Fresh Loaf

Terminal Station

The Infrastructurist has a great post examining some of the country’s most beautiful train stations that were demolished to make way for bland developments or parking lots.

Atlanta receives shout outs for Terminal Station and Union Station. Both buildings were razed long ago to make way for the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and a parking lot, respectively.

About Terminal Station:

Atlanta was once the largest rail crossroads in the south. Travelers could get virtually everywhere quickly and conveniently by rail. Built in 1905, Terminal was the grand portal to the city. It had two Italianate towers and a huge train shed behind. When the station was razed in 1970, it was replaced by a government office building. These days Atlanta’s intercity rail depot is a small former commuter rail station located far north of downtown, adjacent to a 16-lane highway.

For another beautiful photo of Terminal Station, visit the cleverly named Terminal Station, an Atlanta blog focused on urban issues and development.

UPDATE: A reader whose family member works in the railroad industry sends word:

The statue you see in front of the station (on the little grass island) was placed in front of the Norfolk Southern Railway office building on Peachtree St. just a few weeks ago. It’s of Samuel Spencer, the first president of the Southern Railway. The interesting part is that it was sculpted by the same artist who did the Lincoln Memorial, Daniel Chester French.

(H/T to Dominick Brady, Photo courtesy GSU via Infrastructurist)

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Architecture society DOCOMOMO’s Georgia chapter and the Young Architects Forum of AIA Atlanta will host a presentation and self-guided tour of downtown Atlanta’s central library on March 11 at 6:30 p.m.

Atlanta's central library

The library is the final work of famed Modernist architect Marcel Breuer and has been at the center of a heated preservation effort after Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts said he wanted to sell the building or move the library’s collection to a new facility near Centennial Olympic Park.

For more information about the event, part of the Atlanta Preservation Center’s Phoenix Files series which showcases the city’s “living landmarks,” visit the site. (The series, which includes tours of The Wren’s Nest and the Olmstead Liner Parks, is worth a look.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Greg G. — he of Atlanta Time Machine fame, I believe — has an interesting post at WFMU’s site:

Back in 1965, the city of Atlanta declared August 18th Beatle Day in anticipation of the band’s impending arrival.  For their show that night at Atlanta Stadium, the city attempted to avoid vehicular gridlock by setting up a special shuttle bus route.  Concert-goers could hop aboard a “Beatle Bus” in the heart of downtown and get dropped off at the stadium.Best of all, though, were the ads the city placed in an effort to persuade attendees to board the shuttle.  Whoever the bus driver in this ad was, he was obviously one hell of a good sport to don a Beatle wig and pose for this unforgettable photo.

Visit the site to see the awkward advertisement.

(Thanks to Andisheh for the find.)

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A new study shows American colleges and universities are abjectly failing when it comes to teaching students about our country’s history.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institutes gave a 60-question, multiple-choice test to 14,000 students at 50 institutions of higher learning across the country — including the University of Georgia and the Georgia College and State University.

Nationally, students scored a big, fat “F” on their knowledge of history, answering an average of 54.2 percent of the questions correctly. At UGA, scores were above the national average, though not by much. UGA students had an average of 57.76 percent, while Georgia College students had a dismal 43.68 average.

(The test is online and you can take it yourself; I scored a passing grade of 70 percent.)

Of the colleges that participated, Harvard students had the highest average, 69.5 percent. UGA was 17th on the list; Georgia College ranked 43rd.

What does this show? Are we now at the point where we’re essentially teaching kids to pass standardized tests? Is history even relevant and meaningful to kids in the Internet Age? (more…)

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2007 is the 500th anniversary of America.

From a review in yesterday’s New York Times of Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America, a biography of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci:

It was in 1507, with the publication of a large cut-out map suitable for creating a do-it-yourself globe, that Vespucci’s first name, if not Vespucci himself, achieved lasting renown. On this map, published in the intellectual backwater of St. Dié in Lorraine, the designation “America” (the feminine of Amerigo) was chosen for the portion of the hemisphere where Vespucci claimed to have landed during his second voyage. In 1538, the noted mapmaker Mercator, apparently referring to the earlier map from St. Dié, chose to use the name America to mark not just the southern but also the northern portion of the continent. The rest, as they say, is history. “The tradition was secure,” Fernández-Armesto writes, “the decision irreversible.” And so, because of Mercator and assorted others, more than 350 million of us now call ourselves Americans.

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