Travel With The Thayers: #70 Atlanta Trolley

#70 Atlanta Trolley

Atlanta gave us 5 fabulous days! We saw lots and learned lots!

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

The Peachtree Trolley entertained us for 90 minutes. Miss Sally the tour guide…possibly in her 70s… possessed a treasure trove of interesting information which she passed along with a great sense of humor.

It had rained that morning so the plastic sides were down. The passengers pitched in to raise them for our 1:00 pm ride.

Coke Cola has given Atlanta a great deal of help. Sally told of many incidents where Coke stepped in and paid the bill for needed services. I was impressed with their community spirit. Of course, Coke signs pop up all over.

Atlanta doesn’t really have an industry. The do have headquarters for the CDC, Coke Cola, the Waffle House, Home Depot, UPS, Delta, SunTrust Banks, and Mercedes-Benz to name a few. They have more government employees here than any where else in the country except Washington D.C.

Mavis our driver, negotiated the Atlanta streets and traffic as only a pro can do. We went by CNN headquarters. They provide tours if you would like to go there.

Next door is the State Farm Arena the home to the Atlanta Hawks, basketball team.

Across the way stands the Mercedes-Benz Center, home to the Atlantic Falcons, football team who is not flying high at this time. The top opens like flowers petals and lay back on the roof in a very short amount of time. The Falcon Sculpture made of stainless steel and has huge dimensions. However, I can’t remember what Sally said, and google didn’t help either.

We passed the corner where John Pemberton used his pharmacist skills to help create Coke Cola. Sally said that Pemberton, who served in the American Civil Way was hurt. During rehab he became addicted to morphine. Driven by a desire to get rid of his addiction he created a beverage never tasted before. Pemberton died of stomach cancer at the age of 57. He sold the rights to his drink shortly before his death. Nothing like this was addressed in the Coke Museum.

The girl with a phoenix stands on one corner. Atlanta likens their history to the rebirth of the Phoenix after Sherman burned the city down.

The state capitol dome resembles the nation’s capital building. Georgia wanted the north to notice it was aligned with them after the Civil War.

Looking down this street you can see the site of the Atlanta Olympics.

We passed the old Oakland Cemetery.

Being an old cemetery it contains a white section, a black section and a Jewish section.

Sally told us a story about the owner of this tomb with the sculpture on top. He commissioned the statue. Then when it arrived there was a tie around his neck. He had been strangled by briers as a child and couldn’t tolerate anything around his neck. The artist had to remove the tie. He also asked to have his neck slit as many Victorians requested.

During the Victorian Era little medical help was available. So you could go into a coma, be considered dead and wake up in a coffin underground. To help with this fear, a string attached to the hand connected with a bell hung above the grave. If it rang, help was summoned. During the day people often picnicked in the cemetery on their loved ones grave. So someone was around to hear the bell. However, during the night a guard’s duty was to listen for bells. From this we get: “graveyard shift”, “dead ringer”, and “saved by the bell”.

We passed through an old part of the city on Historic Auburn Street.

The yellow and brown house on the left is the birth house of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc can be found not far from the MLK home.

The Ebenezer church where MLK preached sits on the next corner.

The new and modern Ebenezer church occupies the corner across the street. Another Sally story tells of the city of Atlanta didn’t know how they could afford safety and protection needed for the thousands coming to Atlanta for MLK’s funeral. The CEO of Coke called the mayor and offered a blank check to be sure the city had places for the guests to stay, buses to get them around, police and fire safety etc.

Shotgun houses can be found in the Southeast. We saw some in Florida and the Keys too. They are called shotgun, because if you open the front door and the back door a bullet can pass right through the house.

This pretty mural was painted on the old empty Peacock Club.

Sally used to come here in her college days to listen to the music of the prominent black music artist. Only Ray Charles was allowed in white clubs. The Peacock stood out as one of the few integrated clubs where white people could come and appreciate the talents of the black artists. Sally hopes someone will remodel it.

This flatiron building is currently occupied by Microsoft.

These two homes were on the way to the Ansley neighborhood. Someone really got into the Halloween spirit. The homes with the expensive price tags hid behind vegetation and gates.