A Green Piece . . .

MOVING ARTS AND CRAFTS

The stroll is the finest expression of the craft of stretching your legs. Want to argue with that?

The Princeton Women’s Book Club of Atlanta strolled last night, and I recommend it for recovering runners and jaded joggers. But where to stroll? That goes from craft to art. Nowhere could we women find a finer route… and I hope you’ll invite me on YOUR favorite path to test this bold assertion.

We crowded ourselves into Heather’s car and drove along Ponce de Leon Avenue east toward Decatur. We passed the Druid Hills Golf Club, past Fernbank Museum, and at the bottom of the hill, at the light at Lakeshore Drive, took a left turn on North Ponce de Leon. Our goal was the easternmost of the parks created by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted named Deepdene.

Immediately on our right sat a broad expanse of woods, laced with a creek and stitched with fresh trails made carefully to look 100 years old… As if Frederick Law Olmsted and his entire beard were woven into the woods he left for Atlantans to enjoy. We passed great mansions on the left, but our eyes were on the woods & trails on the right. At the top of the hill the park spreads out into a simple open field. We parked on the new granite curb and walked through the grass to a curving bridge over the creek. Vicky innocently asked about the water, and I raced to cram half an hour of hydrology knowledge into 5 minutes of showing off:

Sally shows off hydrology knowledge.

H 2 OH NO!

The water meanders through a made meadow of grasses, past boulders for stepping stones so we can get right down in the creekbed. The changes to the creek are intended to brake the speed of rainy runoff, and let it linger, ridding itself of road pollution and keeping the water meadows green and thick. This spring’s rain has been a wonderful test. Green Deepdene Gets an A.

We crossed the bridge, climbed the bank on carefully constructed paths of granite, concealed beneath a natural cover of wood mulch. Three choices of path wait for the strollers. If you have a literal stroller with a baby or a grandparent inside, the path along Ponce de Leon is the most level. When the state DOT and Georgia Power finish burying the power lines, adding a promenade and planting new hardwoods which won’t need trimming over the top of the street, Ponce will be a tunnel of green again for everyone to enjoy.

Recent rains down a century old tree.

HOBBIT HIKE

A second path is more adventurous, and you see more of the century-old oaks and beeches. The middle path of Olmsted’s Hierarchy of paths goes up and down in gentle bounces, crossing ravines on granite bridges that seem to grow out of the bedrock. Laura was sniffing as we crossed like hobbits in the gloaming.

“It smells so great!” she admired. Honeysuckle, jasmine, even privet blossoms made the evening air vivid.

We took the third and most serious path last. It hugs the edge of the stream, with strong up and down passages lined by well-placed steps and boulders.

Too difficult? “It’s still a flip flop walk,” Amy assured us, as the path broadened downstream. We came out of the woods at the corner of Ponce and Lakeshore, spotted the buried remnant of the old Georgia Power trolley track, and crossed the street. Walking west, we crossed the creek coming out of the Fraser Center and entered Dellwood Park on an asphalt trail. Recent replantings include a sumac nursery on the right, and full stands of native dogwood and redbud up the hill.

Who’s paying for this green glory? A non-profit group of neighbors named the Olmsted Linear Park Alliance. For the hundred years since Olmsted and his patron Joel Hurt laid out the park and the streets surrounding it, the parks grew, then slowly declined. Only in the last 15 years, born of the anxiety that the state Department of Transportation would destroy the park with a highway to Stone Mountain, did neighbors raise money to restore the parks. Under the leadership of Tally Sweat and her board, they raised almost ten million dollars. Perhaps more importantly the OLPA board negotiated partnerships with Atlanta and DeKalb County parks departments for joint upkeep and improvements. If the maintenance dollars stay in place, the park will not need a similar rescue in another 100 years. True Disclosure: I am a member of the OLPA board. For photos of the restoration, plus a map, click here.

Well-placed steps climb out of the creek.

GET THAT CREEK OUT OF YOUR PIPE

The conversation varied with the landscape. We caught up on babies, jobs, husbands as we topped the hill, crossed Clifton Road and started down again, through Shady Side park. An historic well commanded our attention, as well as the wonderful maps of Olmsted’s original design, printed on ceramic signs and placed by benches in the park segments. Beyond us traffic on Ponce de Leon was easy to ignore. Olmsted and his modern interpreter Spencer Tunnel designed and renewed the park to be a pastoral escape from the city. Shrubs at the edges are placed to eliminate the sight and sound of cars, enhance the stretch of the land and make the acreage look bigger and deeper.

We crossed the creek that flows out of Candler Park, cleaner and slower thanks to the city of Atlanta’s extensive restoration of the golf course. The watershed managers and the parks department under Mayor Shirley Franklin & Parks Director Dianne Harnell Cohen and took the creek out of a pipe and let it live in daylight again.

Paideia School owns a slice of land beside the arched bridge over the creek. It’s a science and landscape project in motion, yet today a tangle of kudzu and other wild plants from elsewhere. It could be cleared like Deepdene in the future. Meanwhile, Paideia students and teachers love the newly clear front yard of the popular school. At lunchtime, Oak Grove turns into a lively dining hall for the open air picnickers of Paideia.

Debbie and I walked together across the street to Lullwater Road, talking about middle school challenges and now to stay true to public schools. Her son at Inman, mine finishing Druid Hills High, we felt like veterans in the parental involvement wars. Tough stuff. Many of the wonderful kids in our lives leave public school in the middle years, then return for high school. We both sigh at the parents who quit volunteering as soon as elementary school is over.

DRIVING MISS DAISY

We left Olmsted behind when we turned right on Lullwater Road. The light was fading, but not before we spotted the house Miss Daisy was driven to. And on the right, at Lullwater Circle, we walked through the Conservation Garden, owned and managed by the Lullwater Garden Club. Those ladies are doing a wonderful job of removing the non-native invasive plants that were choking the downstream end of their park.

The Dell, or Hollow, in Dellwood.

NO LOLLING ON LULLWATER

Back onto Lullwater Parkway we walked up the hill to North Decatur, took a right and walked into Emory Village. There a cup of tea at Method Coffee Shop and club member Sister waited for us to catch our breath. Finally the book club talked about books, and club meetings, and the walk we’d taken.

By this time, it was dark so we didn’t complete the loop on foot. We could have left the coffee shop, turned right on South Oxford Road and walked to Burbanck Park at Clifton Road. That’s a new park with Peavine Creek running right through it, created by Emory University and its neighbors, including the Druid Hills Civic Association. The route stays on Clifton, curving past the Druid Hills Golf Club, and includes a great stretch of Fernbank Forest and the museum itself. At Ponce, the route takes a left and returns to the start at the eastern end of Deepdene Park.

Recent rains down a century old tree.

JUST THE ROUTE:

Park at intersection of Deepdene Park, North Ponce de Leon and Ponce de Leon, east of EastLake Road.

Walk through the park, exit and cross Ponce to the left Lakeshore Drive.

Enter Dellwood and walk west, crossing Clifton. Enter Shadyside and walk downhill , crossing the creek on Ponce and turning right on Lullwater Parkway.

At Lullwater Circle, enter the conservation garden on the right. Exit onto Lullwater Circle or Parkway and go downstream to North Decatur Road.

Take a right and walk through Emory Village to Oxford Road South. Take a right at the Emory entrance. Keep the BP gas station on your left.

Oxford Road south to Clifton Road, and take a right. Stay on Clifton to Ponce de Leon and take a left at Fernbank Museum.

Great final moments at the LINK trip:

The best is last for the exhausted participants on the LINK trip.

This Type-A crowd of elected officials, business leaders and other glad-handers survived three days of talks and conferences, three nights of hard agenda pushing, often over adult beverages. Even driven by the perfectionist planning of ARC leaders Tony Landers and Kellie Brownlow, the politeness just went so far.

And by the end of the last day, when the session finally turns to ‘what can we do about this at home?’ the gloves came off.

Roswell Mayor Jere Wood jumped to his feet first, asking to stop the general conversation and demanding that the group bear down on results to take home. He was shushed by Tony Landers. ARC chair and Cobb Commission Chair Sam Olens took the floor, asking reporter Maria Saporta to hold her questions. She did not.

Olens expressed an idea regularly overheard during coffee breaks, by veterans of several LINK trips. “I get the impression we spend all year whining about how we don’t do what we see on these trips. Then we get to the trip and realize some of the towns we see as unified are guilty of doing the same thing.”

Sam reminded the group metro Atlanta has grown by terrific migration, especially in its leadership. How many of the leaders on this very trip are from Atlanta? Not Shirley Franklin, he pointed out, not Buzz Ahrens of Cherokee County. DOT member Dana Lemon came closest, perhaps. She’s a Henry County native. Most of the room looked around without saying anything. It made a powerful point about the lack of homegrown leadership in Atlanta.

Finally, before the meeting returned to its uplifting tone, Olens had a last stinging word.

“ We say we have a unified business leadership in Atlanta, but we like to bitch at each other at every opportunity. Snipping at each other’s heels doesn’t solve a darn thing.”

It was the first ever LINK trip for Savannah’s Steve Green, chair of Georgia’s Ports Authority. His analysis? “More we can all get pulling on the rope in the same direction, especially in Washington, the better.”

Metro Chamber president Sam Williams gave a cheer for the Atlanta Regional Commission itself for leading MARTA’s temporary rescue. Then he pushed on transportation. “I’ll challenge ARC to put down on paper what you the local elected officials say you want done. And let us get behind it! I think ARC needs to take the initiative.”

Kay Pippin from Henry County’s Chamber of Commerce reminded the group of the millions in federal money waiting for a south side rail line. “Many of us think our state has taken a step backwards in the last few years.” She warned the dollars, and the chance for commuter rail, will go elsewhere if the region doesn’t push lawmakers to take it. She asked for support at a meeting on the 18th of May.

Mike Bodker, Mayor of Johns Creek said he is waiting for a strong leader to take on the state legislature. “Atlanta is lacking in many ways a leader to go do it. I came on this trip to get back to that final session of last year where we burned up the carpet.” And for good measure, he threw in a taunt to the voters. “We have to use fear. This is the best possible year, when they’re up for election. We need leadership and our community needs to have a single voice right now.”

Not from around here, are ya?

Atlanta Metro’s Diversity:45%

Twin Cities: not even 20%.

Yet on every block I saw women in veils. The Sudanese refugee community is visible just about everywhere, from flowing wardrobes to Halal butcher shops.

State demographer Tom Gillaspy gave these numbers, and a fascinating reason for some of the difference between Atlanta and the Twins. Not just casseroles and snow, either.

In the Twin Cities, people claim their family’s country of origin. 36% say they’re German. Another 25% say Scandinavian. Yet another 20 percent say English or Irish.

In Atlanta, by contrast, the ethnic or ‘old country’ roots don’t have the same claim. The answers were in the single digits to English, Irish, German ancestries.

The largest answer by far? 60% of Atlantans said their immigrant origins are ‘other.’

I’M FROM OTHER, THANKS.

Too much green space is never enough.

When I showed up at the first group meeting with a large map of the region highlighted with public green space and scenic rivers, Environmentalist Jim Stokes was my new best friend. “Where’d you get the map?” he wondered, eyes lighting up.

I slowly unfolded it, let him look and then folded it back up. I walked to the other side of the room and unfolded it again. This time Emory’s Betty Willis had that hungry look. She wanted one, too. It is a lovely green and blue picture of the cooperation between counties and cities here protecting the edges of rivers and lakes and linking them with greenways. This part of the country LOVES to be outside. The voters never seem to turn down a tax hike to protect and open land to the public. Where the national average is 13 acres of green space and parks per thousand people, here there’s 18.54 acres, half again more than the rest of the country. Atlanta’s green total is growing, but less than half the national average. It’s no wonder nobody had seen a map with so much land set aside.

Before long I had a dozen requests, from Yvonne Williams at the Perimeter CID to Council for Growth’s Michael Paris. so I called Arne Stefferud at the Met Council. He set aside a boxful for the group. But I took it as a point of pride to go pick them up via mass transit. We’d been hearing how great the buses are. I decided to test them. Imagine the equivalent, from Downtown Atlanta to Vinings, or Clarkston, or about a dozen miles. Plus, the taxi ride would have cost about $60.

PRICE: From downtown Minneapolis I caught an express bus to Saint Paul. Wait time: 8 minutes. Cost $2 round trip. Ride time: 18 minutes at rush hour. Return? The same.

BENEFIT: Talked with a man in a bow tie, a woman in a veil, a nun in a veil and 2 very amused bus drivers. They gave me excellent advice about the cities, the river and the hikes. And they wanted a map, too.

A tale of two cities

MINNEAPOLIS -- In the best of times, Atlanta loves to be the best! Bigger than Charlotte, more important than Miami, better integrated than just about anywhere.

But in the not so best times, it’s tough on the annual comparison-contest called the LINK trip.

I linked up with the Atlanta Regional Commission’s merry band of 100 mayors, commissioners and business leaders. This year the group flew to the twin cities of Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and the comparisons are entertaining, and telling.

First stop for me, the most popular park in the region. Minnehaha Park with a famous waterfall, miles of hiking and biking paths and connections to parkland north and south along the Mississippi River.

It’s not Piedmont Park. It’s different.

Second stop. Minnesota Historical Society. Three ways to tell you’re not in Atlanta?

- Multiple coat rooms, because they wear so many coats up here.

- The replica of one of Charles Lindbergh’s airplanes fills the atrium.

- Two different kinds of Bundt cake pans for sale in the gift shop. They take their baking seriously.

What is Andy Young doing in Saint Paul?

Former mayors of both of the twin cities warmly welcomed the group. But something stuck in the craw of former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer.

He asked how many in the room were involved in Atlanta's quest for the 1996 Olympics.

Lots of hands went up.

He reminded us it was Atlanta versus the Twin Cities at one point. He couldn't remember where it was -- some nameless meeting of the Olympic Organizing Committee -- where he brought along the governor, lots of regional Minnesota mayors, their best polish and promise.

All Atlanta offered was Andrew Young, Mayor Latimer recalled.

He paused.

Then, he laughed, and the whole room did, too -- remembering the outcome.

"When you see Andy back in Atlanta, tell him for me . . . I've neither forgotten, nor forgiven!"

Why is Mayor Franklin at the Mall of America?

Here's a hint: She's not on a giant shopping spree.

The roar of the roller coaster at the largest indoor mall in the world pounds in the background. Peppy fairground music bounces into the conference room each time the door opened. But the faces in the room are scowling like The Grinch. A hundred leaders from Atlanta are hearing how well Minnesota handles traffic and transit. And the contrast with Georgia could not be worse for the home team.

Mayor Shirley Franklin, the county heads of Cobb and Gwinnett, lots of mayors and business leaders are scouring the Twin Cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis for examples of regional solutions to water, traffic and growth challenges. And the smiling hosts have lots to brag about.

Thursday at noon, the hundred or so elected officials climbed on the Hiawatha train line, riding in sleek new cars from downtown Minneapolis past the airport to the Mall of America.

I crowded into the light railcar with Decatur’s Mayor Bill Floyd and the Blank Foundation’s Penny McPhee. Behind me stood a fresh faced kid, working his way through college by selling shoes at Mall of America.

How do you like the Hiawatha? I asked him.

His face lit up. For miles he pressed on us the joys of riding the train, giving all sorts of Minnesotans the chance to mingle. And cheap! Oh yeah, cheap to ride.

This guy was so gung-ho he even had particulate counts in his head about how many pounds of junk the trains keep out of the air.

He was just the easiest cheerleader of all the experts talking to Atlantans about the benefits of working as a region to solve problems like traffic.

When we got to the Mall of America, it was fun watching the Georgians appreciate the view.

Department of Transportation member Dana Lemon eyed the fancy shops. Atlanta mayoral candidate Lisa Borders walked into the amusement park and stopped to stare. An orange roller coaster zoomed within feet of her head. Candy apples on sticks jostled for attention with a face painting lady. A giant Sponge Bob Square Pants marked the left turn into a conference room where the fun and games abruptly stopped.

We heard about tax structure… complicated. Tax rates… higher than Georgia by a lot. Congressional support… overwhelming, unlike Georgia’s.

But some things are the same. Republican governors in both states oppose many of the ideas about sharing power.

The Minnesota legislature overrode the governor’s opposition of one large, expensive bill, and the most of the Republicans who voted to override their governor, Tim Pawlenty, are not in office any more.

Most of the Georgians were on this same trip last year, to Denver. They form a nice, cohesive group, eager to implement regional cooperation on transit and transportation when they get home. And each year, less happens than any of them want.

On the trip, they see the promised land of regional cooperation. They just cannot get there from here with the current makeup of state legislative leaders.

Even the lawmakers on the trip agree. Rep Vance Smith, Senator Doug Stoner, both shake their heads when I ask why this stuff never sells at home where it counts in the state legislature.

Perhaps Sponge Bob has the answer. Until more elected officials feel voters want them to work together, the fastest ride may be the roller coaster . . . and just about as calming.