ANSLEY PARK SPARKS A NEW BOOK (Ponce Press)

ANSLEY PARK SPARKS A NEW BOOK

by Bob Foreman © 2013

Everything you always wanted to know about Atlanta’s Ansley Park neighborhood (but were afraid to ask) may be found in a brand new book authored by native Atlantan Don Ariail. The latest in Arcadia’s Images of America series, this excellent tome bubbles with well-researched writing and is replete with photos and informative maps.

When one considers Atlanta’s record for historic preservation, the fact that Ansley Park still exists at all is nothing short of a miracle.

Constructed as a neighbor to the vast Amos Rhodes estate between 1904 and 1930, Ansley Park was designed with streets laid out “to preserve the natural contours of the land” and incorporated building types from bungalows to mansions. From this bleak and treeless land would emerge a magical enclave of winding boulevards, secret lanes, and sunken parks.

Ansley Park was developed from West Peachtree eastward and originally included the fantastic mansions which lined both sides of Peachtree Street, from Pershing Point down to Fifteenth. Of those half-hundred lots, the Mitchell King residence (1382 Peachtree at 17th Street) and The Castle at 87 Fifteenth are all that remain.

The Castle, built as a retirement cottage for Confederate Officer Ferdinand McMillan and termed “a hunk of junk” by a nameless former mayor, provided a Mecca for painters and actors in the 1960s when it was owned by arts doyen Hazel Roy Butler and housed Luis Maza and Dick Munroe’s Pocket Theatre. From that rare vantage one could witness the pulverization of Hattie High’s mansion (the original museum building) by the new arts center and the evisceration by MARTA of wonderful Lombardy Way and the last of in-town housing in which artists and actors could actually afford to live, not to mention park in front of.

Today’s Ansley residents discourage the use of their neighborhood as a cut-through from Peachtree to Piedmont, but among the facts that Mr. Ariail’s book reveals is that Fifteenth Street was constructed to provide the long-awaited Northwest Passage between Peachtree and the Piedmont Driving Club.

Fascinating photographs and anecdotes document the author’s section on Houses and Residents. Other chapters describe famous residents, such as authoress Peggy Mitchell and Atlanta Ballet founder Dorothy Alexander; Edwin Ansley’s stately estate which for decades served as the Governor’s Mansion; social organizations with emphasis on the Ansley Golf Club; and nearby churches and schools.

Spring Street public elementary school, now tenderly preserved as Vince Anthony’s Puppetry Center, is well-represented and evokes an era entirely different from our own. With a student body of 450 and a class size of thirty, in 1948 a mere seventeen ladies were required as faculty, including Mrs. Douglas (principal) and Mrs. Bingham (cafeteria). Kids who lived in the vicinity were guaranteed a first-rate education for free, far removed from today’s drug-free zones, metal detectors and special license plates for “educators.” The faces of the children are smiling open and fearless.

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THE TROUBLE WITH ETHEL (MERMAN) (Ponce Press)

THE TROUBLE WITH ETHEL
by Bob Foreman © 2013

The trouble with Ethel began at the Atlanta airport on a summer Sunday in 1963 when a surrogate for Mayor Ivan Allen presented, then rescinded, the Key to The City to Miss Merman who had arrived here to play a week of The Ethel Merman Show at Chastain Park.

The star of Broadway countered in her trademark bellow, “Aren’t you going to let me keep it? I thought it was mine!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s the only one we have,” dithered the disconcerted deputy, who then added, “but I’ll see that another is made especially for you.”

“So much for your Southern hospitality,” fired back La Merm, “and don’t forget your promise, I’ve got witnesses,” waving an arm toward the delegation that had gathered to meet her at Candler Field.

Included (and pictured here with Merman) were Dobbins Air Force Base Brigadier General George Wilson and his daughter who immediately applied salve to the brassy but bruised Diva Ego by naming Merman MISS SONIC BOOM, a reference to the glass-shattering shock waves created by USAF jets when they broke the sound barrier. In recognition of her limitless range of vocal talents, unsurpassed decibel levels, Mach II renditions, and a super-sonic personality, Ethel Merman is hereby proclaimed MISS SONIC BOOM by the officers and men of the 445th Troop Carrier, Dixie Wing, it read to her delight.

Meanwhile Atlanta’s social transgression flashed onto the wire services and went national.

While Merman’s was the only legit show playing Atlanta that week, among the fifty single-screen movie houses, competition included PT 109 at the Loew’s; Cleopatra reserved seats only at the Roxy; How The West Was Won in Cinerama at Martin’s; Lawrence of Arabia in its 15th week at the Rhodes; and topped off with the grand opening of the new Rialto Theatre with Bye Bye Birdie, a Princess telephone “in color” given to certain lucky ticket holders.

Parents might be too tired to attend if they had toted the kids to see the rear-animated talking figures up at Story Land in Marietta or out to the State Farmer’s Market for Watermelon Day with a free slice for all and a live TV remote featuring Ray Moore and Officer Don.

Others might find Merman tame compared with Little Egypt playing live at the Domino or the “torrid revue” Too Hot To Handle at the Playboy Club located where the Clermont Lounge is now.

Nevertheless, The Ethel Merman Show opened Monday night for Chris Manos’ Theatre Under the Stars to excellent reviews and good attendance, and according to Merman’s autobiography, Mayor Allen himself showed up backstage with a huge floral key made up of chrysanthemums and orchids, “comparable to presenting me with a common cold (she was allergic to flowers) but since I’d given them such a rough time the night before, I accepted it graciously.”

Not quite as gracious was her reaction to being told that Met Opera mainstay Blanche Thebom was to replicate Merman’s stage and film role in Call Me Madam on the same stage in three weeks. All Merman could muster was, “No!”

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AMAZING ACADEMIC FEATS ASTOUND ATLANTA (OGLETHORPE) (Ponce Press)

AMAZING ACADEMIC FEATS ASTOUND ATLANTA

by Bob Foreman © 2013

Once upon a time, Thornwell P. Jacobs created for Atlanta original and shamelessly grandiose works rivaled only in the Land of Oz. Jacobs, who served as the president of Oglethorpe University in his spare time, authored twenty-five books, created the first time capsule and under his auspices, Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the “New Deal” in a speech at the FOX Theatre. On that occasion Jacobs presented FDR with an honorary doctorate, and shortly thereafter Roosevelt was elected to his first term.

The FOX was also the site when “Oglethorpe became the possessor of the first standard Radio College in the history of the world,” as modestly claimed in the school’s yearbook. In 1931 WJTL (1370 on the dial) began broadcasts emanating from a tower twice as tall as the FOX Theatre itself (pictured here) and offered college courses over the air. How tuition was collected is lost to history.

The concept for his time capsule The Crypt of Civilization represented the apex of Jacobean feats, when in 1936 he began to assemble a record for future earth inhabitants, if any, when the tomb was scheduled to be opened in year 8113. A ten by twenty foot swimming pool located in the basement of Phoebe Hearst Hall was converted into an air-tight, time-proof vault containing on microfilm 960,000 pages of reading material as well as thousands of artifacts as proof of our existence. Included were a tiny windmill to power a machine to teach English to potential aliens; voice recordings; motion pictures; a sealed ampule of Budweiser; and the all-important shooting script for Gone with the Wind.

Jacob’s greatest gift to Atlanta was the Oglethorpe campus, verdant, bucolic and uncluttered. The men who lent their financial support to his projects are immortalized by eponymous neo-gothic academic buildings, replicas of James Oglethorpe’s alma mater, Corpus Christi in Oxford: John Thomas Lupton (WJTL) a Chattanoogan of Coca-Cola money; Emma Markham Lowry; and Harry Hermance of F.W. Woolworth. The aforementioned Phoebe Hearst Hall was named for the mother of publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst, as well as Lake Phoebe (now Silver Lake) which Hearst donated as part of the 600-acre campus.

Thornwell Jacobs departed Oglethorpe in December, 1943 following an imbroglio involving the Medical School, his final campus building left unfinished. Faith Hall, so named because it was built on faith, was finally completed sixty years later. Jacobs spent his final years as a resident of the Cox-Carleton Hotel where he authored his twenty-sixth book and autobiography Step Down, Dr. Jacobs. Perhaps also autobiographical was his 1942 Drums of Doomsday a novel about a Presbyterian minister who attempts to bring religion to Hollywood.

WAGA THE DOG

by Bob Foreman © 2013

Waga the dog who was the mascot of WAGA-TV for many years was painted by Atlanta artist Jim Schell, according to his daughter Susan Tasse who contacted us after reading “The Children’s Hour” in our August issue.

Schell who passed away in January was self-taught and a founder of the Atlanta ad firm Kirkland White & Schell. At age 65 he took up portrait painting, and many fine examples of his work are posted at jimschellstudio.com.

Schell also drew the station logo for WSB-TV’s White Columns.

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THE CHILDREN'S HOUR (Ponce Press)

THE CHILDREN’S HOUR
by Bob Foreman © 2013
“As practically every child knows,” Atlanta’s first TV star was a red-headed blue-eyed cowboy named Woody Willow. A child marionette and the creation of the late Don and Ruth Gilpin, Woody was commissioned by WSB-TV for the station’s debut on September 29, 1948. Woody who lived in a shoe co-hosted with Mr. Don “a jam-packed hour of fun with movies, comedy, games and a puppet soap opera.” Only the kids in the studio could tell the color of Woody’s eyes because all local live telecasts were in black and white until the late 1960s. “Bye Ma, I’m gone to television” was a daily cry from kids rushing to the home of the nearest neighbor who owned a receiver to watch “TV’s funniest little guy,” on the town’s only station. As the above quotations illustrate, Woody never received any bad press because WSB was owned by the Atlanta Journal. During Willow’s eight year run, Mrs. Gilpin puppeted Woody from a tall step ladder and supplied his “boyishly high pitched” voice in full view of the studio audience. After the broadcast, kids would frequently ask her, “why don’t you let him talk for himself?” Why indeed. Shortly after the 1956 opening of WSB’s magnificent “White Columns” studios, The Popeye Club made its debut, featuring Officer Don. Don Kennedy’s witty banter, daily birthday celebrations, and games with the peanut gallery (including the eagerly anticipated Ooey-Gooey) served as a bumper between Popeye cartoons. In point of fact, the entire show served as a bumper between local commercials, but Don’s live copy pitches for Merita Brown-and-Serve Rolls and Blue Horse Nifty Notebooks were never dull. The nicest cop ever, Officer Don stood alone among kid show hosts, network included, because he never talked down to kids and offered no preachy moralizing. “I like kids better than people,” he said, and it showed. His was the top-rated local show for its twelve year run. No kid shows from channel 5 (which hit the air waves in 1949) came anywhere close to Popeye, but the fact that WAGA had a mascot (a Scottie dog named “Waga”) was as strange and pleasing as was their host for Shocker movies, George “Bestoink Dooley” Ellis. Waga the dog was found at a pound and named by the late and affable Don Barber. Best recalled as the only station with a hyphen in its name, WLW-A, channel 11 limped onto the air two years later, with the worst reception (there was no such thing as cable), the worst networks (ABC and DuMont), and a programming budget of three cents. In between eight doses a week of Live Atlanta Wrestling and Freddie Miller’s Stars of Tomorrow were nestled Fun with Fran and Miss Boo. Speed Artist Fran Kearton hosted the former, also with a studio audience, while Miss Boo was arguably the weirdest kids’ show of all time. A nice witch who loved bugs, Miss Boo performed her daily one woman act in a “cave,” actually a series of large and unadorned cardboard boxes. Here finally was a show which could be faithfully recreated in one’s own home. Kids of higher intellect, it was said, found equal contentment in watching the test pattern (with its attendant 1000 cycle tone) which aired for hours each day, free of commercials, on all three channels. Atlanta’s kid vid hosts had real lives as well. Officer Don Kennedy founded WKLS-FM and is the big band maven to beat the band; Bestoink Dooley introduced art film theaters to the town; Fran Kearton wrote a great book about her other Atlanta show Music Shop, with co-host Dick van Dyke; and Miss Boo whose true name is Rosie Clark is a painter of excellent and terribly funny miniatures. Woody Willow lives with his girlfriend Theresa Termite at Vince Anthony’s puppet museum.

THE PHANTOM STILL WALKS
by Bob Foreman © 2013

“Phantom of the Fox” Joe Patten (right) and Robert L. Foreman, Jr. were honored on July 2nd by the national American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS) at their annual convention, this year held at Atlanta’s FOX Theatre. Patten and Foreman were recognized as the prime movers in saving the theatre from demolition in 1975. Joe Patten, 86, is in good spirits and his mind is keen, but the Phantom now walks with the aid of a walker or for longer jaunts, a wheelchair. In 2010, Patten won a court battle against the FOX Board and management who had attempted to evict him from his residence in the theatre building. -30-

FALLEN ANGELS HAPPILY HAVOC (Ponce Press)

FALLEN ANGELS HAPPILY HAVOC
by Bob Foreman
© 2013

If Henry Ford had written the musical West Side Story, 19-year old Danny Payne (pictured above) would be the star. He was the leader of a four boy band who magnified drug store pinball to a grown-up scale here in January, 1948.

Dubbed “teenage thrill wreckers” by the local papers, the boys were reared in posh Druid Hills, sons of prominent parents.

The boys’ target: fancy automobiles, street-parked on steep inclines. The act: to release the parking brakes. The consequence: Wheee!

Twenty-eight vehicles were thusly relocated over a two-night spree which began on a Saturday in Virginia-Highlands and Morningside and ended up Sunday in Buckhead. The boys were apprehended within a day and signed a joint confession which began, “we started at 1 a.m. on Briarwood Road, where Danny Payne released the brakes on a 1936 Dodge, and it ran down the hill and into a garage.”

Of three Oldsmobiles, two rolled into telephone poles, and the other careened into the woods and struck a tree. A stone wall stopped a 1941 Buick, but a 1941 Studebaker rolled into a 1941 Olds.

Cars that disappeared from view over embankments included a 1941 Plymouth, a 1935 Packard coupe, and a 1940 Ford convertible which landed in a playground at Chastain Park.

A 1941 Nash rolled into a creek, and a Dodge of that same year glanced off a telephone pole, went over a bank and then into a creek.

“On Kentucky Avenue, Danny released the brakes on a 1946 Dodge convertible which struck a signpost, rolled down a driveway and into a garage where it smashed into a 1946 Dodge sedan.” “Then Danny released the brakes on a 1947 Buick coach, which ran into a fireplug, breaking the main and shooting water all over the place. We got out of there in a hurry and went over to Pasadena Avenue where we released the brakes on a 1946 Dodge which knocked down a high brick wall.”

The boys were ordered to make restitution for the damaged cars ($8,000) and were eventually tried and sentenced to three months at a juvenile detention home. A number of admiring “bobby-soxers” attended the trial, according to Herbert Jenkins’ book Atlanta and the Automobile.

There followed two years probation during which time the boys could ride in cars only to and from compulsory weekly Sunday School and Church “of their choice.”

Danny Payne told the Atlanta Journal, “I was an Eagle Scout when I was fourteen years old. I am an assistant scoutmaster. I am a sophomore at Georgia State studying business administration. I wish I understood why we did this. There must be a reason, but I haven’t been able to think of one.”

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STAGEHANDS DO IT ON CUE (Ponce Press)

STAGEHANDS DO IT ON CUE

by Bob Foreman © 2013

Since 1896, the magic of live Atlanta theatre has been created by members of IATSE, the professional stagehands union and short for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

On cues given by the Production Stage Manager, IA stagehands light the lights, change the scenes, and in shows like WICKED and PETER PAN cause wingless actors to fly, all with split-second precision.

A mastery of obscure stage nomenclature is second nature to IA show folk, where “deck” means floor; “movers” mean automated lights; and “snakes” refer to electric cables. Stage Left equals House Right, and upstage indicates rear, not the opposite of down. Flying scenery is suspended from the grid, actors enter from the wings, and tormentors and teasers are stage masking, not acting directions. Inserting gobos, hanging lekos with scrollers, laying spike tape or Marley and “westcoasting” a scrim are all in a day’s work.

IA stagehands are departmentalized: carpenter, electric, properties, and wardrobe. Scenery whether nailed down, automated or flying falls under the carpenter department; all lighting, audio, video (and plumbing) are termed “electric;” and what remains are props which are anything portable and wardrobe (a separate local) which is costumes.

Touring shows travel with heads and assistants in each department to provide supervision for the local hands, for shows must “load in,” play, then “load out” within a specified amount of time, and the show must go on.

WICKED is an example of a recent large touring musical trouped by eleven 53-foot tractor trailers and requiring upwards of a hundred local IA hands to make it happen. An annual corporate industrial utilizes twice that number.

Local IA hands earn $20 plus per hour on straight time and receive health and welfare benefits. Some local venues employ unskilled non-union labor, where crew providers categorize their help as “independent contractors,” pay half the going rate, and offer no possibility of compensation in case of injury.

IATSE hands here work touring “Yellow Card” attractions at the FOX, Cobb Energy Centre, and the Atlanta Civic Center, as well as locally mounted productions of the Atlanta Ballet, Atlanta Opera and Theatre of the Stars. A separate IA local provides the skilled labor needed for film production.

Local 927 offices are located in Little Five Points, their meetings held in Virginia-Highlands. For more information about the union with 117 years of experience, contact Mary Grove at (404) 870-9911.

CHRIS MANOS ROCKS! (Ponce Press)

CHRIS MANOS ROCKS!

 By Bob Foreman

© 2013

Christopher Manos the producer of Theatre of the Stars qualifies as Atlanta’s “Mister Show Business.” He is the singular sensation who has produced more than seven-hundred musicals, plays, operas and ballets in Atlanta over fifty-two years.

A bundle of sheer unbridled energy, Chris, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, settled here in 1960 having married the former Glenn Ryman, an Atlanta gal turned professional dancer in New York City where Chris was working as a producer for the Theatre Guild. Chris was hired as executive producer of Atlanta’s failing Theatre under the Stars, a six week summer season of semi-professional musicals held at the 6000-seat amphitheatre in Chastain Park.

Commencing with the 1961 season, he introduced Broadway, movie and recording stars into the mix and within three years had erased the group’s accumulated deficit, $1.8 million in today’s money. That same year he inaugurated his Winter Play Season at the 700-seat Peachtree Playhouse (now a night club) with six weeks of non-musical star stock, followed the next year by the Fine Play Season.

He then began to produce ballet and opera on a Grand Scale up at Chastain; merged his outfit with the Atlanta Civic Ballet (now the Atlanta Ballet); and acquired what would later become the Atlanta Children’s Theatre from the Junior League. In 1968, Chris christened the new Alliance Theatre with the epic to end all other epics, “King Arthur,” with a cast of two hundred, combining the Ballet and his newly-formed Opera and Repertory Theatre divisions.

As told in great detail in Diane Thomas’ splendid book Hundred Days, the money ran out after twelve productions, and because Chris was merely a tenant, the Arts Alliance offered him no support. No one has ever truly taken his place there. Only partially daunted, Chris created Theatre of the Stars, which continued his summer star stock indoors at the Civic Center (now at the FOX) and took a long-term lease on the Peachtree Playhouse for his Winter Play Season. Google Jim and Sally Way of Atlanta Ga. for more information on the shows of that era.

Chris has given more work to professional actors, stagehands, directors and designers than anyone else ever in the southeast, chief among them Louise Hudson, his Girl Friday for forty plus years. His son Nick is now second in command.

 “A trip down memory lane is boring at best,” Chris once said, with both feet planted firmly in the future. Upcoming shows at the FOX include his new production of “The Little Mermaid.” Visit theatreofthestars.com or phone (404) 252-8960.

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THE LITTLE LADY OF THE BIG BOOK (Ponce Press)

“THE LITTLE LADY OF THE BIG BOOK”

 by Bob Foreman © 2013

As run in Ponce Press

Ranking second only to the Bible in book sales, and (allowing for inflation) the top grossing motion picture of all time, Gone with the Wind was the creation of an Atlanta girl, Margaret Munnerlyn “Peggy” Mitchell. Her Pulitzer prize-winning story of the old South was published in 1936, and the film was released in 1939, its world premiere held here at the Loew’s Grand Theatre. The film which captured ten Academy awards starred Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes, Olivia de Havilland as Melanie and made an instant star out of newcomer Brit Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.

Both book and picture are epic in scope, 1,073 pages and two minutes under four hours respectively and are set in Atlanta and environs before, during and after the Civil War.

Peggy Mitchell began to write as a child, beginning with playlets, some about cowboys and Indians, others about the old South. As a child, my grandmother “T” Crawford lived in a new house at 168 Peachtree Circle whose backyard met that of the Mitchell mansion at 1179 Peachtree. Peggy, T, and other children would perform the pieces, Miss Mitchell preferring to play only the male roles. “Thus I was Margaret Mitchell’s first Scarlett,” T would always claim.

The sudden and tremendous success of the novel and three years later the picture came as stupefaction to Peggy and her second husband John Marsh. Marsh provided the only source of encouragement to Peggy through her years of writing because that she had written a book was a family secret. Never a healthy woman, the petite Peggy wanted her newfound notoriety to go away, but alas, that was not in the cards.

On August 16th, 1949 Peggy Mitchell died after a five-day battle for life, having been struck by a speeding automobile and dragged fifteen feet up Peachtree Street. The vehicle operator was an off-duty cabbie, who continued to hold a license despite twenty-four previous convictions, half of them for speeding.

Peggy and John Marsh, who were to attend The Canterbury Tales at the Peachtree Arts Theatre, had parked their car in the yard of the old Foreman residence at 1140 Peachtree, near 13th Street. The couple was crossing Peachtree when the car, speeding north, veered to the left and struck her.

The little lady of the big book now resides permanently at Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery. She is always at home and welcomes callers, for first and foremost Margaret Mitchell was a Southern Lady.

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LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD (JAMES WAY) (Ponce Press)

“LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD”

by Bob Foreman © 2013

As run in PONCE PRESS

Native Atlanta artist James McLaughlin Way, Jr. is the ultimate triple threat: a prodigy, an orphan and a charmer.

To quote from his bio on the site of his exclusive rep, Mason Murer Fine Art, “James, at the age of nine began attending the Atlanta School of Art, and, at twelve, North Carolina’s Brevard College. At nineteen he was selected for advance studies in illustration at the Portfolio Center, after which he began his professional career as an illustrator.” His attainments in that field include winning Clios, Addys and Gold Gamma.

But, the site continues, “James’ passion is painting.” To save reading a thousand words, check out his stunningly beautiful works at waystudios.com.

His father James Senior was brought to Atlanta by veteran producer Christopher Manos (still going strong, incidentally) to act as Production Stage Manager for the epic opener of the Arts Alliance (now Woodruff) theatre arm, the stage production of King Arthur. James, Junior was born in that autumn of 1968, becoming his father’s second major Atlanta production.

Way went on to become an Atlanta stage director of enormous esteem, while his wife Sally gave birth to Caitlin and Siobhan, besides being PR Director for the Atlanta Ballet and producing Christmas food-raisers to provide holiday meals for the needy. James’ father died suddenly of a heart attack in 1978, and Sally followed suit, after a four year battle with cancer in 1982, leaving the three children orphans.

They were adopted, according to Sally’s plan, by a local couple who raised them.

James Junior’s description of his artistic process gives one an idea of his intellectual and spiritual depth. “I become lost amidst the infinite number of possibilities and new impressions. You already know what art means because you see it with your heart, not your head. Trust your heart, and try to look without words as I wish for you the fulfillment of all of a free heart’s desire.” James studio is located in the heart of Virginia Highlands, as is his heart.

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HAVE HOUSE WILL TRAVEL (Ponce Press)

“HAVE HOUSE--- WILL TRAVEL”

by Bob Foreman © 2013

As run in Ponce Press

If the Buckhead Heritage Society gets its wish, the sole surviving single family residence on Peachtree Road will soon be saved from demolition. The catch is that the house must be moved off the property that it now occupies. Originally situated directly opposite Lindbergh Drive, the historic residence was first saved in 1998 through an agreement between the neighborhood association and developer Blaine Kelley, Jr. as a condition of allowing condominium towers to be constructed on the two acre property. The house was relocated thirty feet to the south and thirty-five feet closer to Peachtree. Known as the Randolph-Lucas residence, the Georgian revival house was designed by Thornton Marye and first appears in the City Directory in 1924 as 2014 Peachtree Road (later renumbered 2494) opposite the then unpaved Mayson Avenue which was rechristened “Lindbergh” after the aviator’s visit to Atlanta in 1927. Marye’s principal designs include Terminal Station, the Women’s Club theatre and numerous fine residences. His partner Olliver J. Vinour designed the Fox Theatre. The house was commissioned by attorney Hollins N. Randolph, a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson. At the time, Randolph was president of the Confederate Memorial Association which had hired sculptor Gutzon Borglum to design and execute a carving on Stone Mountain. Violent dissension between artist and Association resulted in the project being scuttled, and Borglum moved to Mount Rushmore. Sorrow followed the 1935 purchase of the house by Arthur Lucas who was killed in a hunting accident in November of that year. His widow Margaret occupied the residence until her death some fifty years later. Lucas, with his partner William Jenkins, operated principal motion picture houses in the southeast, including Atlanta’s Paramount, Capitol, Roxy, and Fox Theatres, the latter the flagship of the chain. Lucas & Jenkins owned the Fox Theatre outright, in equal partnership with Paramount Pictures. Hercules House Movers of Ellenwood, Georgia was engaged to relocate the house in 1998. The Atlanta Constitution posed the question, “how do you move a 550-ton Georgian revival mansion in Buckhead?” Hercules’ response? “Very carefully.” For more information, go to http://www.buckheadheritage.com. -30-

PONCE DE LEON SPRINGS (Ponce Press)

"PONCE DE LEON SPRINGS"

(c) 2013

by Bob Foreman

As run in PONCE PRESS

The site of the Ponce City Market has a rich and fascinating history. The elegant brick building was opened as a Sears and Roebuck distribution center and retail store in 1926 and was built atop the Ponce de Leon Spring, from which the Avenue got its name.

The spring was discovered shortly after the Civil War and touted by Atlanta realtor Henry L. Wilson for its curative properties, according to the Atlanta Constitution of August 3, 1902. “I gave it the name,” says Wilson, a reference to the Fountain of Youth said to be discovered in Florida in 1513. Wilson heralded it as “the greatest water in the world for rheumatism, dyspepsia, and for almost all other ailments.” The water, claimed Harper’s Magazine in 1895, had a “sulfurous, nasty taste” proving “to some degree the medicinal properties ascribed to them.” The spring water was bottled for home delivery and sold like water.

In 1875 a horse drawn street car line was built to the springs from downtown, and a bucolic park was created. Atlanta Society and her children were given a great gift with the opening of the Ponce de Leon Amusement Park on that site in 1903.

Opening day patrons were greeted by a vast roller-skating rink and dance pavilion; a 168-passenger Merry-go-round; and the 1200-seat Casino, a vaudeville theatre, completely equipped. Main attractions included the 50’ high circle swing, a Ferris wheel, a resident band, miniature railroad, two restaurants, popcorn and candy stands, penny arcade, and a pony track, where the favored pony could play the national anthem on chimes, presumably when not being ridden. For the dads, there was a shooting gallery.

Enticing attractions at the Ponce de Leon Amusement Park (opened in 1903 on the site of Ponce City Market) had obscure and titillating titles including Laughing Gallery, Cave of the Winds, Japanese ping-pong parlor, Gypsy Village, the knife and cane boards, and the baby racks. Across the Avenue was a 1600-foot diameter lake which could be navigated by fifteen rowboats and a thirty-passenger launch, overlooked by a double decked recreation pier.

New features were added each season, among them the Toboggan Slide, a forty-foot high, 59-second, 3/4 mile car ride, with “patent oscillating trucks beneath the four-passenger cars, so that if any two wheels should break, it would not interfere in the slightest with car’s journey.”

In 1907, the lake was transformed into a 20,000-seat ball park, home to the Atlanta Crackers who won the opening game, against the Shreveport Pirates, 2 to 1.

The Park fell into decline after the World War and the advent of the automobile, and reality encroached when Ford built a Model T assembly plant (still standing) on the next door property in 1920. Atlantans now motored to their amusements, in Highlands or Sea Island.

Crackers owner R.J. Spiller sold the amusement land, and on August 2, 1926 “30,000 Atlantans thronged the mammoth new” Sears and Roebuck which was primarily a distribution center for catalog sales, explaining its immediate proximity to the railroad. Ponce de Leon’s spring met an inglorious end, capped and “diverted to a sewer” in 1925, later tapped to provide non-potable water for the Sears plant. The building was occupied by Sears for fifty years.

The ballpark lasted until 1965, replaced by the downtown Atlanta stadium, the Crackers by the Milwaukee Braves.

LAUREN FOREMAN (1909-1979)

This is my great-uncle Lauren Foreman, 1909-1979, shown with bunny. His parents, Robert L. Foreman and Effie Howell Foreman committed him to a private sanitarium, Allen's Invalid Home [for the Insane] in Milledgeville in 1940, and he died there in 1979, outliving his three brothers. He was accused of "molesting a child," gender unknown, by a poor Atlanta family. (The age of consent was 14.)  The situation was touchy because his first cousin Clark Howell, Jr. was publisher and editor of the Atlanta Constitution. The Foreman's paid off the family and sent Lauren to hell.

BILLY WALDRON (1953-1969)

Click here to be redirected to the new Billy Waldron article.

CONTACT US

lovethatbob13@gmail.com

CHRIS SEPPE, ACTOR

Annotations by Tommy Brent

Backstage at GUYS AND DOLLS Theatre by-the-Sea, 1977, left to right, Mrs. Runyon, Julia Brennan, Christopher Seppe.

ATLANTA X-RATED (1974)

June 29, 1974 

Atlanta Constitution

Twenty-four films and one live show.  Insane!

For a master index of all photo-essays, click here.

December 2013.

COPS TAKE PHOTOS OF MOVIE AUDIENCE (1969)

August 6, 1969, Atlanta Journal

TEARING UP PEACHTREE (1966) by Carleton Palmer THE WIT'S END (Atlanta)

Atlanta Magazine, March 1966

There was no need to mention their names.  Everyone who was in the know knew the Wit's End.

February 26, 1998 Constitution

Carleton Palmer obit



GRACE ZABRISKIE GETS CAUGHT! (1979)

April 6, 1979 Constitution

Grace MacEachron, now Zabriskie,  successful picture and television actress.

RARY SHEDDEN SOCIAL NOTES

May 27, 1917 Constitution
(Rary aged 13)

March 24, 1918
Rary get best role!

November 16, 1919

CORINNE ANDERSON OF ATLANTA 1941-2013

ATLANTA RESTAURANTS IN 1964

Here from the Telephone Directory of 1964 are Atlanta's resturants.  I could spot only three that are still operating fifty years later:  The Colonnade, the Majestic and the Varsity.  Chains that remain: IHOP, KFC, Waffle House and the Krystal.

Charles Walker of the World

October 6, 1965 Journal

THE MANHATTAN YELLOW PAGES OF ATLANTA

The Manhattan Yellow Pages, Atlanta cabaret and supper club, opened in April, 1976, and a video can be see on utube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=focdqoa9-Os

The original cast, from L to R:  Lisa Stutts, Richard Woods, Teresa McGehee, Carolyn Calloway (Glenda), Barbara Hancock (Dorothy), Ray Stephens, Nancy Lindenbaum, Nancy Osgood, Tommy Adcox. (photo courtesy Nancy Lindenbaum)

Matchbook