To an outsider, Atlanta’s love for the 106-year-old Krog Street Tunnel must be initially confusing.
“It’s just an underground passage with two lanes for traffic and pedestrian walkways and is also covered with graffiti. And?”
Just don’t say that to a local. Residents are fiercely protective of the functional work of art, which serves as a canvas and message board for the community.
When a Halloween masquerade ball closed the beloved underpass for some 30 hours in 2014, many Cabbagetown residents were extremely unhappy about the intrusion and said the promoter was profiting off public space and public art. The graffitied walls of the 400-foot-long tunnel were even whitewashed by protesters.
Built in 1912, the thoroughfare lies under the same railroad fought over by Union and Confederate troops in 1864. It runs between DeKalb Avenue on the Inman Park side and Wylie Street on the Cabbagetown side, connecting the two neighborhoods.
Well-known artists known to have displayed their work in the tunnel include local muralist Peter Ferrari and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh of Brooklyn, New York.
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Suffice it to say, people have pretty strong opinions about the thing, in real life and on the internet.
At time of publication, the landmark had a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars across 114 Google reviews. Here are what some of them say, beginning with a couple Debbie Downer one-star reviews and increasing in positivity from there, so you leave feeling all warm inside.
None of the comments have been edited.
• You probably should not be reading a review for a tunnel. But hey, you do you.
• it's a tunnel. oh and it has graffiti. but it's mostly a tunnel.
• The Krog Street Tunnel itself is mostly amateur street art. It's dark and dingy with discarded spray paint cans littering the sidewalk.
• Art is nice. It's a shame people keeping spray painting offensive words over someone's well though out piece. Currently sand all over the side walk with really terrible lighting. Needs some care and attention.
• You get to see different graffiti every time!
• Dopeness. Go check it
• We walked through the tunnel at 10pm on a Wednesday. I didn't really look at the graffiti. My mind was focused on the future, the light at the end of the tunnel. When we broke on through to the other side, we breathed a sigh of relief and looked behind us one last time. The future was there. Will we take it? Tune in next time for more stuff. (NOTE: If we could rate this rating, we'd give it five stars.)
• Atlanta
• Heard great things (NOTE: That's not how reviews are supposed to work)
• This is a tunnel! A little scary.
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• Very unique place it used to be the side of town you stayed away from (NOTE: This was left by "Nelson Mandela")
• My sister recently visited from Arkansas and wanted to see the street art. We parked near Krog St. tunnel and walked around all day looking at the street art and searching for tiny doors. Its urban beauty at its finest. It was an all day adventure but it was so much fun. While we were walking through the tunnel someone was filming a music video which I thought was cool. My sister got the Atlanta experience for sure lol. My daughter is an artist so I definitely want to take her there. She will surely be inspired.
• It is a tunnel of artist creativity! great place for wedding photography in a urban landscape
• This place is an amazing showcase of art and Atlanta's core.
• An iconic, hidden treat tucked throughout a dummy lit underpass. The art is political, but tasteful and always changing.
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• It's like walking through an art museum made of graffiti and mostly art, but on the inside of an overpass. There is also art on walls in the surrounding areas as well.
• Hands down my all-time FAVORITE SPOT to walk around in ATL
• Very cool to bike through on a late night
• A very unique part of Atlanta. It's not a normal tourist area, but I would definitely recommend it to the more adventurous types. Artists from all over the area like to add to it and change it on an almost daily basis. You could visit it everyday and find something new. If you like street art, it'd be a shame to at least not drive through this.
• It's like a outside(sort of) art exhibit that's always open
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