Fresh Loaf

1. In the auction for Creative Loafing, the winning bidder is … (… these guys. Hey, they seem pretty OK!)

2. The mayoral ‘machine’ goes haywire, Reed fires back (Memo urges Atlanta’s black leaders to rally behind a single black mayoral candidate — to keep a white candidate out of office.)

3. Wendy Whitaker, symbol of flawed sex offender law, rearrested (When she was 17, Whitaker gave one of the most regrettable blow jobs ever.)

4. Sen. Jeff Chapman’s views on water conservation, water wars (Chapman’s one of the Gold Dome’s greatest enigmas — one of the few Republicans who doesn’t march in lockstep with his fellow pachyderms.)

5. Oxendine: Build an interstate through East Atlanta? Let’s talk! (Um, no.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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1) Farmer Jason performs at Red Light Café.

2) The Atlanta Braves play the Boston Red Sox at Turner Field.

3) Comedian Lisa Landry performs at the Punchline.

4) Corndogorama continues at East Atlanta Village.

5) Gil Robertson signs Family Affair: What It Means to Be African American Today at Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church.

See more Atlanta events.

(Photo © Lawson Little)

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UPDATE: This article has been expanded with additional reporting.

Little has changed about the Clermont Hotel — or its time-capsule strip club — since Atlanta real estate mogul Jeff Notrica took over the Ponce de Leon Avenue landmark six years ago.

Just as he promised when he bought the 85-year-old building, Notrica resisted the typical developer’s temptation to chop it up into condos or turn it into modern apartments. Downstairs, the storied Clermont Lounge was left untouched and remains its gloriously seedy self.

But it may be that the hands-off approach Notrica, 44, has taken with the Clermont and many of his other properties — a land baron’s acquisitiveness tempered by a collector’s appreciation for each new bauble — has simultaneously helped bring his intown real estate empire crashing down.

Unless a deal is struck between Notrica’s Inman Park Properties and New York-based lender Fairway Capital — or unless a deep-pocketed buyer steps forward — the Clermont Hotel and its lounge will be auctioned off on the courthouse steps July 2.

If that happens, it will be only the latest, if largest, in a long series of foreclosures suffered by Inman Park Properties over the past three months. The company’s apparent meltdown has involved some of the most recognizable and beloved buildings in East Atlanta, Little Five Points, Poncey-Highland and Midtown — causing many residents of those same neighborhoods to cheer the company’s downfall.

(more…)

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1. East Atlanta neighbors stand up against crime (Ken Womack’s eavBuzz.net helps folks monitor their ‘hood — in real time.)

2. GDOT Commissioner Gena Evans fired (Chief of beleaguered transit agency later tells CL her sob story.)

3. Piedmont Park residents not cool with tunnels under Atlanta (But the rest of the city thinks they’re pretty awesome.)

4. Smart-growth guru smacks Atlanta (Andres Duany is to Atlanta what Toby Young is to overcooked fish.)

5. Strip-club arson case gets seamy (How could it not?)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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"Cap'n" Ken Womack

Last summer, when several homes on her Ormewood Park street were hit by burglars – some more than once – Donna Williamson decided she wasn’t going to wait her turn to get robbed.

She posted a meeting notice for anyone interested in finding ways to deal with the crime wave. Then, a few days prior to the July 2 meeting, a woman was abducted from the nearby East Atlanta Village at gunpoint and forced to withdraw money from an ATM before being released. For Williamson, that was the last straw.

“I said at the meeting I didn’t want people to simply sit there and moan and bitch about what someone else should do about the problem,” she recalls. “We need to do it for ourselves.”

The result was Safe Atlanta For Everyone, a group of about 50 East Atlanta and Ormewood residents who walk their nearby streets to keep an eye out for suspicious cars and hand out occasional flyers listing safety tips.

If SAFE sounds reminiscent of a neighborhood watch from a bygone era when neighbors actually bothered to learn each other’s names, that’s intentional. But technology has brought improvements. These neighbors also Twitter and blog and use an arsenal of virtual tools to keep each other informed – often in real time – of the latest crimes and suspicious behavior in their community. Instead of waiting for the criminals to come to them, they post mugshots online, swap “be on the lookout” notices by e-mail and even track the whereabouts of shady characters so folks down the block can see them coming.

(more…)

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1. AJC is losing $1 million per week (The big question: Can Anne Cox Chambers’ billions save Atlanta’s daily?)

2. Clearing up confusion over Standard murder (Dissecting a robbery gone horribly awry.)

3. Shooting outside East Atlanta’s Graveyard Tavern is eerily familiar (Notice the absence of high-profile violent crime following the shooting death of a would-be robber at the hands of his victim.)

4. Shirley snaps back at cop union head (Crime seems to have everyone — herroner included — on edge.)

5. First Person: Jennifer Graves, wife, mother, swinger (Make love — not armed robberies.)

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Jamarcus Usher, on his MySpace page

Late Wednesday night, two bar patrons leaving East Atlanta’s Graveyard Tavern were approached by 29-year-old Jamarcus Usher. After the couple climbed into their vehicle, Usher reached for his waistband. Fearing that Usher was a threat, one of the bar patrons knocked him to the ground back a few feet with the door of his pickup truck, then shot and killed him after Usher raised his weapon.

Eerily, Usher’s MySpace page lists his occupation as “staying alive.”

Another bit of strangeness: Usher died in almost the exact spot where, eight years ago, another robbery suspect was shot and killed.

It’s not yet clear if this week’s shooting has anything to do with the climate of fear that has descended on Atlanta following a recent spate of violent crime, including the shooting death of John Henderson. Henderson, a bartender at the Standard in nearby Grant Park, was killed Jan. 7 by armed robbers who broke into the Memorial Drive restaurant.

It seems to me that Atlanta — and East Atlanta Village in particular — has been through this before.

(more…)

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"Johnny Pabst and the Blue Ribbon Two" by Alex Doucette, grand prize winner in 2008's painting category

It only seems logical that PBR would pay people for drinking its “blue-ribbon” brew.

For the third year, the trademark hipster libation is hosting the PB-Arts contest, a chance for folks to show the beer, and its marketing department, some love (oh yeah, and win $1,893).

On Jan. 24, the Graveyard Tavern in East Atlanta Village will display 2008’s winning entries. (Judging from last year’s finalists, the competition ain’t too stiff.) Artists will also be able to submit their photographs, paintings, sculpture and poetry for the 2009 contest. The deadline for this year’s competition is Jan. 31. The winner gets a year’s supply of beer (yes, PBR) as well as the above-mentioned $1,893 (the year Pabst won its blue ribbon).

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