Newspaper Page Text
CHAOS - -VIOLENCE —T0B1VRE —KID
NA FT1 NOS--BEHEADING' —
/////"
FROM THE TiM£ H£ WAS A SMALL
Boy, ne had But one ambition
IN UF£.
BALLAD
NEO
CON
FCATMUNO rml 6£H£RIC±
COHSlRiklNt tUV ~
Th£ YEARS MASSED...AND EVENTUAL
LY, THROUGH A COMBINATION OF
HARD WORK AND SHEER GOO0^\
LUCK, HE SAW HIS LIFELONG »•
DREAM REALIZED.
BUT ODDLY, THE LIBERATED IRAQI
PEOPLE DID not BEHAVE AS HE
HAD IMAGINED THEY MIGHT.
DON'T THEY UNDERSTAND
ABOUT THE LIBERTY?
AND NOW, WITH HIS DREAMS (AND
INCIDENTALLY, THE NATION OF IRAQ)
in SHAMBLES, there was only
ONE thing LEFT TO DO--FIND SOME
BODY to blame:
RUMSFELD REALLY SCREWED THIS
UP* NOT TO MEHttOH CONDI.*
M - •«
r
A ID Don 't GETME STARTED I
on CMALABI!
AM Z ALONE
IN MY COM
PETENCE?!
next: his lifelong AFFINITY for
THE PLUCKY PEOPLE Of IRAN!
HE DEVOTED HIS LIFE TO J£Lf-
IM PROVE ME NT--SO THAT ONE DAY
ME MIGHT HELP BESTOW Th£ BLESS
INGS OF LlBERTT ON THAT OPPRESSED
population;
6 FLAGPOLE.COM • NOVEMBER 29.2006
NEWS & FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS
A Landmark Corner
Up for an Update
Now that downtown Athens is a local historic
district, a property or business owner wanting
to make changes to the exterior of a building
there has to do what residents and property own
ers in residential historic districts do: receive
a Certificate of Appropriateness, or COA, from
Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Planning Department
staff or the ACC Historic Preservation Commission
(HPC) before beginning any work. That citizen
board typically sees a small number of COAs from
across Athens' various neighborhood historic dis
tricts each month. It's taken a few months for a
COA request pertaining to downtown to come to
their agenda, but at the HPCs last meeting Nov.
15, they saw preliminary plans for changes to a
corner building that many
see as perhaps the most
prominent spot in downtown
Athens.
What corner would that
be? The northwest corner of
College Avenue and Broad
Street, directly across Broad
from the UGA Arch. The
ground-floor corner space in the three-story
brick building there is currently occupied by the
Chinese restaurant Cheng's (China Express before
that). Soon to be a Raising Cane's chicken-fin
ger franchise, the space housed Athens' original
Varsity from 1932 until 1978, when the Varsity
closed in favor the Milledge Avenue/ Broad
Street location.
That corner building, now known as the
College Square Building and housing offices on
its upper floors, was built in 1852 as the Newton
House hotel, later became the Commercial Hotel,
and is still known to many locals as the old
Colonial Hotel. As the Newton House, its saloon
hosted UGA's commencement ball in 1854, where,
according to Merton Coulter's College Life in the
Old South, “fashion displayed her beauteous
wand, mirth and hilarity beat high in every bo
som, and a sound of revelry was heard." Sounds
like downtown these days, huh?
With that rich history, architect/ design
ers Bob Segrest and Chris Evans had a range of
historical versions to choose from when they set
out to draw up a new facade for Raising Cane's
that would work well in the new downtown
historic district. Segrest sat on the citizen com
mittee that worked for three years to create
the district's design guidelines, and he says he
welcomes the chance to work on a new design
with historical flavor. But what historical period
of (he building's history should he strive for?
Segrest says the answer is easy: “The Varsity was
a landmark."
Some of the key elements of the Varsity's old
facade still remain, and Segrest intends to bring
them out: the large plate-glass windows, metal
trim, and low glass block walls. But one big
piece is missing: the massive
horizontal signs above the
windows facing both Broad
Street and College Avenue.
The historical period
that Segrest has chosen to
highlight doesn't appear to
conflict with the new design
guidelines for the down
town historic district. It does, however, come
up against a wall in Athens-Clarke County's s*gn
ordinance, which has been on the books since
1994. In the downtown district, the sign ordi
nance dictates that signs take up no more than
20 percent of the first-floor facade, and it limits
signs to no more than one per business. In other
words, visually dominating that corner the way
the Varsity used to wouldn't fly today.
Segrest says the sign ordinance is “completely
out of tune with what downtown Athens is
about." To his mind, the ordinance that's on the
books reveals a preference for small, cute signs,
mostly of the hanging variety and perpendicular
to buildings—"like Bath, England," he says, or
many American business districts employing New
Urbanist design principles that in part reach
The first attempt to do a
historically relevant fagade
overhaul in the downtown
historic district is underway.
THIS MIIUM WtILB
by TOM TOMORROW
|x donY know why, mother—
BUT ZVe ALWAYS FELT A SPECIAL
{KINSHIP WTTH THE PLUCKY PEOPLE
of IRAQ*
WOULDNT IT BE WONDERFUL IF
WE COULD LIBERATE THEM
SOMEDAY?
The first application to change a facade in what’s now a local historic district downtown harkens back to the 1950s and looks
pretty okay to preservationists, but it’s hit a stumbling block in the city's 1994 sign ordinance.
back to pre-war and pre-car architectural styles.
But to Segrest, that's a limited view of historical
design trends. He told the HPC at their November
meeting, “The whole idea of these downtown
guidelines is to reflect the uniqueness of down
town and not the generic nature of any small
town in America."
The HPC tabled the request so the designers
could work around the sign ordinance. Even so,
the requested COA could become the first one
granted downtown, making it significant in its
own right. Says Segrest. "I really think this is
a great opportunity for us to make the mark for
how all this is going to work. At the same time,
this is a difficult one."
Ben Emanuel ben'Sflagpole com
A View of the Past
Rediscovered and On Display
Phillip Seagraves is the Assistant Director
of the ACC Building Permits and Inspections
Department. He's been with the department 20
years, and is a native of Athens. Hanging on his
office wall in the government building at 120
Dougherty St., he has a copy of an old black and
white photograph showing several men standing
near the mayor's seat in the Council Chamber at
City Hall. Then-Mayor Jack Wells and the Athens
City Council of the day are there. The most for
mally-dressed man in the picture, and the old
est—in fact, the only one with white hair—is
VOTE! AGAIN!
The runoff election is Tuesday. Dec.
5. Advance voting takes place every day
through Friday, Dec. 1 from 8 a.m to 5
p.m. downtown at the Board of Elections
office, 155 E. Washington St There is no
advance voting on Monday, Dec. 4. Voting
on Tuesday, Dec. 5 is at prednet polling
places, not at the Board of Elections office.
Races still on the ballot in the runoff are
for Mayor. Commission District 9 (which
represents half of Athens-Clarke), and
Georgia Public Service Commission District
3 (which represents metro Atlanta, but is a
statewide race). Registered voters may vote
in the runoff, even if they did not vote in
the general election. Questions? Check out
www.athensclarkecounty.com/elections or
call 706-613-3150
Seagraves' grandfather, H.L. (Bob) Seagraves,
who represented the city's First Ward for almost
30 years, Seagraves says, ending some time
around 1950. The old photo was shot at a cer
emony upon the occasion of his leaving the City
Coundl.
What has always intrigued Phillip Seagraves
most about the old picture is another picture
which can be seen hanging on the wall behind
all the smiling men in the photograph. There,
reflecting the glare of the flashbulb, is a large,
framed, aerial shot of downtown Athens. For
years Seagraves has had the picture of the old
City Coundl hanging on his office wall, and for
years—hoping he might find the picture within
the picture—he's inquired here and there about
large old photos that may be stored away some
where on city property. On Nov. 16, he finally
found it.
After workmen finished making repairs to the
clock tower on top of City Hath Seagraves went
to do the required inspection (yes, the govern
ment inspects its own buildings, too). While
in the attic at City Hall—as has been his habit
these many years whenever he finds himself in
dusty old corners of city buildings—Seagraves
asked ACC Facilities Manager Robert Baird if there
were any old pictures lying around up there.
Baird had seen the large, framed photo propped
up against the wall in a corner of the attic be
fore. "Well, here's something you might like see
ing," he told Seagraves. He says he was amazed
at Seagraves' reaction.
The photograph is remarkable. Measuring
almost four feet tall and more than seven feet
tong, it shows downtown Athens as it stood
almost 60 years ago. Shot from a plane just
southwest of downtown, it prominently displays
the grand old YMCA building that stood on the
corner of Broad and Lumpkin streets, where the
Holiday Inn parking lot is today. It shows the bus
station on Broad Street, which from the air look<
relatively unchanged with the exception that it's
not crowded in by any ne'ghboring buildings,
but is instead surrounded by the streamlined,
rounded-off buses of the day. It shows at least
two gas stations occupying downtown corners,
few street trees, and the north end of the UGA
campus, with its trees as tall and grand as they
are today.
Herty Field is still mostly a field in the pho
tograph—which predates its use as a parking
lot. from which travesty the University recently
rescued Herty—although a row or two of parked
cars can be seen to encroach on that small
greenspace even then. The long train trestle
crossing over the North Oconee River and North
Avenue is clearly visible. South of there, a ter
raced field that’s now a neighborhood near First
Street rises to the ridgeline on the far side of the
river.
BEN EMANUEL