nightlife and entertainment
For a city that spends little on the arts, Atlanta has a surprisingly varied nightlife, and a particularly strong theatre scene. Most of the action is within the city limits, though there are stirrings in the suburbs. Nightclubs can be found mainly in town or in Buckhead, a smart neighbourhood north-west of Atlanta,and in up-and-coming Decatur.
For weekly listings, try Creative Loafing, a city-wide alternative newspaper published every Thursday, or see Friday's edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Theatre
Woodruff Arts Centre
1280 Peachtree St
Tel: +1 (404) 733-4200
Website
This arts complex is home to the High Museum of Art, the Atlanta College of Art, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Alliance Theatre and the 14th Street Playhouse (across the street). Though the orchestra's conductor and the Alliance's artistic director have both left in recent years, neither reputation has suffered. The Alliance's repertoire alternates between new plays and family-friendly musicals.
Dad's Garage Theatre Company
280 Elizabeth St
Tel: +1 (404) 523-3141
Website
In a small, informal theatre, Dad's Garage hosts comedy improvisation troupes and experimental plays. “8½ x 11”, an energetic staging of short plays by several playwrights, iTs an annual favourite in Atlanta. The theatre also hosts “Political Party”, a monthly question-and-answer session with local politicians and pundits.
New American Shakespeare Tavern
499 Peachtree St
Tel: +1 (404) 874-5299
Website
At this dinner theatre devoted to the plays of Shakespeare, the décor is faux-Elizabethan, and patrons quaff British food and beer during performances. The season runs from November to May, with an emphasis on the bard's tragedies (“Romeo and Juliet” every Valentine's Day, for example).
PushPush Theatre
East Decatur Station
121 New St
Decatur, GA 30030
Tel: +1 404 377-6332
Website
PushPush shows original (occasionally wacky) works, lesser-known works by masters, such as Tennessee Williams and Harold Pinter, and daringly re-imagined classics. The small, charmingly off-beat theatre and the surrounding cluster of bars and restaurants make for a fun, intimate evening out.
Rialto Centre for the Performing Arts
80 Forsyth St
Tel: +1 (404) 651-4727
Website
Georgia State University maintains this venue, so student performances are staged between performances by internationally known music and dance acts.
Sport
The Atlanta Braves
Turner Field
755 Hank Aaron Drive
Tel: +1 (404) 522-7630
Website
The Braves spent the last decade amassing one of the best records in baseball, and they are a consistently enjoyable team to watch. Turner Field was built for the 1996 Olympics and named after Ted Turner, a cable-television magnate and the team's former owner. It boasts a wide range of culinary offerings. Getting to the stadium is difficult (parking is confusing and the shuttle buses from the Five Points MARTA station irregular). But tickets are easy to come by, especially at the beginning of the season (April-May).
Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Thrashers
Philips Arena
1 Philips Drive
Tel: +1 (404) 878-3000
Hawks'website
Thrashers'website
Both the Hawks, Atlanta's perpetually moribund basketball team, and the Thrashers, its new ice-hockey team, play in Philips Arena, near the Georgia Dome and the CNN Centre. Tickets tend to be pricey. Note that as the result of a league-wide labour stoppage, the Trashers have not played since the spring of 2004.
Atlanta Falcons
The Georgia Dome
1 Georgia Dome Drive
Tel: +1 (404) 223-8000
Website
In the past few years the Falcons have flirted with success and settled for mediocrity. Michael Vick, the team's quarterback, is one of the league's most exciting players, and the Falcons are good enough to stay competitive in most games. Like most American football teams, they usually play on Sunday afternoons.
Music venues
Churchill Grounds
660 Peachtree St.
Atlanta, GA 30308
Tel: +1 (404) 876-3030
Website
At first glance, Churchill Grounds is overshadowed by its next-door neighbour, the Fox Theatre. But this is a well-respected jazz club, with jam sessions Tuesday nights, and live music Wednesday through Saturday (and occasionally Sunday). The audience tends to be earnest: expect chatter to be met with hard stares. Wine, coffee and cocktails are on offer (there’s often a $5 or $10 minimum in addition to the cover charge).
Variety Playhouse
1099 Euclid Ave
Tel: +1 (404) 524-7354
Website
This large venue, one of Atlanta's hippest, stays true to its name by showcasing everything from punk to country music. The crowd is young, the bouncers fierce, and the restrooms less than salubrious. But on nights when the centre seats are removed to create a dance floor, there's no better place to enjoy a band.
Eddie's Attic
515-B North McDonough St
Decatur
Tel: +1 (404) 377-4976
Website
Only in laid-back Decatur would a live-music venue stand next to a city hall. Almost every local musician has played at Eddie's at some point; many got their start at one of the venue's regular open-mike nights. Better-known bands often play two sets, one at the family-friendly hour of 7pm, and another at 9pm. Eddie's boasts two well-stocked bars and unexpectedly good food.
The Tabernacle
152 Luckie St
Tel: +1 (404) 659-9022
Despite its unprepossessing location near the CNN Centre, the Tabernacle has become one of Atlanta's best places for live music. It sometimes squeezes large acts into its small space; book early for well-known bands and expect a crowd.
Blind Willie's
828 North Highland Ave
Tel: +1 (404) 873-2583
Incongruously sitting in the middle of yuppie Virginia-Highland, this blues joint hosts both well-known and new performers. Get there early, as it is the genuine article, which means limited seating and a tendency to get very crowded.
Favourite bars
Halo Lounge
817 W. Peachtree St, Suite E-100
Atlanta, GA 30308
Tel: +1 (404) 962-7333
Website
In the late afternoon and early evening, Halo hosts Midtown workers enjoying a quiet drink. At night, it turns into a chic spot with louder music and young singles perched precariously on the quirky couches upstairs.
Leopard Lounge
84 12th St
Tel: +1 (404) 875-7562
Website
Don't let the fake leopard fur and oil paintings of martinis out you off. The Leopard Lounge is a good spot to stop for a drink before or after dinner at one of the many restaurants on nearby Crescent Avenue.
Manuel’s Tavern
602 North Highland Ave.
Atlanta, GA 30307
+1 (404) 525-3447
Website
Manuel’s is a fine place for a relaxing drink, but Atlantans usually come here for politics. Founded by a local Democratic stalwart, the tavern is the hangout-of-choice for left-leaning political gatherings and activist groups. There’s a trivia quiz every Sunday night, improvisational comedy on the first Saturday of each month and an annual spelling bee.
Mary’s
1287-B Glenwood Ave
Atlanta, GA 30316
+1 (404) 624-4411
The Flatiron
520 Flat Shoals Ave
Atlanta, GA 30316
+1 (404) 688-8864
Mary’s has become a big attraction in East Atlanta Village, currently Atlanta's hippest area. The bar is usually packed (with a mostly gay crowd), so expect to elbow your way downstairs. Catch your breath down the street at the Flatiron, which is more relaxed and casual, and a favourite with couples, party-hoppers and regulars. The tattooed bartenders are not to be trifled with, but you can get a range of beers and decent pub food.
Nightclubs
Tongue & Groove
3055 Peachtree Rd
Tel: +1 (404) 261-2325
Website
Peachtree's clubs come and go, but Tongue & Groove has been attracting a young professionals since 1994. Wearing black is not a prerequisite for entry, but you might feel out of place in jeans and a t-shirt.
The Clermont Lounge
789 Ponce de Leon Ave
Tel: +1 (404) 874-4783
Website
The Clermont Lounge is an institution among the city's more adventurous partiers. Where else in Atlanta (or anywhere else) will a 65-year-old Cadillac-driving Army veteran tell you his life story? Bring dollar bills: the lumpy, middle-aged dancers sling insults at stingy customers. Weeknights offer anthropological intrigue, but Saturdays are best for a fun night out—the DJ is great.
Cinema
Most of the city's cinemas are boring multiplexes, and art-house and foreign films tend to disappear quickly. The High Museum of Art finds increasingly inventive excuses to screen films (a recent thief-themed month that included “Bonnie and Clyde” and Ernst Lubitch’s “Trouble in Paradise”) but does little to promote its screenings.
Atlanta hosts two annual film festivals, the Atlanta Film Festival, which features mostly documentaries, in June and Out on Film, a gay- and lesbian-themed film festival, in November.
Midtown Art Cinema
931 Monroe Dr
Atlanta, GA 30308
+1 (678) 495-1424
Website
Midtown Art has found a niche screening both mainstream and lesser-known releases, with a good balance of documentaries, foreign films and independent productions.
Lefont Plaza Theatre
1049 Ponce de Leon Ave
Atlanta, GA 30306
Tel: +1 (404) 873-1939
Website
Lefont Garden Hills
2835 Peachtree Rd
Tel: +1 (404) 266-2202
Website
Lefont, a local chain, owns three small theatres. Garden Hills screens more artistic fare. The Plaza screens first-run movies and plays host every Saturday night to Lips Down on Dixie, an interactive showing of the 1975 film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.
Cinefest
Georgia State University Student Centre
Suite 240
44 Courtland St
Atlanta, GA 30303
Website
Georgia State University’s amusingly erratic student-run theatre, Cinefest tends to go quiet for weeks at a stretch, then pop up with high-profile documentaries and premieres. It is a bargain: tickets cost $3 before 5 pm, $5 thereafter, and are free for university associates.
Starlight Six Drive-in
2000 Moreland Ave
Atlanta, GA 30316
Tel: +1 (404) 627-5786
Website
Atlanta’s only surviving drive-in theatre. Movies are cheap ($6 for two screenings) and you can watch in the open air with a picnic basket and a blanket.
Coffee shops
ChocoLaté Coffee
2558 Shallowford Rd
Atlanta, GA 30345
Tel: +1 404 321-0174
Website
Tucked into a shopping centre, ChocoLaté is a sunny, airy spot that encourages lounging: newspapers are scattered around, and wireless access is free (though unreliable). The drinks menu is long, though the location and the early closing hour (8pm), discourage evening gatherings. Folk singers occasionally play live sets here.
Octane Coffee
1009-B Marietta St
Atlanta, GA 30318
Tel: +1 404 815-9886
Website
Several features distinguish Octane: its spacious, brushed-metal design; its location, next to the Marcia Wood art gallery and Georgia Tech; free Wi-Fi; and its menu, with items such as hummus and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Java Monkey
205 Ponce de Leon Ave, #5 (facing Church St.)
Decatur, GA 30030
Tel: +1 404 378-5002
Website
The hip and politically-spirited of Decatur frequent Java Monkey, open until midnight every day. In addition to the fair-trade, organic beans, there’s also wine, beer and a light menu. Two porches host live music most nights, and wine tastings are held every month. The bulletin board is a good source of information about upcoming events.
Aurora Coffee
992 North Highland Ave
Atlanta, GA 30306
+1 404 367-1300
468 Moreland Ave
Atlanta, GA 30307
Tel: +1 404 523-6856
Website
One of Atlanta’s first independent coffee-shop chains, Aurora has two remaining branches, much frequented by locals. Both locations display original art, and the brach in Little Five Points is full of information about upcoming concerts and plays.
JavaVino
579 North Highland Ave
Atlanta, GA 30307
+1 404 577-8673
Website
Small, modern JavaVino lives a double life as a coffee shop and wine bar: wireless internet access closes at 8pm to encourage customers to order wine. The emphasis is on coffees and wines from Latin America, with regular wine tastings.
Hotels
Most of Atlanta's big hotels are part of international chains. This allows for both comfortably standardised accommodation and pervasive blandness. Alas, this is especially true of the airport area, which offers plenty of rooms but little in the way of luxury or character. The discriminating traveller would fare better downtown, in the cluster of hotels on Peachtree Street near International Boulevard, or in Buckhead along Peachtree Road (which becomes Peachtree Street as it winds south).
Unfortunately, despite hosting the 1996 Summer Olympics, serious gaps remain in Atlanta's hotel industry. Certain amenities, such as safes for laptops and mobile-phone rentals, are still relatively rare. If your hotel leaves something to be desired, ask the concierge, who should be a fine example of southern courtesy.
One standard amenity, though, is the swimming pool. Indoor ones are frequently heated all year; outdoor pools should be accessible from May through September. Bring a bathing suit.
Our favourites
NAME ADDRESS MAP BOOK IT
Decadent
Four Seasons Atlanta
75 14th St NW
The Ritz-Carlton (Buckhead)
3434 Peachtree Rd
The Ritz-Carlton (Downtown)
181 Peachtree St
Stylish
The Georgian Terrace Hotel
659 Peachtree St
The Intercontinental Buckhead
3315 Peachtree Rd
Westin Peachtree Plaza
210 Peachtree St
Easy on the pocket
King-Keith House
889 Edgewood Ave NE
Convention Centres
Renaissance Waverly
2450 Galleria Parkway SE
Southern Pine Conference Centre
Callaway Gardens
W at Perimeter Centre
111 Perimeter Center West
Neighbourhoods
More than 4m people live in Atlanta's metropolitan area, but only about a tenth of those live within the city limits. “The Perimeter” refers to the highway (Interstate 285) that rings the city; you probably will be inside it for your entire stay (locals call outside the perimeter “OTP”). At least token familiarity with the city's many neighbourhoods will help in deciphering directions and getting your bearings.
Roughly, downtown Atlanta is south of North Avenue, and Midtown is north of it. Follow Peachtree Street north of Midtown to Lindbergh Drive and find yourself in Buckhead, which is still within the city limits. Other well-known neighbourhoods are in fact cities in and of themselves: Decatur and Avondale Estates to the east, College Park and East Point to the south and Marietta to the north-west. (Hartsfield-Jackson airport is slightly south of College Park and south-west of Atlanta.)
Other neighbourhoods are based around landmarks: Inman Park, Candler Park and Grant Park in eastern Atlanta, and the residences and shops clustered around Buford Highway (immortalised in Tom Wolfe's “A Man in Full” as Chambodia). Virginia-Highland is at the intersection of Virginia and North Highland avenues, just east of Piedmont Park, while Fairlie-Poplar, a smaller residential area, is south-east of Centennial Olympic Park. The West End, south of Interstate 20, sits near the Atlanta University Centre complex.
Bewildered? Don't worry: odds are you'll spend most of your time in downtown, Midtown or Buckhead, with Peachtree Street running north-south through all three neighbourhoods.
Health and Emergencies
CVS and Eckerd phramarcies are scattered throughout Atlanta; many are open 24 hours. Major supermarkets also sell over-the-counter remedies for colds, flu, allergies and headaches, and some (the Whole Foods chain, for example) also carry herbs and homeopathic remedies. Note that all the blossoming vegetation makes March and October terrible for those with allergies.
For emergencies: Dial 911.
Grady Memorial Hospital
80 Jesse Hill, Jr Drive
Tel: +1 (404) 616-4307
Website
Grady Hospital, jointly maintained by Fulton and DeKalb counties, is the city's best trauma centre; if you need emergency care quickly, this is the place to go.
Piedmont Hospital
1968 Piedmont Road
Tel: +1 (404) 605-5000 or (toll-free from within the United States) 1-888-605-5111.
Website
You're more likely to get non-emergency treatment at Piedmont than at Grady, though it might be troublesome (and expensive) without American health insurance.
Getting Around
Subway
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA)
MARTA, the city's main public transit system, has always been unpopular because it is expensive ($1.75), inefficient and covers only a tiny portion of the metropolitan area. (A major track-renovation programme is underway until 2007, assuming the system does not run out of money.)
But MARTA is useful for getting to and from the airport. A ride from the Five Points station, in downtown, to the airport, takes only about 25 minutes. The city can be explored (albeit slowly) by MARTA, since Buckhead and Decatur both have stations. Buses are infrequent and irregular.
Taxis
There is no one set of licensed cabs; a variety of companies all charge similar prices: about $20 from downtown to the airport, about $25 from Midtown, and $30-40 from Buckhead. Sadly, there is no guarantee that your driver will know where to take you, so come armed with a good set of directions. Not all cab companies go to all parts of the city. Hotels and bars will generally be happy to call a cab for you.
Atlanta Checker Cab Company: +1 (404) 367-9762
Atlanta Lenox Taxi: +1 (404) 872-2600
Atlanta Midtown Yellow Cab: +1 (404) 881-0134
Courtesy Cab: +1 (404) 681-2282
Peach Cab Company: +1 (404) 881-1715
Yellow Cab of Georgia: +1 (404) 522-0200
Driving
Driving is the easiest and most efficient way to get around the city, especially if travelling beyond the city limits, and the best way to experience Atlanta as the locals do. The major rental car companies (Hertz, Enterprise, Alamo and Dollar) all have offices at the airport.
Standard American driving rules apply: right turns at a red light and left turns at a green light are permitted unless a sign says otherwise. Traffic generally runs 10 miles faster than the posted speed limit except in residential areas and in front of schools. On the interstates, stay to the rightmost lane unless you're willing to go 65 mph or faster; anything over 75 might attract police attention. Lanes marked with diamonds are high-occupancy vehicle lanes, and require at least two people in the car to drive in them.
The Georgia Department of Transportation offers a website with real-time traffic maps. Rush hour lasts from about 7am-9am and 3.30pm-6.30pm. The only toll road, Georgia-400, runs north from the city centre, charges $.50 for an ordinary car, and does not require exact change. If you break down on the interstate, call *368 from a mobile phone; a Highway Emergency Response Operator (naffly acronymed HERO) will help you get to the side of the road and call a tow truck.
Crime and Safety
In the early 1990s, Atlanta's soaring handgun homicide rate made the city famous as “the murder capital of America”. Things have improved since then, though the perception that crime was confined to the poorer sections of the city was dashed when two men were stabbed to death after a night of partying in the tony suburb of Buckhead.
The perception that Atlantans are gun-toting crazies is inaccurate; relatively few people carry handguns, and you are far more likely to be pickpocketed than held up. Use common sense; stick to well-lit areas after dark, take taxis late at night and avoid confrontations with anyone drunk or hostile. If you visit the malls, try to go with someone or shop during the day, as the parking lots can be poorly lit and infrequently patrolled.
Drivers pose the biggest threat to your safety. Only cross the street at designated crosswalks and make sure all cars have stopped first (Atlantans are notorious light-runners). In taxis, feel free to ask the driver to slow down. If you are particularly nervous, you can request a route that avoids highways. See our Getting around section for tips on driving.
courier services
A Quick Delivery
Tel: +1 (404) 888-9999 or toll-free from within the United States at 877-219-7737.
Website
Speeedy Courier Service
Toll-free from within the United States: 866-773-3339
Website
ATL Courier
Tel: +1 (770) 449-5880
Website
CourierNet
Tel: +1 (770) 953-4600
Website
Consulates
Australian Consulate
One Buckhead Plaza, Suite 970
3060 Peachtree Rd
Atlanta, GA 30305
Tel: +1 (404) 760 3400
Belgian Consulate
North Tower, Peachtree Centre, Suite 850
235 Peachtree St
Atlanta, GA 30355
Tel: +1 (404) 659 2150
British Consulate
Georgia Pacific Centre, Suite 3400
133 Peachtree St
Atlanta, GA 30361
Tel: +1 (404) 954-7700
Canadian Consulate
100 Colony Square, Suite 1700
1175 Peachtree St
Atlanta, GA 30361
Tel: +1 (404) 532-2000
French Consulate
3475 Piedmont Rd, Suite 1840
Atlanta, GA 30305
Tel: +1 (404) 495-1660
Website
Italian Consulate
755 Mount Vernon Highway, Suite 270
Atlanta, GA 30328
Tel: +1 (404) 303-0503
Japanese Consulate
One Alliance Centre, Suite 1600
3500 Lenox Road
Atlanta, GA 30326
Tel: +1 (404) 240-3400
Website
Mexican Consulate
2600 Apple Valley Rd
Atlanta, GA 30319
Tel: +1 (404) 266-2233
Website
Netherlands Consulate
270 Carpenter Drive, Suite 330
Atlanta, GA 30328
Tel: +1 (404) 531-0791
Website (via Miami Cconsulate General)
New Zealand Consulate
75 14th Street, Suite 3000
Atlanta, GA 30309
Tel: +1 (404) 888-5123
Communications
Cell phones
If you can't rent a cell phone (not a “mobile” in American English) through your hotel, you can buy a pre-paid package, including telephone and line rental, at many electrical goods stores and even some supermarkets. RentCell and ICS are just two of the companies that will ship a rented phone to your hotel. They will charge a deposit and a per-minute rate. Cell phones generally charge the same per-minute rate within the United States as land lines, but more to call abroad.
Long-distance calling
Atlanta's area codes, which you must dial before the seven-digit local number, are 404, 770 and 678. All calls between these area codes are free from a regular phone (but not necessarily from your hotel phone); calling outside Atlanta will incur additional charges.
To call within the United States and outside Atlanta, dial 1, then the area code, then the phone number. To call abroad, dial 011, then the country code, then the phone number.
If you plan on making many international calls, consider using a prepaid service like Onesuite, in which international calls are routed through an American number, and thus incur much lower charges.
Operator and directory assistance
Dial 411 for information within Atlanta; dial 1 + (area code) + 555-1212 for everywhere else in the United States. These are fee services; typically your cell-phone provider will route you through its directory assistance, which will charge a flat rate. Competition has begun among directory-assistance lines, with companies like Infone offering lower fees.
Dial 0 to reach the operator; if you want to make an international call, ask for the international operator.
Post offices
Hours are generally 9am-5pm weekdays and 9am-12pm on Saturdays. Some of the downtown post offices are closed on weekends. Post offices are scattered throughout the city; to find the closest one, ask your concierge, call 1-800-275-8777 or visit the United States Postal Service's website.
Ordinary mail within the United States costs $.37 for a letter weighing up to an ounce. International mail rates vary by destination.
Public telephones
These can be found on many main streets and in MARTA stations. Expect to pay $.25-$.50 for a three-minute local call, and more for a long-distance call.
Time zone
Like New York and Washington, D.C., Atlanta operates on Eastern Standard Time (EST). At 9am in Atlanta, it's 6am in Los Angeles, 8am in Chicago, 2pm in London, 3pm in Paris, and 11pm in Tokyo.
It is 10:32 a.m. Saturday in Atlanta, 62°F/17°C
(Forecast)
Printable page
Email a friend
Book your trip
Insider tips
Atlanta's airport
Beat the jet lag
Business etiquette
Communications
Consulates
Courier services
Crime and safety
Getting around
Health and emergencies
Neighbourhoods
Newspapers and media
Suggested reading & surfing
Tipping
Business Etiquettes
• Atlantans are generally quite friendly. A bit of small talk is typical before a meeting. But friendly does not mean informal: it is best not to address your business acquaintances by their first names until invited to do so.
• Atlantans are not particularly fond of hearing how things are done differently in other cities: if you must compare, balance criticisms with compliments. A sure way to lose goodwill is to talk about how much nicer and less commercial the Sydney Olympics were.
• During the summer months, when Atlanta’s heat is at its most punishing, it can be particularly challenging to keep from wilting. Locals, however, will look perfectly pressed and put together. Take extra shirts to change into mid-afternoon.
• Don't be surprised if your contacts lack a southern accent: many Atlantans grew up outside the South, or were told not to sound like yokels as children. Exclaiming over an accent, or the lack of one, is uncouth.
• Despite the above, “y’all” is the inescapable second person plural. Everyone in Atlanta, from the third-generation native to the newcomer who lived in New Jersey six months earlier, uses it. Don’t feel the need to adopt it if it doesn’t trip off the tongue, but don’t react strongly to it either.
• Jokes about rednecks, moonshine, trailers, marriages between cousins, men named Bubba or women named Betty Sue Linda Jean are only acceptable from those who can actually point to such occurrences within their own families.
• A bottle of wine is usually a welcome gift at a dinner party, but some of your contacts may eschew alcohol (ask first). Buy before Saturday at midnight; Georgia does not permit the sale of alcohol on Sundays.
• Take the usual care when discussing topics that might touch on race and politics. Play it safe and ask about an alma mater. Many Atlantans are fiercely proud of the university they went to, especially the local favourites: the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Morehouse College and Spelman College. Atlantans can also discuss traffic, and routes to various destinations, endlessly.
• Avoid scheduling Friday afternoon meetings during autumn, as people may be travelling to see their favourite college football team play.
• Atlanta is far more politically correct than it used to be; as little as five years ago it was still acceptable to hold business lunches at strip clubs. Nonetheless, older businessmen may still take more liberties with female colleagues than their counterparts in New York or San Francisco. If someone calls you “darlin’”, it is better to accept it as a compliment than to take offence.
• Running a little late is tolerated, but try to plan for traffic ahead of time. If you get stuck, try to call from the car and give your location and the severity of the traffic; the person taking the call should be able to estimate how much more time you will need.
• If you ask for tea, especially between March and October, it will probably be served over ice; if you want it steaming, you must order “hot tea”. When ordering tea, specify “sweet”, which can be tooth-melting, or “unsweet”.
beat the jet lag
Beat the jet lag
Atlanta is eight hours' flight from London, four from Los Angeles. Like New York, it follows Eastern Standard Time (EST).
Jogging and exercise
If you're near Piedmont Park, especially in the spring, take advantage of the park's jogging paths. Centennial Park is also a good place to jog (especially uphill). Oakland Cemetery has a 2.5-mile-long paved trail; the Freedom Park Path trail, near the Carter Centre, is not as heavily populated as the trail at Chastain Park in Buckhead. If your hotel does not have a fitness centre of its own it should be able to arrange a pass with a local gym, such as LA Fitness or Gold's Gym.
During summer, though, between about 11am and 5pm, it's probably better to exercise indoors: most hotels have indoor pools and/or gyms.
Relax
Spa Sydell
1745 Peachtree Road, Suite M
Tel: +1 (404) 255-7727
Website
This local chain offers massages, body wraps, facials, manicures and pedicures. If you don't mind fruity scents, try their “Peaches and Cream” skin treatment: a soak in a peach-scented bath followed by a peach salt scrub and a shea butter massage. There are other locations in Buckhead, Cobb County and Gwinnett County.
Natural Body
745 Peachtree Street, Suite 105
Tel: +1 (404) 876-2131
Website
Also boasting several locations around the city (including Decatur and Alpharetta), this spa offers a “Men's Club Retreat” package that includes a “sport manicure”. The sinus relief massage might be a good idea if your nose reacts poorly to Atlanta's high pollen levels.
Cortex
1121 Peachtree Walk
Tel: +1 (404) 607-0700
Website
This spa/salon has a reputation for excellent customer service; feel free to make requests when stretched out for your massage. It also offers a number of ayurvedic treatments, including Shirodara, a scalp massage with warm oil designed to open up the third eye.
Key Lime Pie
806 North Highland Ave
Tel: +1 (404) 873-6512
This spa, like the one adjacent to it, is part of the Aveda chain, which emphasises environmentally friendly products. You can choose from several different scents for a facial, body wrap or steam bath.
Atlanta's airport
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
+1 (404) 209-1700
website
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the world's busiest: almost 84m travellers in 2004, recalling the saying that after you die, and before you get to heaven, you'll have a stopover in Atlanta (and Hartsfield-Jackson is indeed rather purgatorial). (Two smaller airports, Fulton County and Peachtree-DeKalb, serve private planes, but all commercial flights use Hartsfield-Jackson.) It has six terminals: A,B,C,D and T serve domestic flights; E serves international flights. A tram connects all terminals to a central atrium, which hosts ticketing, baggage claim and a small food court.
The terminals are not uniform: A (home to Delta Airlines, the airport's largest presence) and E (the newest and biggest) are the nicest, C (home of AirTran, a budget carrier, and ASA, Delta's delay-plagued regional carrier), the grimiest and most crowded, is getting a welcome makeover. Fortunately, the security checkpoints cover all the terminals, so a traveller delayed for a flight leaving from B or D can easily slip over to E's food court.
Baggage claim, ticketing and parking are divided into North and South. Rental car shuttles, taxis, hotel shuttles and MARTA (as the city metro is known) are available from both sides. Hartsfield-Jackson is about a 15-minute drive from downtown Atlanta during off-peak hours, but if your flight leaves between 7am and 10am or 4pm and 7pm, allow more time. Construction for underground bomb-screening facilities, scheduled through December 2005, has lengthened the walk from the parking and drop-off area to the airport itself.
facts and figures
Land area: 339 sq km
Population: 426,000
Shirley Franklin, Mayor of Atlanta
Languages: English
Public holidays 2006:
Jan 1st - New Year's Day
Jan 16th - Martin Luther King Jr Day
Feb 20th - Presidents' Day
May 29th - Memorial Day
Jul 4th - Independence Day
Sept 4th - Labor Day
Oct 9th - Columbus Day
Nov 10th - Veterans' Day
Nov 23rd - Thanksgiving Day
Dec 25th - Christmas Day
Telephone Codes:
Country code: 1
Atlanta area codes: 404, 678, 770
To make an international call from the USA: 011 + country code
Currency:
The United States dollar is divided into 100 cents. Notes are commonly issued in the following denominations: $100, $50, $20, $10, $5, $1. Coins are issued as follows: $1, 50c, 25c, 10c, 5c, 1c.
Click for currency convertor.
Business hours:
Office hours are generally 9am-5pm. Banking hours vary, but are usually Mon-Fri 9am-2/3pm. Shops are usually open Mon-Sat 10am-6pm; Sunday shopping hours are generally 12pm-6pm.
Economic profile:
Atlanta, one of the largest cities in the south-eastern United States, comprises half of Georgia's population and 55% of its economy. While agriculture and manufacturing drive the rest of Georgia's economy, Atlanta thrives on retail, tourism, transport, and information and financial services.
Atlanta's airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International, is one of America's busiest, and Delta Air Lines, headquartered in the city since 1941, is one of Atlanta's biggest employers. In the 1980s and 1990s, Atlanta began hosting conventions and trade shows, both of which have become a mainstay of the city's economy. The attacks of September 11th 2001 hit the city's travel and tourism industries hard—Delta continues to flirt with bankruptcy—but convention business has largely recovered, and construction is booming.
Other corporations headquartered in Atlanta include Coca-Cola, which has struggled since Robert Goizueta retired as chief executive in 1995, and the more successful UPS and Home Depot. The city's universities (including Emory, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University and the Atlanta University Centre complex) also employ many locals. The city's unemployment rate is predicted to average 5.0% in 2005, 4.9% in 2006 and 4.9% in 2007. Two local military bases, Fort Gillem and Fort McPherson, are scheduled to close in 2006.
A housing boom began in the early 1990s and continues today in some outlying counties, especially those to the south (Coweta, Clayton and Fayette). The city centre has picked up too, as homeowners began buying and renovating properties in formerly unattractive neighbourhoods. But the city still trails the suburbs economically, and many areas remain impoverished.
Historical background
Trail of tears
Europeans began to settle along the Georgia coast in 1733, 7,000 years after the first native Americans arrived. At the time of that settlement two groups of natives occupied most of present-day Georgia: the Creeks, who were actually a loose political confederation of several tribes, and the Cherokee. After the battle of Taliwa in 1755, the Chattahoochee river, near present-day Atlanta, established the boundary between these two nations, with the Creek north and west of the river, and the Cherokee south and east of it.
Increased settlement brought increased pressure for land, which white settlers tried to ease first by encouraging private land ownership among natives, and then by purchasing land and forcibly resettling the native inhabitants. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorised then-president Andrew Jackson to negotiate removal treaties with all remaining native tribes in the south-east. The Creeks were resettled to western Alabama in 1836, the Cherokee to Tennessee and points west two years later. Around one-third of the Creek nation and one quarter of all Cherokee died during resettlement.
• The Cherokees’ 1,000-mile journey became known as the Trail of Tears, or, translated directly from the Cherokee “Nunna daul Tsuny”, the Trail Where They Cried. Four thousand Cherokee died, but about 1,000 escaped the march. In 1868 they established their tribal government in Cherokee, North Carolina, and today are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
End of the line
In 1833 Georgia’s first state-wide rail line was built, connecting Charleston, South Carolina with Augusta, Georgia. That same year, Wilson Lumpkin, Georgia’s governor, chartered three new railroad lines: one to connect the burgeoning coastal city of Savannah with the central city of Macon, another to connect Augusta to points west, and a third to run north-south from Macon to Forsyth, Georgia. With the state’s major cities linked to a growing national railroad web, all that remained was to connect these three routes to a central hub that would serve as a connection to the Tennessee Valley, and from there to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Engineers chose a spot seven miles east of the Chattahoochie river atop a 1,000-foot ridge, and because it would serve as the southern endpoint for a railroad line, they named it Terminus.
Library of Congress
Library of Congress
Atlanta's lifeblood
Though Terminus would eventually become Atlanta, there was little at the time of its founding to suggest it would ever amount to much: it was near no waterway (the Chattahoochie was unnavigable that far north); cotton grew better further south; and even the railroad executive who named Terminus commented, “the place can never be much of a trading city, yet may be important in some small way”. By 1850, however, it had become not just the end of a single line, but the best-connected city in the south. William Ezzard, the then-mayor, called Atlanta “the Gate City”—a bold claim for a 20-year-old town dwarfed in size and importance by Savannah, New Orleans and Charleston. But ever since Atlanta has indeed been the gateway to the south, even though it has always been more in than of that region
• Six years after its founding, Terminus changed its name to Marthasville, in honour of the youngest daughter of Governor Lumpkin. Two years after that, in 1845, Marthasville became Atlanta, supposedly a feminine version of “Atlantic”.
In most other southern cities, wealthy plantation families dominated; in Atlanta, however, merchants, land speculators and railroad investors became the city’s civic and political leaders. Atlanta’s emphasis on trade and railroads in a predominantly agrarian region made it a regional anomaly, more akin in economic outlook and growth patterns to a northern city than to its neighbours.
Atlanta’s rail lines contributed to boosting trade between the country’s developing interior and Georgia’s coastal cities. In 1849 (two years after the state of Georgia officially recognised Atlanta) Atlanta’s annual trade accounted for about $200,000; by 1857 it stood at about $3m. By 1860 Atlanta had become Georgia’s fourth-largest city – no small feat considering its distance from waterways and planting areas – though it was about to face its most trying decade.
Making Georgia howl
Atlanta took a characteristically iconoclastic stand in the run-up to the American civil war, which pitted northern states (the Union) against southern (the Confederacy), which wanted to secede and form their own country. Though Georgia voted to secede from the Union in 1861, Atlanta voted for Unionist candidates for president in 1860, and many businessmen there opposed secession because they feared (rightly) that it would keep investors away. After Georgia seceded, many Unionists either left Atlanta or kept a low profile: Atlanta became one of the Confederacy’s most important manufacturing and transport centres. As the men went off to war, women surged into factory work (Atlanta specialised in munitions and military supplies), and people from all over the south poured into Atlanta, whose population rose from under 10,000 in 1860 to 22,000 in 1863.
Library of Congress
Library of Congress
Atlanta's nemeses: Sherman and his troops
Inevitably, Atlanta’s strategic appeal to the Union rose concomitantly with its importance to the Confederacy. The Union's campaign to seize Atlanta began in earnest on May 9th, 1864, when troops under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman engaged Confederate forces in Dalton, Georgia. Sherman advanced almost unhindered to Atlanta, reaching its outskirts on July 20th. He wanted to take control of Atlanta’s main rail lines, but Confederate troops proved better at holding the city than they were at halting his advance; in August, unable to take Atlanta outright, he began to shell it furiously. On September 1st, General John Hood, who led the defence of Atlanta, evacuated his troops, and on September 5th General Sherman entered and ordered all remaining civilians—mainly women and children—to leave. He occupied the city for two months, and on November 16th, after Abraham Lincoln was re-elected president, departed for his famous March to the Sea, during which he vowed to “make Georgia howl” and to “march through Georgia, smashing things to the sea”. He burned Atlanta nearly to the ground, destroying between 4,000 and 5,000 buildings and leaving the city with $1.65 in its treasury.
Reconstruction
Atlanta sprang back from its devastation with remarkable zeal: by the end of 1865, 150 stores were operating, and the following year it did $4.5m in business, more than it had before the Civil War. By 1867, all of its railroad lines were again operational; this sparked a railroad-building boom that extended into the 1890s, and made Atlanta into the south-east’s commerce and transportation hub, particularly for southern-grown farm goods shipped northward.
Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The aftermath of war
The growth of railroads influenced the city’s growth not only commercially, but physically as well: streets radiated outward from the tracks, creating the odd curves that some streets in downtown Atlanta still follow (the grid pattern common to most American cities emerged in later rounds of construction). The tracks divided the city into northern and southern halves, separated by a smoky gulch in the centre.
As Atlanta grew it appealed northward for investment. This conciliatory and mercantile attitude gave rise again to the old suspicions that Atlanta was in, but not entirely of the South: that it was in fact a “damyankee” town filled with itinerant businessmen known pejoratively as “carpetbaggers” (not entirely a false claim: some estimate that over 25% of Atlanta’s most prominent businessmen between 1865 and 1890 came from outside the area). Atlanta welcomed the Union soldiers garrisoned there, and even went so far as to propose a monument to President Lincoln. And economically, this attitude paid off: by 1880 Atlanta had 196 manufacturing firms and almost 4,000 workers: 13 times as many firms and 12 times as many workers as it had just 20 years earlier.
In rising from the civil war’s ashes Atlanta rediscovered its identity in commerce. It relentlessly advertised its business-friendliness: not just the Chamber of Commerce and the Atlanta Manufacturers Association but editorialists at the Atlanta Constitution all extolled the city’s virtues to prospective investors. The International Cotton Exposition in 1881 and the Piedmont Exposition six years later—both designed to show off Atlanta’s commercial and industrial capacities—similarly drew national attention to Atlanta, culminating in an appearance by President Grover Cleveland, the first sitting president to visit Atlanta.
Jim Crow arrives
The late 19th century also proved an all-too-brief period of political enfranchisement for black Georgians: 37 black delegates were sent to the state’s constitutional convention in 1867; 32 black legislators took their seats in the state Congress the following year; and two black councilmen took their seats on Atlanta’s city council in 1870. But in September 1868, the legislature argued that the right to vote does not entail the right to hold office, and summarily expelled the black elected officials. Shortly thereafter, the Democrats—then the party of pro-segregationist southerners (mainly because Lincoln had been a Republican)—took control of both chambers of the state legislature, which, when combined with the Democrats’ “white primaries” in 1892, in effect ended black political participation altogether, voting included, until the next century. Jim Crow laws, which kept black and white Atlantans separate in nearly every area of public life—and even death, as blacks and whites had separate cemeteries—became ever more pervasive in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The other Atlanta
• Jim Crow was a popular character in 19th century minstrel shows, in which white actors painted their faces black and performed songs and dances based around crude racial stereotypes. The name comes from a song written by Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, and was originally a racial epithet.
Despite segregation, Atlanta boasted a flourishing and active black community. Five of the country’s leading black universities were founded in late-19th century Atlanta: Clark University, Atlanta University (which merged in 1988), Morris Brown, Morehouse College and Spelman College. Black Atlantans, as in most other southern cities, had a near-monopoly on the barbering trade, and some enterprising barbers parlayed their success into other commercial ventures. The wealthiest former barber, Alonzo F. Herndon, owned not merely an elegant barbershop, but also a hotel, an insurance company (which he founded) and one of the city’s grandest houses. Auburn Avenue—dubbed “Sweet Auburn”—was the centre of black commercial Atlanta, boasting a range of businesses and concerns that rivalled any other street in the city, including the country’s first black-owned newspaper, Atlanta Daily World, which still publishes today.
Growing pains
Although the railroad industry remained Atlanta’s largest employer well into the 1920s, the city had commercial interests to thank for its increasingly rapid early-20th-century rise. The population grew from 37,400 in 1880 to about 267,000 in 1930, and in the second half of the 1920s 762 businesses moved to Atlanta. By 1930 Atlanta was the 29th most populous city in the United States, but had more office space than any city except New York. Sears-Roebuck, a department store chain, and General Motors, a car builder, both had their regional headquarters in Atlanta, and, Coca-Cola, the city’s most famous export, had grown from a local pharmacist’s homemade “nerve tonic” into a large and growing corporation.
• John Stith Pemberton invented Coca-Cola in 1886, after patenting such “medicines” as Triplex Liver Pills, Globe of Flower Cough Syrup and French Wine of Coca-Ideal Tonic. Coca-Cola took its name from two of the drink’s principal ingredients: the kola nut, which sweetened the drink (along with a hefty dose of sugar) and the coca leaf, which gave it its cocaine kick. Coca-Cola was not cocaine-free until 1929.
With growth came growing pains: not only did Atlanta struggle to provide municipal services like water and education to its growing populace, but the city’s increasing cosmopolitanism did not sit well with all of its residents. In September 1906, following a bitter gubernatorial campaign in which each candidate tried to top the other’s segregationist zeal, white mobs, egged on by rumours that black men were assaulting white women, indiscriminately attacked black Atlantans on downtown streets. Estimates of the dead and injured vary (the official total of 12 dead and 70 injured is probably low), but the incident hastened the residential segregation of Atlanta: although all four of Atlanta’s attempts legally and formally to segregate the city’s residential areas were ruled unconstitutional, extralegal pressures and informal agreements effectively kept black Atlantans out of white neighbourhoods.
Blacks were not the only minority group to bear the brunt of Atlanta’s prejudice: in 1913, Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman, was charged with assaulting and murdering a 13-year old girl. He was convicted and sentenced to hang, but Georgia’s governor commuted the sentence to life in prison. Consequently, Tom Watson, a newspaper publisher and future senator, called on Atlantans to carry out the original sentence themselves, which they did, lynching Frank on August 16th 1916.
• Leo Frank’s lynching contributed mightily to the rise of two groups: the B’Nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League, which defended him, and the Ku Klux Klan, which opposed him. The Klan—a nativist vigilante group which opposed Catholics, Jews, and racial equality—claimed a membership of 6m in the 1920s, and were headquartered in Atlanta.
Competition for the railroads
The arrival of the car and airplane also contributed to Atlanta's growth. William D. Alexander, a bicycle dealer, imported the first car to Atlanta in 1901, and though it lacked headlights, a horn and a top, and took two hours to complete its maiden nine-mile journey, Atlantans were hooked: by decade’s end the city boasted 35 dealerships. Cars allowed the city to develop away from the railroad tracks, and led to two problems that plague the city today: traffic congestion and suburban sprawl. White Atlantans moved north, developing areas such as Buckhead, Home Park and Virginia-Highland, while black Atlantans headed to Washington Park, in the west of the city.
Atlanta also attached itself to the airplane, which arrived in the 1920s, with the same zeal it had for trains in the previous century. William B. Hartsfield, for whom Atlanta’s airport was named, persuaded the city council to buy an airfield, though many thought it folly. In 1931 Atlanta opened the country’s first air passenger terminal, and in 1938 its first air-traffic control tower. Hartsfield continued to develop Atlanta as an aviation centre after he was elected mayor in 1936, and it now boasts the world’s busiest airport.
The second world war and its aftermath
The second world war brought $10 billion in federal investment to the south, with much of that finding its way to Atlanta: B-29 bombers and munitions were both built in Atlanta and military bases surrounded the city. The promise of work drew rural migrants from across the south, and as able-bodied men were drafted, more and more women entered the workforce. In 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order forbidding discrimination in plants operating on defence contracts: for the first time all segments of Atlanta’s population—black and white, male and female—shared factory floors, just as black and white soldiers fought together overseas. These experiences led to ever-louder calls for racial enfranchisement: the Southern Regional Council (SRC), founded in 1943, comprised an interracial group of writers, preachers and academics who opposed segregation.
Though the SRC achieved little, the struggle for racial equality in Atlanta and across the country had begun. Mayor Hartsfield won black electoral support with such measures as instructing City Hall to refer to black Atlantans with the titles “Mr”, “Mrs” or “Miss”, rather than just by first name, and by not painting the signs on the airport’s segregated bathrooms, so they simply faded away. The city’s bus system desegregated easily and quietly, and an increasing number of companies desegregated their factories. Atlanta’s schools peacefully integrated in 1961, thanks in part to the zeal with which Hartsfield tracked, arrested and prosecuted incendiary organisations like the Ku Klux Klan.
The balance changes
Atlanta’s power had traditionally rested in the hands of white business leaders content to promote the city and encourage investment while leaving Jim Crow laws in place. Thanks in part to Martin Luther King, Jr, a native Atlantan whose struggles for civil rights across the south earned him international accolades (including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964), that changed during the 1960s. As social and legal pressures ended racist housing restrictions, white Atlantans moved to the suburbs and blacks began moving into formerly white neighbourhoods, making Atlanta a majority-black city (ironically, the end of legal segregation did not end de facto housing segregation: the suburbs remained mostly white). In 1969, one year after Dr King’s assassination, Maynard Jackson was elected Atlanta’s first black vice-mayor, and Sam Massell its first Jewish mayor. Mr Jackson became the first black mayor of Atlanta (or any major southern city) in 1973, one year after Andrew Young became the first black Georgian to be elected to the United States Congress in nearly a century.
During the 1970s, tourism and conventions fuelled Atlanta’s growth, which by century’s end outpaced almost all other American cities. Atlanta’s profile also rose with the 1976 election of Jimmy Carter, the first Georgian ever to hold the presidency, and with the rise of CNN, founded by Ted Turner, an eccentric local businessman. In 1996, Atlanta hosted the centennial Olympic Games, which, though derided by some for their blatant commercialism, turned the world’s attention to Atlanta, and left the city richer in stadia, housing and parks.
Recently, Atlantans have begun reversing the residential racial divide, with white people returning to the city, blacks heading out to the suburbs and both groups happier to live in integrated neighbourhoods. By 2000, around 7% of Atlantans were foreign-born, and the population in metropolitan Atlanta rose from 2.23m in 1980 to 4.1m in 2000.
