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Random Pieces of Atlanta's Building History Exist Today

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Throughout modern history, Atlanta has been famously proficient at tearing down significant buildings. Countless beautiful structures from across the decades have succumbed to progress — and parking lots. Sometimes, visionaries are there as the wrecking balls descend, collecting pieces of the buildings for later uses. Sometime they aren't. While it's convenient to blame the "progressive" 1970s for much of the destruction, this handy map proves that Atlantans have been cannibalizing architectural elements for more than a century. And some of them are still randomly scattered around town.


By no means an exhaustive map, feel free to add those sites that you know of around the city, where historic buildings can be found serving a new purpose.

· Carnegie Library Stones [History Atlanta]

· The Equitable Building of 1892 [History Atlanta]

· Columns support important chapter of Atlanta history [Neighbor Newspapers]

· Eiseman Building Facade, Five Points MARTA Station [ATL Urbanist]

· The Old Leyden House Columns [History Atlanta]

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Equitable Building

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The columns of the former Equitable Building, Atlanta's first skyscraper, long occupied the plaza on Peachtree Street in front of the current Equitable Building. While they have vanished during recent renovations, hopefully they will soon be restored.

Columns Drive

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Eight columns were rescued from the ill-fated Equitable building following its demolition in the 1970s and brought to Marietta by a developer. Involved in a very strange lawsuit in the 1990s, some of the columns were removed, though three may still remain somewhere along the Chattahoochee.

Carnegie Education Pavilion

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Erected as a monument to Atlanta's intelligence before the 1996 Olympic Games, the monument is comprised of large remnants of the facade of the old Carnegie Library. The way in which the pieces of the building were procured remain a bit of a mystery, and the man responsible seems to have taken the secret to his grave.

Carnegie Trail

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On the site of an old dumping ground for the city of Atlanta, among dead zoo animals and other odd refuse, lay the remains of much of the old Atlanta Carnegie Library. While exploring the site on foot can land you a ticket for trespassing, someone has already gone and taken pictures for us.

MARTA - Five Points Station

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Above the northbound and southbound platforms at Five Points MARTA station rises the facade of the Eiseman Building which had once stood on Whitehall (now Peachtree) Street. As the building was demolished in 1977, workers used mini jackhammers to remove 844 pieces of the facade to re-erect in the station.

Peachtree Circle Apartments

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Margaret Mitchell made up a bunch of stuff in Gone With The Wind, but one thing that really did exist was the grandiose Leyden House. One of the grand mansions on Peachtree Street, not surprisingly it was torn down. The columns of the antebellum abode can now be found adorning an old school turned apartment complex.

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Equitable Building

The columns of the former Equitable Building, Atlanta's first skyscraper, long occupied the plaza on Peachtree Street in front of the current Equitable Building. While they have vanished during recent renovations, hopefully they will soon be restored.

Columns Drive

Eight columns were rescued from the ill-fated Equitable building following its demolition in the 1970s and brought to Marietta by a developer. Involved in a very strange lawsuit in the 1990s, some of the columns were removed, though three may still remain somewhere along the Chattahoochee.

Carnegie Education Pavilion

Erected as a monument to Atlanta's intelligence before the 1996 Olympic Games, the monument is comprised of large remnants of the facade of the old Carnegie Library. The way in which the pieces of the building were procured remain a bit of a mystery, and the man responsible seems to have taken the secret to his grave.

Carnegie Trail

On the site of an old dumping ground for the city of Atlanta, among dead zoo animals and other odd refuse, lay the remains of much of the old Atlanta Carnegie Library. While exploring the site on foot can land you a ticket for trespassing, someone has already gone and taken pictures for us.

MARTA - Five Points Station

Above the northbound and southbound platforms at Five Points MARTA station rises the facade of the Eiseman Building which had once stood on Whitehall (now Peachtree) Street. As the building was demolished in 1977, workers used mini jackhammers to remove 844 pieces of the facade to re-erect in the station.

Peachtree Circle Apartments

Margaret Mitchell made up a bunch of stuff in Gone With The Wind, but one thing that really did exist was the grandiose Leyden House. One of the grand mansions on Peachtree Street, not surprisingly it was torn down. The columns of the antebellum abode can now be found adorning an old school turned apartment complex.