Carnegie Building (Atlanta)

The Winecoff Hotel fire of December 7, 1946, was the deadliest hotel fire in United States history, killing 119 hotel occupants, including the hotel's original owners. Located at 176 Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States, the Winecoff Hotel was advertised as "absolutely fireproof". While the hotel's steel structure was indeed protected against the effects of fire, the hotel's interior finishes were combustible, and the building's exit arrangements consisted of a single stairway serving all fifteen floors. All of the hotel's occupants above the fire's origin on the third floor were trapped, and the fire's survivors either were rescued from upper-story windows or jumped into nets held by firemen. A number of victims jumped to their deaths. A photograph of one survivor's fall won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Photography. The fire – which followed the June 5, 1946 La Salle Hotel fire in Chicago (with 61 fatalities), and the June 19, 1946 Canfield Hotel fire in Dubuque, Iowa (with 19 fatalities) – spurred significant changes in North American building codes, most significantly requiring multiple protected means of egress and self-closing fire-resistive doors for guest rooms in hotels.

The Ellis Hotel, formerly known as the Winecoff Hotel, is located at 176 Peachtree Street NW, in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Designed by William Lee Stoddart, the 15-story building opened in 1913. It is located next to 200 Peachtree, which was built as the flagship Davison's. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 31, 2009. The Ellis Hotel is best known for a fire that occurred there on December 7, 1946, in which 119 people died.

The Carnegie Library (also the Central Library) was the main branch of the Atlanta Public Library (APL) in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Located at the intersection of Forsyth Street and Carnegie Way, the two-story building was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by Ackerman & Ross. It was the first public library in Atlanta and was a Carnegie library, built with funds donated by the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was demolished in 1977 to make way for Marcel Breuer's Atlanta Central Library, located on the same site. Plans for a central public library in Atlanta were devised following a $145,000 donation from the businessman Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie Library building opened on March 4, 1902, as the first building of the APL. The building experienced chronic overcrowding issues from the 1920s onward, and it was expanded southward in 1935. The Carnegie Library building was completely renovated in 1950 and again underwent modifications in 1966. The building was proposed for replacement by the 1960s, and Breuer was hired to devise plans for the new branch, construction of which was delayed. The Carnegie Library building was torn down in 1977 to make way for Breuer's building; parts of the Carnegie structure have been preserved. The building was two stories high, with a slightly raised basement and a rectangular floor plan. The white-marble facade was divided vertically into bays, each flanked by columns; the bays contained windows and carvings. The interiors were arranged around a central corridor and staircase. The basement originally contained the children's room, the first floor was used for reading and deliveries, and the second floor had administrative offices and a lecture room. Additionally, there were four floors of stacks connected by two book lifts.

The Atlanta Central Library in Downtown Atlanta is the main library and headquarters of the Atlanta–Fulton Public Library System. The library, built from 1977 to 1980, has a Brutalist design by architect Marcel Breuer – his last work, and his only work in Atlanta. The building was partially renovated in 2002, and a complete renovation took place from 2018 to 2021, following a 2016 vote against demolishing the structure.

The Atlanta–Fulton Public Library System is a network of public libraries serving the City of Atlanta and Fulton County, both in the U.S. state of Georgia. The system is administered by Fulton County. The system is composed of the Atlanta Central Library in Downtown Atlanta, which serves as the library headquarters, as well as the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, and 33 branch libraries.

Davison's was an American department store chain founded in 1891 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was a local institution, and competed with Rich's in the Atlanta market. Davison's expanded throughout Georgia and South Carolina. It was acquired by Macy's in 1925, and ultimately converted to Macy's in 1985.

200 Peachtree is a mixed-use retail center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia designed by Philip T. Shutze and Starrett & van Vleck. Built in 1927 as the flagship department store for Davison's, the last department store in the building closed in 2003. The building later underwent an extensive renovation in the 2010s.

Georgia-Pacific Center is a 212.45 m (697.0 ft), 1,567,011 sq.ft skyscraper in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It contains 52 stories of office space and was finished in 1982. Before the six-year era of tall skyscrapers to be built in Atlanta, it was Atlanta's second tallest building (only surpassed by the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel) from 1982 to 1987. It has a stair-like design that staggers down to the ground, and is clad in pink granite quarried from Marble Falls, Texas. The tower is on the former site of the Loew's Grand Theatre, where the premiere for the 1939 film Gone with the Wind was held (133 Peachtree St. NE, near intersection of Peachtree and Forsyth streets). The theatre could not be demolished because of its landmark status; it burned down in 1978, clearing the way for the tower. The architectural firm that designed it was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The general contractor who constructed the project was a joint venture of J.A. Jones Construction Company's Atlanta office and the H.J. Russell Company, also of Atlanta. The tower is the world headquarters of Georgia-Pacific. Other tenants include consulting firm McKinsey & Company and the downtown branch of the High Museum of Art, which opened in 1986.On March 14, 2008, the tower sustained minor damage when a tornado tore through downtown Atlanta. A number of windows were blown out. It was the first tornado to hit the downtown area since weather record keeping began in the 1880s.The Consulate-General of the United Kingdom is located in the building. The building served as a filming location for the 1985 action film Invasion U.S.A. starring Chuck Norris and Richard Lynch, in which it served as the setting for the final battle between the U.S. Army and the army of international terrorists.

The Paramount Theatre was a movie palace in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The building was designed by Philip T. Shutze and was completed in 1920 as the Howard Theatre, a name it kept until 1929. It was located at 169 Peachtree Street, in an area that soon became the location of several other major theaters, earning it the nickname "Broadway of the South". With a seating capacity of 2,700, it was at the time the second largest movie theater in the world, behind only the Capitol Theatre in New York City. In addition to functioning as a movie theater, the building hosted live performances, with several nationally renowned orchestras playing at the venue through the 1940s and Elvis Presley playing at the theater in 1956. By the 1950s, however, movie palaces faced increased competition from smaller movie theaters and the rise in popularity of television, and the Paramount was demolished in 1960.

The Hotel Aragon was a six-story, 125-room hotel at 169 Peachtree Street NE, at the southeast corner of Ellis Street in Atlanta, in what is today the Peachtree Center area of downtown. It was a major addition to the city's hotel capacity at its completion in 1892, cost $250,000, and was built and owned by George Washington Collier. It was the only major hotel in the city not adjacent to Union Station. A 1902 guidebook describes the Aragon as one of three first-class hotels in the city, together with the Kimball House and the Majestic Hotel.In the late 1920s a project was started to raze the Aragon in order to build a Modernist 750-room hotel for the Dinkler Hotel Company. The plans by architect Francis Palmer Smith of firm Pringle & Smith showed "a proud monument of spirited Deco design, a Modernistic setback block rising twenty floors to a central tower". The project stalled. Instead, the hotel was razed to make way for the more modest Collier Building (1932), though still with Art Deco ornamentation. That building was in turn razed in the 1970s. The site is now occupied by an entrance to the MARTA Peachtree Center station and part of the Georgia Pacific Center.

The Leyden House (1858 or 1859–1913) was one of Atlanta's most historic homes. It was located on 124 Peachtree Street NE between Cain (now Andrew Young International Blvd.) and Ellis streets. The architect was John Boutell. It was an unusually grand and ambitious house for antebellum Atlanta with Ionic columns at the front and sides in Greek Revival style. This was long the residence of Austin Leyden and his family. Leyden co-founded the Atlanta Machine Works in 1848, the first foundry in the new town of Atlanta. During the Civil War, Gen. George H. Thomas, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, used the house as his headquarters. The house was demolished in 1913 after Asa G. Candler bought the property for commercial development. The Davison's department store flagship was built on the site and still stands as the 180 Peachtree Building, as of 2012 used mostly as a data center.Columns from the building were removed to and are preserved at the Old Woodberry School Building in Ansley Park, Atlanta, 149 Peachtree Circle.

The Majestic Hotel was built in 1898 and located at 195 Peachtree Street NW in Atlanta, between Ellis St. and Cain St. (now Andrew Young Int'l. Blvd.). It was a major addition to the city's hotel capacity at its completion in the 1890s. It cost between $80,000 and $100,000 to build, and was the first brick and steel fireproof construction in the city. A 1902 guidebook describes the Majestic as one of three chief first-class hotels in the city, together with the Kimball House and the Hotel Aragon. In 1927 the hotel was razed to make way for a two-story commercial structure. The site is part of the location of today's 191 Peachtree Tower.