Atlanta, Georgia (1971)

In the fall of 1971, I visit this city at the age of 11 to watch my cousin, Mike Fanucci, play for Arizona State as a defensive end, in the Peach Bowl. (He later plays in a Super Bowl on the special teams with the Washington Redskins.) The Peach Bowl becomes frigidly uncomfortable. Atlanta gets a very unusual snowfall during the game. While there, we see the very impressive Cyclorama-a huge painting that wraps entirely around a donut-shaped exhibit auditorium.

In 1970, 1,596,000 people lived in Atlanta. It is the largest city in the state. The city was occupied by the Creek Indian settlement of Standing Peachtree until 1813. It is sometimes known as "the city too busy to hate". The photo illustrates what the city skyline looked like in 1976.

General Sherman bombarded the city during the Civil War in 1864, torched it, and burned to the ground all but 400 of the 3,600 city buildings. Since then, the city has prospered.

The city airport alternates with Chicago's O'Hare as the world's busiest. Coca Cola was founded here in 1886. Twenty Nine colleges and universities are found here. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born here.

The Fox Theatre, one of the world's most lavish movie houses, has been restored as a concert hall. Nearby Stone Mountain Park, which I visited, boasts the world's largest granite monolith. It features an enormous sculpture carved into it. The city farmer's market is the largest in the eastern U.S.

 

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