but i was lucky. i got to be in it during the final stages of death. i started working at the building in the early spring of 2010. two offices remained in the whole place. parks and recreations and the office of cultural affairs, where i was interning. i went to city hall east not knowing anything about the space, but leaving that first day completely obsessed with it. i would walk around different floors for hours after getting off work. i would bring people back in with me after hours. we would grab anything.
stacks of rolled up city plans for atlanta. huge beautiful images of the design of the city just dumped in offices.
leather-bound notebooks of urban designers' sidewalk plans.
room after room with stacks of old technology.
bags of un-used department patches and name tags.
endless arts and office supplies.
photo and ledger documentation for every department of the city.
huge maps of atlanta's inner workings.
weird personal office stuff people left behind.
bookcases, floor to ceiling with ledgers.
a full body silver flame resistant fireman's suit.
official letter-head everywhere.
and thats just the stuff i wanted.
so i would bring people with me who i knew could utilize and re-purpose the shit that was left like trash. it was not trash, however. it was all amazing beautiful historical record of how a system use to function.
an entire floor filled with chutes, conveyors, and drops once used for the sorting and routing of mail for the building is a serious mindfuck. people use to get mail ! tons of mail !
typed memos, handwritten notes, and pencil sketched cityscapes is a lost happening.
this building is now totally empty. every room on every floor is eletricfied and lit up so the guards can see when they are patrolling. taxpayer's money being poured into a space the people of atlanta bought, but are forbidden access to. the city has decided what was 'vauable', deemed it worth, taged it, and sold it off. mostly old office furniture and weird bulky work stations. the documents, the extinct technology, the drawings, the handcrafted outline of constructing and maintain an exploding city-has been buried in a landfill. like it didnt matter.
the plan is to now get as many dollars dumped in there so it can start to bring about more dollars. what is a tradegy for the city, is that when no dollars are there, none can be dumped.
it has two options from there:
1) sit on the property trying to desperately squeeze a dollar for a filing cabinet and hope it sweetness up the deal for a potential slumlord savior. but as it goes, the monster is proven itself to be more then any real estater could tango. the possibility of a good long years of abandonment are more in store.
2) set up an open and diverse regulating system of allowing individuals or groups use the space for free for up to five years. agree and term it as fit to the benefit of the renter and space as allowing repairs and restores, cultural and artists events, areas for open media and education, local business, personal work spaces. it is overwhelmingly endless what a space like that could bring together.
allow it to be rejuvenated with life and excitement to build something new. if the structure of the city itself will be thrown away, an establishment of a enlivened environment should be honored and embraced.
after the deemed free lease is up, the building residents could work with the city or owners for a place of content. at this point it will have hopefully flourished into a self sustaining entity.
this could sound like bullshit but i dont think it is.
i believe it is possible for people to want to see this happen. i believe it could help inspire and shape the progression of self establishment by relieving pressures of money. i believe it could open up the doors for places like detroit and baltimore to exploit the run down ruins the greedy absent investors left them to watch decay at but never make use of.
i believe for sure that beyond spiking the value of the building itself, it will do double for atlanta.
this is beyond wanting to. we need to. city halls east needs us.
