Morning, y’all!
Your beloved AJ Willingham is out today — on a lockpicking-inspired crime spree, I believe. So you get me, and I’ve got all the fun stuff.
That includes a heavy pinch of info on your green beer weekend. Or fancy Amaretto, if that’s your thing. However, I can’t shelter you from the potentially dangerous storms approaching this weekend (significant tornado possible!?!), and I didn’t stay up for the total lunar eclipse (send pics please!).
Plus, before we get to celebrating, we need to make a stop at the Beltline, where the (future) train appears to be careening off the tracks.
DICKENS CHANGES COURSE
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The Beltline’s Eastside Trail is an epicenter of activity. An estimated 2 million pedestrians and bikers meander around the three-mile stretch that touches Ponce City Market and Krog Street Market.
Plans call for extending the Atlanta Streetcar to run alongside that trail, providing the Beltline’s first phase of light rail service from downtown to Ponce de Leon Avenue.
Or at least, those were the plans.
Mayor Andre Dickens pulled the rug (tracks?) out yesterday, backing off plans he supported during his campaign and that voters backed in 2016.
- Courtney English, the mayor’s chief adviser: “We are committed to building rail on the Beltline, however, not in the form that has been previously discussed.”
- Dickens: “Because it takes so long to build out 22 miles and certain parts of (the Beltline) is already extremely dense with a lot of activity, a lot of walking, a lot of commercial nodes, a lot of restaurants, there’s a lot of disruption that will happen to try to do it all at once.”
Dickens, who launched his reelection campaign this week, told the MARTA board that Murphy Crossing along the Southside Trail would allow fewer disruptions and better align with “areas that have more rider dependence and more need for public transport.”
😲 The Phase 1 initiative had fallen behind schedule and saw its cost estimates balloon. Still, this decision came as a surprise to many city leaders, writes the AJC’s Zachary Hansen and Sara Gregory, including Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman.
Advocates for the current plans have for months worried the mayor was walking back from his past support for first extending the Streetcar onto the Eastside Trail. On Wednesday, Beltline Rail Now Chairman Matthew Rao said he worried Dickens would “kick the can down the road.”
🕒 So what is the mayor’s future vision? A “15-minute city,” English said
“It is what it sounds like: Everything’s 15 minutes away, or every resident lives within 15 minutes of amenities, of grocery, of transit, so on and so forth,” he said.
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Green Day
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
St. Paddy’s is Monday. But the festivities aren’t waiting.
That includes the Midtown Block Party tonight, followed by Atlanta’s parade (a tradition since 1858) Saturday.
Whether you plan to partake or not, here is what you should know if you plan to maneuver around the area, since some roads will be closed:
🍀 The parade begins at noon at the corner of 15th and Peachtree streets and will continue south along Peachtree to 5th Street. Paradegoers can get to the celebrations from the Midtown and Arts Center MARTA stations.
🍀 Staggered road closures begin at 9 a.m. and end at 2:30 p.m. along Peachtree Street from Beverly Road to 3rd Street. Portions of several side streets will be closed where they intersect with Peachtree Street along the parade route.
🍀The parade ends at about 1:30 p.m., after which Luck of the Square begins at Colony Square. The official post-parade party runs from 1-3 p.m.
You will have to wait ‘til Monday for the big daddy in Savannah. To prep, I strongly suggest Adam Van Brimmer’s story that highlights Savannah’s Irish roots, which stretch back nearly three centuries, and the 26 Irishmen and women (who range from 8 to “really old”) who make up the City of Limerick Pipe Band.
- Christy Bromell, the band’s musical director: “Every city and town in Ireland has a St. Patrick’s Day parade, but nowhere do they do it quite like they do in Savannah. There’s a lot of curiosity about it back home.”
🔎 READ MORE: What to know about Savannah St Patrick’s Day Parade
On the road to restoration
Credit: Georgia State University Special Collections
Credit: Georgia State University Special Collections
The Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, built by Black dollars and once the organizational headquarters of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is in the final stages of a major $10 million renovation. The nearly 90-year-old building on Auburn Avenue will be restored to its original 1930s grandeur while becoming a modern, 16,000-square-foot multiuse office building. Amazing details and history from the AJC’s Ernie Suggs.
🏗 Meanwhile in Athens, there’s a battle between preservationists and Athens First United Methodist Church, which wants to knock down a 1920s downtown building for a 14-space parking lot.
Politics and business
💉 The White House withdrew the nomination of former Florida congressman Dr. David Weldon to lead the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because he wasn’t assured of getting enough Republican support to be confirmed.
⌛ Here is the latest on a potential government shut down, which will start at midnight tonight if the U.S. Senate doesn’t approve a Republican-led government funding bill that has fiercely divided Democrats under pressure to impose limits on the Trump administration.
🔔 The 1,249-room Hilton Atlanta, one of Atlanta’s largest hotels, sold at a foreclosure auction, highlighting the postpandemic challenges that continue to plague the city’s hospitality sector and the wider world of commercial real estate.
🗳️ Election monitors saw vast improvements in Fulton County since the contentious 2020 election, reporting an “organized and orderly election process” last fall, despite 32 bomb threats.
🎥 A bill intended to grant relief for Hurricane Helene timber losses could be a boon for ... Georgia’s film industry.
💰 A massive new investment into security camera maker Flock Safety, a startup from Atlanta native and Georgia Tech alum Garrett Langley, puts the startup’s value at more than $7.5 billion.
We can do it!
Credit: Bill Torpy
Credit: Bill Torpy
Did you know that the iconic Rosie the Riveter image — the bicep-pumping woman with a red checkered scarf and blue work suit on the “We Can Do It!” poster — wasn’t all that popular during the war? Me neither. I highly recommend taking some time for this story about Lucretia Jane Tucker, who learned to be a welder in Savannah, doing her part to build “Liberty Ships,” the 441-foot-long workhorses that transported supplies across the ocean.
- “We were supposed to be too emotional, not strong enough, that we would cry,” she told the AJC’s Bill Torpy. “Well, we showed ‘em.”
News bites
Inside the lucrative business of unlicensed ATL ‘veneer techs’
One man claims a graham cracker foiled his $7,500 veneer makeover. If you’re looking for the perfect smile, perhaps check with a professional. Or just turn off your camera during meetings.
Maya Prabhu’s picks for the best-dressed Georgia lawmakers of 2025
My new fashion aim for this year: Be suave like Harold Jones, bold like State Rep. Charlice Byrd and, of course, always agree with whatever my wife suggests.
FIFA working to improve grass at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for Club World Cup
Scientists at Tennessee and Michigan State want to eliminate the trampoline effect some players described during last year’s Copa America. Must be what gave Josef Martinez so much bounce.
Girl Scouts cookies laced with metals and pesticides, lawsuit says
So I should stop dipping this Thin Mint into my coffee?
ON THIS DATE
March 14, 1993
Credit: File photo
Credit: File photo
From the front page of the Atlanta Journal/Atlanta Constitution: The Blizzard of ‘93. From Atlanta to Boston, America plunges into deep freeze.
The story goes on to describe the storm as “a monster with the heart of a blizzard and the soul of a hurricane.” Bone-chilling in more ways than one.
ONE MORE THING
If you or a loved one is feeling sick (of the news or otherwise), there is remedy to consider: Medical clowns. These trained professional performers work in tandem with staff at hospitals and are becoming more common at medical facilities across the world. In Georgia, at Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital, clowns employed by Laughter League spread joy each week to young patients. If you’ve got 2 minutes and 42 seconds, check out this video from the AJC’s Fraser Jones, who followed these humorous healers for a day.
As a thank you for reading to the very bottom, you get some bonus weekend tips: Check out Dad’s Garage’s new musical called “Hot Jambalaya.” It’s described as a Mel Brooks-like parody of vintage locked-room mystery and screwball farce. Also, a new independent bookstore called Wild Aster Books opens Saturday in Chamblee. Free face-painting. Good people. Tell ‘em Eric sent you.
Questions, comments, ideas? Contact us at AMATL@ajc.com.
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