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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
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