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South Downtown

Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state)Buildings designated early commercial in the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places in AtlantaNeighborhoods in Atlanta
Hotel Row Atlanta
Hotel Row Atlanta

South Downtown is a historic neighborhood of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. South Downtown is primarily home to city, county, state, and federal governmental offices, which prompted the city to adopt signage declaring the area "Government Walk." Although much of South Downtown is dominated by surface parking lots, the neighborhood was passed over during the redevelopment boom of the 1960s and 1970s that resulted in the demolition of much of Downtown's architecturally significant buildings. The result is myriad buildings from the 1950s and earlier that retain their historic structural integrity.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article South Downtown (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

South Downtown
Mitchell Street Southwest, Atlanta

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Latitude Longitude
N 33.750868 ° E -84.393621 °
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Law Firm Building

Mitchell Street Southwest 170
30303 Atlanta
Georgia, United States
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Hotel Row Atlanta
Hotel Row Atlanta
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Hotel Row
Hotel Row

Hotel Row is a both National Register and locally listed historic district consisting of one block of early 20th-century commercial buildings, three to four stories high, located on Mitchell Street west of Forsyth Street in the South Downtown district of Atlanta. The buildings were originally hotels with ground level retail shops built to serve the needs of passengers from Terminal Station, opened in 1905. The buildings are the most intact row of early 20th-century commercial structures in Atlanta's original business district. The decline of Hotel Row began in the 1920s due to the increased availability of automobile transportation and the construction of the Spring Street viaduct, which made getting to hotels in the northern part of the city easier. In the 1950s and 1960s, the increase in air travel led ultimately to the demolition of Terminal Station in 1971.The district is architecturally significant because the structures that make up the block retain most of their original historic architectural character. Several structures were developed by Samuel Inman and Walker Inman, two of Atlanta's most prominent businessmen, and the majority of the structures were designed by the leading architects of the period. They typify the early 20th-century commercial structures once common in Atlanta but now rare because of extensive redevelopment. With Atlanta's massive gentrification, plans were underway to convert some of the buildings into lofts, however these plans ultimately stalled as a result of the Late-2000s recession.

M. Rich Building
M. Rich Building

The M. Rich Building, also known as the M. Rich and Brothers and Company Building and the W. T. Grant Building at 82 Peachtree Street SW (formerly 52-54-56 Whitehall), Atlanta, is a landmark building significant for both architectural and commercial reasons. It housed Rich's department store from the time it was completed in 1907 until it moved into its much larger premises at Broad and Alabama streets in 1924.In September 1882 Rich's moved to 54-56 Whitehall and in 1906, the adjacent M. Kutz & Co. building at 52 Whitehall was acquired. Both it and the Rich store at 54-56 Whitehall were torn down. Rich's closed its furniture annex and moved its dry goods to that building temporarily, while a new building was built on the site of 52-54-56 Whitehall designed by noted local architectural firm Bruce & Morgan. In April 1907 the new emporium opened for business.In 1924, Rich's moved to new, much larger Palazzo-style quarters at Broad and Alabama streets. From 1925 to 1974 the W. T. Grant discount department store operated here. Later owners and occupants of the building were: 1978–1986 Patrick Swindall , Atlanta Furniture Company 1986–1990 Trion-Winter-MLK Joint Venture 1990–? Patrick Swindall, The Great Five Points Flea Market 1998–present The Mall at 82 Peachtree occupies the bottom two floors of the buildingToday, most of the building operates as the M. Rich Center for Creative Arts, Media and Technology.In 2020, the building and surrounding area were added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Whitehall Street Retail Historic District.

Terminal Station (Atlanta)
Terminal Station (Atlanta)

Terminal Station was the larger of two principal train stations in downtown Atlanta, Union Station being the other. Opening in 1905, Terminal Station served Southern Railway, Seaboard Air Line, Central of Georgia (including the Nancy Hanks to Savannah), and the Atlanta and West Point. The architect was P. Thornton Marye, whose firm also designed the Fox Theater and Capital City Club in downtown Atlanta, as well as the Birmingham Terminal Station. At the station's opening in 1905 the military band of the 16th Infantry Regiment played "Down in Dixie" according to a report that appeared in the Atlanta Journal. On May 21, 1910, a statue of Samuel Spencer, who had served as the first president of Southern Railway, was dedicated at the station, where it would remain until the station's closing.In its 20th century heyday, Terminal Station was used by such well-known trains of the time as the Crescent, Man 'o War, Nancy Hanks, Ponce de Leon, and Silver Comet. A veritable rail-travel crossroads of the American south-east, it was a critical railroad link between the warm climate of Florida and the Gulf Coast, and the rather colder, more densely populated states of the north-east and mid-west. For many residents of the Northeast, Terminal Station was the gateway to the sunshine. The Atlanta Convention Bureau released a postcard in the 1920s that claimed that Terminal Station was served by 86 trains per day.The train shed that had originally been built alongside the head house was torn down in 1925. The Southern Railway built an office building next door to the station at 99 Spring Street that is still standing, although the Southern eventually moved their local offices to another building in Atlanta. On 17 May 1938 a five-story Terminal Hotel, that had been built across the street from Terminal Station, burned in a disaster that claimed 27 lives. The station head house was renovated in 1947 just after World War II.After Terminal Station closed in June 1970, Southern continued to operate its Southern Crescent and Piedmont passenger trains using the much smaller Peachtree Station, commonly known as Brookwood Station and built as a suburban station, as their only stop in Atlanta. The only other passenger train remaining at that time that had been using Terminal Station, the Nancy Hanks, used a makeshift ticket office and waiting room in the Southern office building next door. Terminal Station was razed in 1972, and the Richard B. Russell Federal Building, built in 1979, currently occupies the site.The last remains of the station were an interlocking tower and a portion of one of the station platforms retained by the Southern, the former demolished in June, 2018, and the latter demolished November, 2019.