About Atlanta Intown. (Sandy Springs, GA) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 2014)
A LOOK BACK: 20 YEARS OF INTOWN HISTORY Ann Taylor Boutwell t 1994 Bill Campbell inaugurated city’s 57th mayor on Jan. 3. Buildings along Peachtree Street were illuminated on Jan. 27 as part of “Atlanta in a New Light” to welcome Super Bowl visitors and launch the official countdown to the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. • Super Bowl XXVIII was played on Jan. 30 at the Georgia Dome. The Cowboys defeated the Bills 30-13. • The first Music Midtown is held on property at the corner of Peachtree and 10th streets that will eventually become the Federal Reserve. • Beverly Harvard was named Atlanta’s first female police chief. • Peachtree Road Race celebrated 25th anniversary. • Emory University embarked on $100 million building project to build a school of health and new law library. • Olympic czar Billy Payne has an epiphany for a new Downtown park to mark the Centennial Olympic Games. Beverly Harvard 1995 In February, J. B. Fuqua honored his wife, Dorothy, on their 50th wedding anniversary by donating $3 million to Piedmont Hospital’s expanding heart center now known as Fuqua Heart Center of Atlanta. • The historic 1924 Atlanta Municipal Market at 209 Edgewood Ave. was renamed Sweet Auburn Curb Market. • Newt Gingrich was elected U.S. Speaker of the House, becoming the first Republican speaker in 40 years. • Downtown’s busiest intersection at Peachtree Street and International Boulevard shut down for two weeks in August to install a multicolored asphalt map of the world for the Olympics. • The 1995 World Series matched the Atlanta Braves against the Cleveland Indians. The Atlanta Braves won the city’s first world championship, Oct. 28. • Turner Broadcasting System and Time Warner, Inc. announced a $7.5 billion merger. • The U.S. Track and Field Championship was the public’s first official glimpse of the Olympic stadium in June. 1996 Atlanta geared up for the Centennial Olympic Summer Olympic Games—July 19 through Aug. 4. • Centennial Olympic Park opens on July 13. • The new $11 million Muhammad Ali with the Olympic Torch. Martin Luther King, Jr. Visitors Center opened on July 10. • Boxing great Muhammad Ali lights the caldron at Olympic Stadium to open the games on July 19 • On July 27 at 1:19 a.m., a pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park, killing two people and injuring 111 others. • During the 17 days of the Olympics, more than two million visitors came to Atlanta, and an estimated 3.5 billion people around the world watched on television. • The Atlanta Braves play their last game at the Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, which is slated for demolition. 1997 Dr. Albert E. Manley, president of Spelman College, died in March. He shepherded students for 22 years during the tumultuous 1960s civil rights issues and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. • The Atlanta Fulton County Stadium is demolished on Aug. 2. • Cathy Woolard became the first openly gay person elected to city office. • The Carnegie Pavilion sculpture, made from the facade of the demolished Carnegie Library, was dedicated at Hardy Ivy Park in Downtown. • Development plans emerged to transform the old Atlantic Steel site along the Downtown Connector into a new development called Atlantic Station. 1998 The National Black Arts Festival celebrated its 10th Anniversary in July. • Eric Robert Rudolph, who bombed Centennial Park during the Olympics and is responsible for many other, is placed on FBI’s Most Wanted list. • Centennial Olympic Park reopened in March, with a redesigned landscape for public use. • Atlanta’s favorite primate, Willie B., celebrated his 40th birthday with pears, bananas and watermelon at Zoo Atlanta. • In November, John E. Aderhold’s donated $2.5 million to Georgia State University in honor of his wife to create the new classroom building, the Helen M. Aderhold Learning Center. 1999 Super Bowl XXXIII saw the Broncos defeat the Atlanta Falcons 34-19 to win their second consecutive Super Bowl. • Atlanta Ballet celebrated its 70th anniversary during the 1999-2000 season at the Fox Theatre. • Fire engulfed the under-renovation Fulton Cotton Mill Lofts in Cabbagetown, and the daring helicopter rescue of a worker trapped on a crane made international headlines. • After losing $100,000, day trader Mark Barton kills 12 and injures 13 others on July 29 during a shooting rampage at two Atlanta day trading firms. • The Atlanta Braves’ Chipper Jones won the 1999 National League Most Valuable Player Award. • Zoo Atlanta acquired two giant pandas, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, from China. • Ryan Gravel writes his masters thesis at Georgia Tech about using the city’s 22-mile circle of disused railroad corridors for something called the BeltLine. Willie B. Atlantans party on despite fears that the “Millennium Bug” will cut computers and electricity around the world. • Over 7,000 people said goodbye to Zoo Atlanta’s Willie B. at a special memorial service. • Rio Mall at • the corner of Piedmont and North avenues demolished to make room for Publix and Walgreens. • Turner Broadcasting’s $90 million Techwood campus building opens. • Hundreds attended the memorial service for Atlanta Historian Franklin Garrett at Oakland Cemetery. 2001 Trustees of Woodruff Art Center approved a $100 million-plus expansion, which includes three new buildings for the High Museum of Art along with a new residence hall and sculpture studio for the Atlanta College of Art. • Planes are grounded at Hartsfield Atlanta Airport in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C. Interstate road signs display the message “National State of Emergency.” • The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta gets more funding in the wake of anthrax scares. • Shirley Franklin elected as 2002 Two big projects were announced for Downtown across from Centennial Park: a new aquarium and the relocation of the World of Coca- Cola museum. • Home Depot founder Arthur Blank bought the Atlanta Falcons. • Atlanta rapper and TLC member Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes is killed in a car accident on April 25 in Honduras. • A fugitive since 1987 and one of America’s Most Wanted criminals, James Sullivan, is arrested for the murder of his wife Lita at a resort in Thailand on July 2. 2003 Maynard Jackson, the first African-American mayor of Atlanta, dies June 23. • Ivan Allen Jr., the 52nd mayor of Atlanta from 1962 to 1970 who led the city through economic prosperity, civil rights civility and brought major league sports to the South, dies July 2. • Imagine It! The Children’s Museum of Atlanta opened Downtown. • The mixed-use Atlantic Station on the former site of the Atlantic Steel Company opens to the public. • Midtown is transformed with opening of Georgia Tech’s Technology Square on Oct. 24. 2004 The world premiere The Color Purple musical opened at the Alliance Theatre. • Piedmont Park celebrated 100 years. • After 137 years, Federated Department Stores closes or rebrands the last of the Rich’s stores. • Former mayor Bill Campbell was indicted on wide-ranging corruption charges. • The Fox Theatre celebrated its 75th birthday. 2005 Ivy Hall Shoppers flocked to the new IKEA store at Atlantic Station in June. • The Georgia Aquarium opened Nov. 23. • Woodruff Art’s trustees endorsed the merger of 8 November 2014 | INtOWll AtlantalNtownPaper.com
