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Wl)tAlhmfa Journal "Covers Dixie Like the Dew" Since 1883 Jock Tarver, President • Jack Spalding, Editor 20- - ED1TORIALS SEPTEMBER 21, 1966\ _ ___, OUR UNDERGROUND CITY Will Ghost Streets of Atlanta live Again? By REESE CLEGHORN ATLANTA'S name was changed in 1844 from Terminus to Marthasville. But you may still take a train to Terminus. In fact, you may walk to it. The center of Terminus exists under the Central A venue Viaduct in Atlanta. It is a stone marker a couple of feet high, with the chiseled notation "W & A R.R. , 0 O." This is the Zero Mile Post, and it was put into the ground in 1842 as the first of a series of mU.e posts marking the route of a new railroad b, tween Atlanta and Chattanooga. But this was not Atlanta. It was Terminus, because this was the end of the line, and the city was nothing much then except the end of the new railroad line.

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trucks roll daily, delivering to underground entrances of buildings that rise over the older structures. Many of the old stores are now siborage places. On some parts of the underground streets, light shines through; other parts are dark. When the first Broad Street overpass was constructed in 1852, part of the older Atlanta was submerged. When-the Spring Street overpass was finished in 1922, Underground Atlanta grew again. This building-over process is still being regularly repeated. Walk along the older Alabama Street and at No. 38 you may see a gilded inscription indicating the Lowry Bank, which was founded in 1861. At No. 44 on this old Alabama Street, in the 1870s, the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce was busy, no doubt with an early Forward Atlanta program. At No. 69 people were more relaxed : This was Paul Hentschel's Saloon. IT WOULD BE difficult to find anything that means as

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much in Atlanta's history as this marker. It designated the ter- .. ACROSS FROM Mr. Lowry's private bank, ornamental mination that gave us the city's first name. And on it are the posts stand alongside the stone arch marking the entrance to initials that gave us the word " Atlanta," derived from the one of the meat packers of Packinghouse Row. name of the state-owned Western & Atlantic Railroad. (Gisell Sieburth wrote about these and other buildings ln December of 1842 crowds came to see the first locomo- whose history she had traced, in the Journal-Constitution Magative move over the tracks, and that may have been the real zine last December.) beginning of Atlanta, because the city grew first as a transCan the dark rooms behind ornat e old Victorian-style posts portation center. be turned into new restaurants, with some old-style furnish· ings? Can there be restoration of painted glass now removed, In the dim light under the viaduct, and near the tracks, with- and refurbishing of cast-iron fronts? Will Paul Hentschel's SaIn a fenced enclosure, you may see the Zero Mile Post where loon swing again? it all started. That is what is on the minds of some of those now con"' * "' templa ting this germ of an idea. They think there may be a THIS IS ONE P ART of Underground Atlanta. There ls much chance to convert several underground blocks into a popular more, because this is a city that was built in layers. Now our center of restaurants, galleries, night spots and shops, all in new Civic Design Commission has begun a serious inquiry into the style of the old Atlanta. possibilities of bringing to life the old city underneath.

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So far this is just an idea. The commission wants to deterTHERE IS ROOM for an impressive entranceway at one mine the feasibility for use of Underground Atlanta as an en- point on the present Alabama Street, where stairs and planted tertainment area. This may depend upon the willingness of the landings might lead the visit.ors int.o the old city. Could there property owners and the interest of the public. be a horse-and-buggy shuttle service waiting below, to take Under Alabama Street is an older Alabama Street, an ol!}er people on the original cobblestone streets, under gas lights, to city. At least two and perhaps four blocks of it, with origitial their destinations? street-level store fronts, livery stables and saloons, might be reA committee of the Civic Design Commission wants to claimed, along with some of the side streets. find out. Paul Muldawer, an architect who is a member of IJhe committee, believes all this may be feasible-if there is public

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TIIlS AREA, like a number of other segments ef the older response to the idea. He hopes to hear. city under other streets and viadu0t$, can be easily reached " Every city needs something people will point to as truly and, in fact, is still in use. On many of these dead streets unique," he said, " and for Atlanta this could be it." �