City trashing thread. Target: ATLANTA

Where'd you go?

Atlanta is Detroit with a slightly better economy.

Honestly, if the Chinese nuked Detroit, Atlanta and Chicago today and wiped them off the maps, I wouldn't miss them.

I went to the Atlanta Botanic Garden and Piedmont Park. Both were very beautiful but it only took about three hours to see the highlights and after that there was nothing else to see.

I was hoping to walk around some neighborhoods and see shops, cafes and local color, but apparently they don't have that there.

Well there's your problem. Piedmont Park and the ABC are right next to each other. You missed the rest of Midtown, Buckhead, the booming Westside, Decatur, etc. To be fair, if you weren't driving some of these areas would have been a little difficult to access. But seriously, there is a lot more to the city than where you visited. Anyone can find something to do in a metro of nearly 6 million people.

I've never been to Atlanta but I'm guessing that your research was inadequate.

Atlanta has a very efficient airport. Dare I say it, very friendly and helpful?

I was impressed with the helpful nature of the airport staff. Is the city as nice as those folks? If so, sounds like a great place to live.

I don't think I'd want to live there, but I always enjoy visiting Atlanta. I think it's a beautiful city. I know everyone has their own preferences, but I'm always surprised people hate it so much.

Little Five Points is a fun neighborhood stroll, though, again, it probably won't take you that long as it's not that big. And, while the train does go there, I'm not sure how easy/fast the trip is.

You big dummy!

You could gone to the world-famous Cyclorama!

Close by is the cemetery where Mawgrut Michull is inturred.

I go annually. I was just like you, OP, always grumbling about how much I hate it there until my boss recommended I rent a car, even at my own expense. I do now and I manage to have a great time.

My most recent trip I discovered and visited the American Shakespeare Tavern, (hearty cheap food and a decent production of Much Ado About Nothing), and finally visited the High Museum of Art, which featured a visiting exhibit from NY's MoMA. I also saw the Stephen King/John Mellencamp show at the Alliance Theater. I also finally made it to Mary Mac's Tea Room, which is famous for a reason.

A couple years ago, I visited the Geogria Aquarium, which is really great.

I also managed to finally find some decent grown-up naughty fun.

Atlanta is a more horizontal, spread out city than I am used to. But once you scratch the surface you can find some gems.

I live in Atlanta. Trust me, stay away from this beat down, international wannabe, strip mall hole. It's predominately black, and girl do they have a bad attitude. If you aint a racist, you will become one after spending a week-end here. The gays are all drunks and a bit on the ugly side. This is a place where everyone wants to be someting, but they are too lazy to put forth the effort to become what they want to be (read, mediocrity). The place is full of shameless self promotion. I retire next year, off the NYC/Miami for me. PS, it's about 10 years behind so everyone takes drugs and dances in A&F clothing. Try buying Thom Browne is this town.

R2, I think Houston holds that title.

Not for nothing, r10, but you sound wasted at 11:46 am.

I also live in Atlanta and if you have a car and some idea of how to navigate, it's a great city.

R10, I also have enough black friends to know that they can spot a racist immediately. It's some microexpression racists do upon seeing a black person. You're doing it therefore they don't respect you or treat you with respect. So it's a chicken/egg situations for racists. I don't have the microexpression so I'm always treated decently by everyone except assholes who are going to be assholes no matter what the situation.

I went to the Varsity with a couple of friends, and then to the Hermes boutique and bought an Atlas bag. Sublime, meet Ridiculous (and you can interpret that any way you want).

OP, it's because you are ignorant. Literally. Seriously. Ignorant people miss out on a lot of life.

R13, let me guess:

You are in your late 20s

Rent at Ansley with a roommate

Do crystal

Drink heavily

Have a Downs Syndrome expresion which is commonly mistaken as welcoming

Grew up in south GA and have never been further north than Dollywood

Have HIV, since all of your black frinds are colonizers

MARTA = Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta

Hundreds of little white kids ride Marta everyday (without accompaniment) to their posh private school in College Park. If you're ever heading to the airport early in the morning on a weekday you'll see it.

Um, no I'm a straight white lady (late 30s) with friends from all walks of life. I've lived in Cabbagetown, East Grant Park, Reynold's City, Decatur and Lake Claire. I don't have a "Downs" expression but I'm not a dick and have been known to smoke pot occasionally.

I know many pedos who ride to College Park just to see them in their cute little outfits. Try riding east/west and see what you get. Hell, drive down Peachtree @ 10pm on Saturday. You'll see hoochie mamas crunking in the trunks of cars. All my friends live in Newport RI.

R19, simple analysis based upon facts you provided... You're just poor. Sorry you've missed out on the better things in life. Now get back to your soap before you miss one of those Montlick & Montlick commercials, cause you gonna need that workers comp settleMENT when this economy crashes. How's your caseworker doing?

Really interesting audio-cast on downtown Atlanta after the Conference of New Urbanism : The Horror of Downtown Atlanta ,including the history of the residents,where they came from and who they are today.

Many of the "sights" listed by previous posters are mentioned in this program and despite the title there are positive comments as well - though not many.

Omg there is a sad loon on the loose in this thread.

There are no loons in Atlanta, only gnats

I lived there '97-'03, first in Sandy Springs, then in Decatur (the most heavily taxed 8 square miles in all of Georgia).

Got the hell out as soon as I could find a financial way to escape the city.

Traffic -- beyond horrendous, headed into ridiculous

City government -- what's a term for black "good ole boys?" Same as white good ole boys, only black.

Cost of living -- w-a-y too much for what you get

Got sick of ozone attainment laws/regs and fucking droughts (water restrictions).

Nasty, mean people from all over, all seemingly on the make. BUT -- native Atlantans/Georgians, though pretty rare, seemed to be decent folks.

Didn't not know a SOUL who intended to live there in retirement; everyone wanted out at some point.

Atlanta, with all its faults, is still better than Dallas **any day of the week.**

Why is southwest airlines pushing their promo about cheap flights to Atlanta? It's unending. I've been told that it's a drinkers town, so forget enjoying the city sober.

[quote]Atlanta, with all its faults, is still better than Dallas **any day of the week.**

This goes without saying. Dallas completely blows. Anyone who likes Dallas is a person you don't want to get to know.

If you don't want to listen to the audio-cast @ R22 here's the accompanying photo tour.

Try this Go to any gay club in Atlanta and ask a queen what he thinks of Joyce Carol Oates, then watch his expression. Be careful though, you may get a strawberry margarita thrown on you.

Try this before you go all politically correct, civic promoting on Atlanta: Go to Lenox Square Saturday at 7 pm. Then post Sunday. I'll be interested to see your impressions.

I hate Atlanta, but the troll on this thread is racist and quite nuts.

Hey, it's the troll. Come on down to the ATL (bet you think that's racist too), and I'll introduce you to some of the fine upstanding gay white folk, like Mr Phillip Rafshoon. He's the freak who owned Outwrite and ripped off midtown to the tune of half a million dollars. I think he's jewish too, so you can now call me anti-semite. It's not about black, jew, gay or any other group. It's the DNA of Atlanta that's the issue-- it's a tired southern town trying to sell itself as something it's not that's the issue. Guess you guys have all been duped by the marketing crap. Can I offer you a hand crafted, locally sourced lemonade to go with your Fulton County chamber of commerce manure.

While OP might suffer from a deficit of imagination or preparation, Atlanta always struck me as one of those cities that is perhaps a better place to live than a destination. It certainly doesn't put all of its charms in the same small basket labeled: "Artsy, Quaint, Touristic, Hip Neighborhood Vibe, Old Towne Shopping District (with Local Color)."

It is a well known fact that Atlanta is the Paris of the Western Hemishpere.

[quote]Atlanta is Detroit with a slightly better economy.

No, baby...

Memphis is Detroit with a slightly better economy.

Atlanta is Heaven on Earth compared to Memphis.

I lived there and planned to stay. Yes: 1) fierce corruption; 2) fierce crime; 3) crime the leading economic sector; 4) lack of sewers and roads; 5) Republicans and antigay bigots; 6) unbelievably persistent racism; but I would crank up the tunes and roll down the surface streets through pretty forested neighborhoods in my 22 mile daily trek to the office. I guess I didn't require paradise, and something to fight over is probably necessary to the declining years. But....life intervened and took me away. And most of my friends so I have no reason to go back.

I'm listening to him. He's wrong about why there are so many blank walls in downtown in Atl. It's not fear of blacks, who did not dominate downtown in the sixties and seventies. It was modernism. Those hotel ballrooms didn't need windows. Neither did little malls like Peachtree Center.

The anti-Atlanta troll has lost her mind.

Lots of factual errors.

New South dated from 1870s, not the 1940s. Many Atlanta companies were homegrown, not really that many transplants.

People do live in downtown Atlanta, the whole historic downtown is condos and Georgia State apartments, but this guy didn't even recognize Marietta St. as the historic main street of Atlanta, not Peachtree.

Some great lines though "Living in the South for half the year is like living in a dog's mouth"

I lived there and didn't love it but Jesus, some people are unhinged here. Atlanta is the Capital of the South, for whatever that is worth.

Like r25, I live in Decatur. Druid Hills to be exact. My house was built in the 20s to last. Most of the homes have these "carports" on the left side of the house that connects to the front of the house, so people can be let out. Then you pull through to the back where the detached garage/carriage houses are located.

In my little section, we all get prior notice if someone wants to sell. Sometime realtors don't even put up signs. We have lots of medical and law professionals in the neighborhood. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

R41, how big are the bugs? I've heard that the Atlanta roaches rival airliners.

Here's the word you don't know, R41.

Loved your neighborhood -- couldn't afford it.

I used Lullwater and the By-Way on my way to work everyday.

So, which one of you bitches set fire to Tyler Perry's studio?

I lived there for a few years in a "historic" (ie 1930s) 2-story rowhouse on a leafy side street in Midtown with a tiny backyard. This was walking distance to work in a big skyscraper on Peachtree, and also walking distance to Piedmont Park (concerts, decent landscaping) and to several gay bars and restaurants. $800/month.

Best things about Atlanta: Mary's in East Atlanta, Swinging Richards and other assorted sordid nightlife. The people - lots of cruft, but really good circles of friends, including artists and intellectuals. The trees. Cost of housing.

Worst things: the urban environment and sprawl, poor public services, segregation (even with gay bars), heat and humidity June-September, a long way from anywhere else.

Neutral: "the South" (which is Atlanta adjacent) really is a different country. Car culture (let's face it, that's 95% of the US)

r42: to remind me to never move back, I saved a mosquito in a ziploc bag. no lie, it fills most of the bag (this was an exceptionally large one).

there are also outdoor cockroaches which are euphemistically called "palmetto bugs" or some hokum.

Midtown also has a rat problem - I was already packing my bags when my place got infested (scurrying inside the walls, and oh my "rotting rat" is a smell that Demeter is unlikely to reproduce anytime soon)

My son lived in a high end high rise in the heart of Midtown. It always amazed me that you could walk outside in the middle of the day and the sidewalks were absolutely empty except for the occasional drunk.

If you pulled out of his garage at 11 at night, you'd see the hookers standing on the corner. The cops never did a thing about it.

The only positive things about Atlanta are good restaurants and a reasonable cost of living.

A typical house in R41's neighborhood

Atlanta has Cadillac Kimberley !!!!

{quote]Honestly, if the Chinese nuked Detroit, Atlanta and Chicago today and wiped them off the maps, I wouldn't miss them

Racist

[R45] Mary's? Mary! Mary's is just a front for a crystal and coke clearinghouse.

P.S. E'erybody up in here is racist/hateful toward some group.

I'm still convinced you can dislike Atlanta AND hold your last shreds of sanity together, but this thread is causing me to have doubts.

Atlanta is so, well...you know. Yuck. Nowhere. Too many peaches, to little culture.

r42, like most people in the south, we have an exterminator come in. And I believe you are speaking of what we call palmetto bugs. Those are not really roaches, but they are bigger and just as gross. The fire ants can be bad here too.

Thank you r43! We had to replace the roof on it last year. Spanish tile is expensive!

Twenty years ago, we converted part of the carriage house into a studio apartment. We usually have an Emory student residing there September through May.

You sure that was a mosquito and not a dragonfly?

What is "cruft"?

at least they have a subway

R16=Trolley Square queen. Has binoculars for checking out muscle hotties at the pool but always wears a Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants, white socks, and Birkenstocks himself. Once gave a black homeless lady $20 in Piedmont Park and thinks he's Laura Spelman now.

who was the DL regular who lived in Atlanta and would post how often his house had been broken into - and was on the verge of throing in the towel and moving away?

r46, if it was that big and looked like a mosquito it was a mosquito hawk. they don't suck blood and their larvae eat the larvae of blood-sucking mosquitoes. don't kill 'em.

That was Zack.

I had a moving time at the MLK boyhood home and attended a service at the Ebenezer baptist church. Ended up Coretta Scott King and Martin the son sat next to me. Coretta and the son were BEAUTIFUL.

mystery solved! aka the "crane fly". you can understand that a startled Yankee may not ask a lot of taxonomy questions when this thing is flying around the bedroom.

for r56

Atlanta has Funky Dineva!!!

Atlanta public access TV, a DL classic

Zak

[quote]who was the DL regular who lived in Atlanta and would post how often his house had been broken into - and was on the verge of throing in the towel and moving away?

He's dead.

R63

I grew up calling those flying insects "Daddy Long Legs" but I don't hear that term much anymore.

These days I usually hear them called "Mosquito Hawks."

They don't bite, they don't do anything really except get in your house when you open a door and then they bounce around the room till they die a few hours later.

They're gone in a week or so, never to return till the same time the following year.

Now ask me about Love Bugs --- shee-it!

How do I know if a lightning quick centipede in my apartment (which appears to have eaten all the spiders) is the poisonous kind I should be killing or a harmless friendly kind?

Taste it, R70. The mean ones are sort of sweet.

Bitches, please. I am NOT dead.

I am still here in the ATL and just celebrated my 6th year being here.

Now that the break-ins to our house have stopped, I am a much happier Atlantan.

For all it's problems (CRIME!) this crazy city has grown on me. I think Julia Sugarbaker said it best: "We don't hide our CRAZY people in the attic, here in Atlanta--we bring them down to meet company. No one asks IF there are crazy people in your family, they just ask which side they are on." I do so fit in here.

Then there's our house -- a 1930's brick bungalow, with three working fireplaces, wood floors, a deck and a huge backyard that is unimaginable in most urban cities.

Like San Diego, most of the residents are from somewhere else which is sort of funny.

Will I spend the rest of my days here? I have no idea. But it's got some fun people and some damn nice ones too.

Squirt.org lists 31 bookstore, bars and cruising areas in Atlanta.

Here is a comment on the page for the Love Shack on Jimmy Carter Blvd:

"No gloryholes here. If you are over 40, no dick for you either. May be different in the evenings, but during the day, guys only looking for young latino bois to suck off."

This is an old thread but I needed to complain.

Atlanta is lovely city but the overcrowding in and around Atlanta, is insane.

As far as I can see, Atlanta is booming.

Atlanta is a mess (1 million homes with no sewers! sprawling area larger than Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts combined!) but if you can't understand the appeal of the place, then you are ill-equipped to talk to redstate America.

I think it's beautiful but a few weeks ago, I couldn't get into neighborhood restaurants (in the middle of the week) and the traffic is unbelievable. Seems like $20 dollars anywhere you park and forget going to a mall around Christmas, it won't happen.

Unrelenting suburban sprawl.

A cultural wasteland.

Marginal dining establishments.

A pretentious, sad gay scene.

An out of control, low rent ghetto factor.

White trash run amok.

Yup....Atlanta has it all!

Let's target NYC by far the most loathsome city in terms of its hovel dwellers.

R77 So are you saying Atlanta is like L.A.?

I don't find the gay scene pretentious or sad.

I lived in Atlanta off Peachtree on Collier Place. One time I went dancing at Backstreet and I woke up the next morning in a caftan on some guy's couch in Doraville with a tattoo on my ass.

I'll never go back there again.

Does anyone have access to that TV commercial showed in Atlanta in the 70s about the drugstore on Piedmont Avenue. It was filmed in the 50s with some fat frau in pearls and white gloves and the commercial talked about the drugstore on Piedmont and how they had Nunnally candies?

I didn't like the vibe or the energy in Atlanta. I know this sounds silly, but I traveled around there for several days, going to different neighborhoods and checking out different restaurants and shops and sights. It just seemed like a combination of up-tight "look at us" (which I can get in Chicago with a lot more to do there) and a depressed, slummy feeling intermingled with the better areas that are interchangeable with any other dull and insular city.

No thanks.

I think the M.L. King-related things were the most off-putting. Seedy and/or too much money for too little, with a creepy self-regard and the smell of the family grabbing bucks and attention. Love the church. The grave site is peculiarly tacky, but then so are a lot of president's graves.

I preferred the Memphis approach to Dr. King's legacy.

[quote] No gloryholes here. If you are over 40, no dick for you either. May be different in the evenings, but during the day, guys only looking for young latino bois to suck off."

If you are over 40, no dick for you. That's hilarious

Maybe to you.

The shitty part about Atlanta is that it attracts every gay Yoo-Hah from every farm in 6 neighboring states. The gay population is a bunch of illiterate bumpkins with bad teeth in leather.

r82 Search for Plaza Drugs on YouTube.

Obviously r86, is wrong and even ridiculous.

Skating in midtown

What I don't get is how these pet people managed to hijack AIDS fundraising as opposed to things PWAs actually need.

This is what they do for people with HIV/AIDS? Dump shelter dogs on them?

This was the main community of activity of most gay Atlantans over 40. PALS Bingo.

The traffic is horrific. I lived there years ago and kind of loved it, but I'd never move back. Too big, too self-congratulatory, and the Oxford Bookstore is long gone.

[quote]I was hoping to walk around some neighborhoods and see shops, cafes and local color, but apparently they don't have that there.

That is Atlanta in a nutshell. Other cities are comprised of neighborhoods. Atlanta is largely a series of suburbs connected by interstate highways.

Virginia-Highland and Little Five Points have that a little bit R92, although technically the main walkable area is downtown Decatur, a suburb, which however has cred as county seat and being settled 12 years before Atlanta.

[quote]Atlanta is largely a series of suburbs connected by interstate highways.

This really isn't true at all.

There are a lot of things for which Atlanta deserves to be criticized, but this one is off the mark.

Well in the sense that it doesn't have a lot of interstate highways, certainly not the mileage needed for the area, that is true R94. But Atlanta is highly suburban in character, even in the central areas.

"The traffic is horrific."

What's the public transportation like? If there ever was a city which could benefit from a comprehensive system.

Atlanta is such a low density that the best public transit it could have would be minivan routes and carshare nodes instead of buses and trains.

"What's the public transportation like?"

The train is good (it actually covers a lot of the city. Not nearly enough, but a lot). The bus is a nightmare. Many people do manage to live here without a car, though it's a challenge.

When I lived in New Orleans in the early 90s, every weekend would see an influx of Atlanta queens with their polished hair and polo shirts.

They would spend happy hour drinking Greyhounds and Codders going on and on about how great and superior everything in Atlanta was. I would always ask them, "So, why ARE YOU HERE?".

They thought I was the rude one.

Roadways around Atlanta in gridlock for 12 hours. If that goddamn mayor is not fired...I'd sure like to know why NOT.

Mayor Bitchface's only priority is higher office and manipulating the plebes of the city, to whom he has zero connection or empathy. Nothing is his fault and he'll pursue his lips and publicly pout if one intimates his many failures.

He is the embodiment of a piece of shit.

Oh, and the city is like a third world country tonight. People sleeping in their cars, women having babies in their cars and Home Depots providing shelter to people who can't get home.

Don't forget the fat, good-ole-boy governor, either.

I simply can't get on board with this thread. I LOVE Atlanta as a frequent visitor. I can certainly understand not wanting to live there, but I think it has a LOT of value, at least as a visitor. It's a beautiful city, warm weather (usually), vibrant gay community, hot guys (of all colors), and a lot to do.

Look, I understand - horrible traffic, some truly horrible ghetto areas, surrounded by a redneck state, Southern religion, etc.

But, I still really enjoy going there. I like Atlanta.

Note - I generally can't stand when people dismiss a city because of its worst area(s). I mean, what major city doesn't have a horrible, economically depressed section? People go on and on about "classic" era NYC when there was more "edge" and it was much more dangerous, artsy, and edgy, and they bitch that NYC has become soulless, a playground for the rich, Disneyfied. yet, those same people judge other cities on their worst areas.

[quote]They would spend happy hour drinking Greyhounds and Codders going on and on about how great and superior everything in Atlanta was. I would always ask them, "So, why ARE YOU HERE?".

Um, people do like to leave the place where they live and get out of town for the weekend. It's not that foreign of a concept.

Atlanta is Houston with less Mexicans and less culture.

I lived in Atlanta in the Fall of 2000 and I wasn't the biggest fan.

Atlanta is called the New York of the south, but you needed a car to get around and MARTA, the public transit system, was ridiculously inadequate.

Anytime I used MARTA to go anywhere I ended up having to take a cab or walk a long distance because MARTA barely went anywhere.

As for food, there were great soul food options, but if you were looking for some diversity, you were out of luck.

I realize that my experience with Atlanta is from 14 years ago, so I hope the city has improved a lot in the areas that I mentioned.

The suburbs were nice though, I guess.

I was asked to leave and encouraged not to come back.

"...he'll pursue his lips..."

Hahahahaha!

Bitch all you want to, ladies, but when it comes to trashing Atlanta, bow before the king.

Atlanta was also not a place for corporate relocations before Georgia-Pacific relocated there. Most of its business success was homegrown well into the eighties expansion.

Is the traffic worse than LA traffic?

I've been here for about six months. There is no culture here. Downtown is shady, there isn't much in Midtown. North of there is endless developments and strip malls. And the people are rude.

bump

When I was in Atlanta for a conference there was a huge green bug in my salad at the CNN restaurant, huge rats in the subway, a woman pushed me in the subway.

What about Buckhead isn’t that supposed to be nice?

It's a slightly more upscale Glendale but nothing to write home about. Nothing about Atlanta is something to write home about.

1. Downtown is terrifying. Decatur is lousy with hippies. 2.Midtown used to be ground zero for the gays but now is an over developed mass of heterosexuals and their screaming spawn. 3.The pollen in Atlanta is knee deep for a few weeks in the spring, and everywhere you walk there are chicken bones on the sidewalk. 4. Atlanta has the highest rate of STIs in the south, given the gay men are certifiably insane. 5. The traffic... for fuck’s sake the traffic-there are no words. Atlanta is a dirty moist pile of human flotsam. Lived in that shit hole for 20 years and I’d rather have a barbed wire enema than ever go back. #atlantasucks

I recently relocated to the Atlanta area. And I have to say I love it. Come on, once the weather warms up there are so many events it's not funny, from DragonCon, the gay pride parades, Netherworld and that's just a few. Plus a lot of my favorite artists tour through the area regularly.

The food scene here is AWESOME.

R117 works for Atlanta's Board of Tourism.