The Georgia Trust last week announced its annual Places in Peril list. My first thought was that this year’s list will do a much better job of focusing public attention on endangered historic buildings around the state. Why? Because the list is full of well-known places with more connections to more people than in previous years. The mental hospital Milledgeville has always been known for, Finster’s Paradise Gardens, the Auburn Avenue home of Atlanta Life, Morris Brown and its clocktower, Capricorn Studios in Macon.
I drive by Herndon Plaza almost every day. It’s on Auburn Avenue just past the new Atlanta Life headquarters. Ivy creeps up the walls. Homeless folks sit on the steps. The windows are boarded up in the worst looking way, and the exterior trim rots away. It seems to me such a shame that this former symbol of the economic health of Black Atlanta is stuck in some sort of ownership limbo while the surrounding area slowly but surely gains new footing.
