the city’s most storied streets.

Once a month, the sprawling parking lots and two buildings at the Atlanta Exposition Centers are transformed into a treasure trove of collectibles, antiques, and oddities. It’s home to Scott Antique Market, or “Scott’s,” as locals call it. Scott’s is a magical place brimming with vintage lighting, colorful artwork, exquisite furniture, Persian rugs, gleaming pieces of silver, and anything else you might be looking for—or never imagined buying.

Agnes Scott College now houses about half of the Amphibian Foundation’s animals, including its vulnerable and endangered species, while a public-facing center in Decatur Legacy Park boasts exhibition space, a gift shop, an auditorium, and a community research laboratory. On December 5, the organization will host an open house with activities, live amphibians, and tours of the new space.

Stan Sugarman is only half-joking when he says there isn’t much left of the original Atlanta Motel building. After a yearlong renovation, the once-derelict Reynoldstown motel, nestled between Moreland Avenue and an I-20 on-ramp, is now home to an affordable housing complex named The Ralph David House.