Looks like the city is a little dissatisfied with its unofficial description “Where Mayberry meets Berkeley” and may be looking for a new slogan.

Lyn Menne’s challenge in the latest issue of the Focus (not yet online), is to follow in the footsteps of Hemingway’s famous six word story and provide an accurate description of our fair city in 6 words – no more, no less.

Definitely not an easy task, seeing that I’ve been pondering it for two days straight and have yet to come up with anything worth jotting down.

Whatcha got smart-pantses?

I’m happy to report that in just one year and 10 months, DM has achieved an inconceivable milestone: one million page views!

Not too shabby for a blog that asks “What’s your favorite park/building?”, “How much trash do you throw out?”, yells at various post-modern buildings, and writes fictional posts about cross-dressing city-lovers and cantaloupe.

Thanks to all the clickers out there, both stoic readers and verbose commenters, who make this site so personally rewarding and endlessly interesting to me.  Without you, I would just be one more crazy yahoo, sitting in my proverbial underwear, posting ignorant observations for everyone (and no one) to read.  Also, continued thanks to all the Decatur/Atlanta bloggers and Creative Loafing journalists who guided me through those first, tough months with support and encouragement and remain dear friends to this day.

And finally, a huge thanks to my wife, who has always been supportive of this crackpot endeavor, but stands alone as the only person that can prevent me from becoming a bit too obsessive about “feeding-the-beast” and monitoring comment threads.  All it takes is a look.  THE look.

OK, so what’s next?  Good question!

Well, for better or worse, I have a few ideas in the works for DM, so keep your eyes and minds open in the coming weeks and months.  Should be interesting to say the least.

Here’s to the next one million!

Carl forwards a reminder from the Brick Store boys that tomorrow is the big, tap-a-keg-an-hour fest in celebration of 12 years on the Square in Decatur.

Here again is the lineup – with BeerAdvocate links for your convenience (don’t say I never did anything for ya!)

12pm –  Duck Rabbit Brewery “Pauls Day Off” American Strong Ale
1pm – Sweetwater Oak Aged (Bordeaux French Oak 2nd run) Creeper Belgian IPA
2pm – Highland Cattail Wheat (Trappist yeast version)
3pm – Allagash Interlude Wild Ale
4pm – Atlanta Brewing Co. ‘08 Winter Ale in Pappy Van Winkle
5pm – Allagash Confluence Wild Ale
6pm – Ballast Point Victory at Sea Coffe Vanilla Imperial Porter
7pm – Allagash Victor Strong Dark Ale
8pm – Oskar Blues Stranahan Barrel Aged Gordon Double IPA
9pm – Allagash Victoria Strong Pale Ale
10pm – Oskar Blues Stranahan Barrel Aged 10 Fidy Imperial Stout
11pm – Allagash Hugh Malone Belgian IPA
12am – Oskar Blues Stranahan Barrel Aged Dale’s Pale Ale

We’ve been hearing rumblings about a scooter store for months now. Most recently the city teased us in the Decatur Focus with news that a scooter store was coming, but gave few details. Well, thanks to Jeff at Whit’s End, I finally have a name and location for you! ….drumroll please….

Midtown’s Twist & Scoot will open a new store in the old Intaglia space on West Ponce. No details yet as to when, but they certainly couldn’t have picked a better time to expand, with scooter sales going up faster than gas prices. A recent Time Magazine article (“10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas“) says that Vespa sales are up 109% since last year.

Perhaps the close proximity to our house will help convince my wife of my undying NEED for a sporty little scooter. But unfortunately, MARTA is still a more viable option for me.

Best of luck to all involved!

[Midtown location photo courtesy of Flickr]

Next Stop…Decatur notes the old look of the Pythagoras Mason Temple Building at the northeast corner of Clairemont and Ponce included street-level retail (specifically Glenn’s Pharmacy). This is actually the original layout/intent of the first floor, and a look at the current building (in a pic found in Next Stop’s post) shows that it would not be too difficult to revert the exterior of the building’s first floor back to street-level retail. The interior is probably another story.

I can only assume that the city would fully support such an initiative (especially if the change didn’t alter the exterior), but it’s probably up to the building’s owners (the Mason’s) to make the change.

As Next Stop notes, it would be a great extension of street-level retail along Ponce and Clairemont. Now…what to do about that really unfriendly Emory Clinic building on the northwest corner.

The top DeKalb vent on AJC.com reads…

“Can we please get a left turn signal at Candler St. and College Ave. in Decatur? Ridiculous!”

Well, if this venter had flipped through the Community Transportation Plan, they would already know that the city has noted and addressed this issue on page 6.13.

It reads “Work with Agnus Scott to obtain permission to widen on the west side of South Candler Drive so that one additional northbound through lane can be created on approach and through the intersection. The second through lane would continue across the railroad tracks at the end of Church Street.”

While this blurb doesn’t mention a turn lane, the map below (on page 6.15) clearly shows one.

When will this be done? The Transportation Plan projects a timeframe of 2010-2015 for this particular intersection. See the time table for all the proposed transportation recommendations on page 11.13. And in case you’re interested, the whole College/S. Candler intersection project is estimated to cost $1.6 million.

The DeKalb Neighbor has a few new interesting details regarding Decatur’s new tenet at 1 West Court House Square, Art Institute of Atlanta.

The satellite facility will include 20,000 square feet of classroom and administrative space, computer laboratories and a library.

Like its parent campus, the newest location will offer degrees in a variety of studies from graphic design, interior design, fashion and media, said director of admissions Jennifer Ramey.

“It’s the same accreditation, same curriculum and same system,” she said,

While nearly 30 students have enrolled thus far, Ms. Ramey said the campus is still accepting applications.

More classes are slated to begin in February and April and the school will offer eight new student starts per year, Mazur said.

This reconfirms that things will start out small.  Can’t wait for the street front gallery.

Stella Bella Boutique, which sat next to Natural Body in the Townsquare Condominium complex and sold customized cosmetics and bath products, has closed up shop after little more than a year in Decatur.

Walking by there earlier today, the store has been totally cleared out, leaving only the strikingly orange/pink color scheme on the walls and the “beautique’s” sign on the window.

Perhaps Decatur hasn’t gone quite yuppie enough to support a customized cosmetics shop…yet.

UPDATE: I did a little leg work (if making a phone call is “leg work”) and got the details about Stella Bella’s move to Dunwoody (as previously mentioned by the all-knowing Catherine from over at AsianCajuns).

Stella Bella is now located in Rapport Salon at 2462 Jet Ferry Road, Dunwoody, Ga. Their phone # is 770-393-9913and Kristin can still be reached at kristin@stellabellabeauty.com if you have additional questions. She also mentioned she still has all the same products she had at the Decatur location (lotion candles, scents…), so if you were hooked on her makeup (as it sounds like many of you were from the comments) you’ll have to hop in the car and take a quick trip up I-285.

I swear, I’m not being paid or reimbursed in any way by a “streetcar mafia” for all of my recent posts concerning rail transportation.

In a study by the Brooking Institution, that was recently reported in the AJC [h/t: InDecatur], Atlanta ranked midway among the 30 largest cities in terms of “walkability”. But don’t thank downtown for that ranking, thank Decatur…along with Atlantic Station, Buckhead and Midtown.

Here’s the cutesy Decatur blurb… “Here, parents sip lattes while kids dance in the misty fountain at the center of the town square. Traffic jams do happen — in strollers. And shoppers sauntering down the latern-lined sidewalks aren’t just on a first-name basis with each other. Jake means ice cream. Eddie means music. And Twain means billiards and beer”

In addition to the rankings (which always get press, along with seemingly endless mentions on this blog), the study concludes that rail (not buses) is a key component of promoting walkable neighborhoods.

Take it away AJC…

“The survey underscored the link between walkable areas and rail transit, finding that 65 percent of the pedestrian meccas were situated along the tracks. It concluded that metro areas not experiencing this type of development might want to consider investments in rail.

And Leinberger noted that Atlanta could do more with special zoning districts around MARTA stops to encourage development. “You have a tremendous resource in Atlanta with MARTA,” he said. “But you haven’t taken enough advantage of development within walking distance of those stations.”

Another issue of Focus is in the mail! [Thanks InDecatur]

Lots of the development issues we’ve discussed here and over at the aforementioned InDecatur are covered. The obvious difference here is that the city is talking…so they’re a little less interesting than us opinionated bloggers, but they have all the inside dish! (that they’re willing to share)

Examples include…

315 W. Ponce de Leon Ave.

The city reports, like we did last month [InDecatur /Decatur Metro], that Decatur Court at 315 West Ponce has a new owner that plans to keep the existing office building and build residential and a parking deck on the existing parking lot. My original posting mentioned a potential issue with building height for the bungalows along Ponce Pl. Sure enough, a couple homes still have “No High Rise Next to R60″ signs in their yards left over from the Old Decatur condo battle. Should be interesting….

Art Institute of Atlanta

The city has given us a little more detail on this project too, beyond the press releases that alerted us to it a couple weeks ago [InDecatur/Decatur Metro] Apparently the school will put a student art gallery on the first floor fronting Ponce, next to Quiznos, brightening up a piece of the most unfriendly pedestrian building in the city (I say that with no due respect). Also the blurb answers my question about a start date for classes, asked here. “Plans are to start small, and add classes over the next year.”

Mick’s

InDecatur pointed this one out just a few days ago and I piggy-backed. I’m still perplexed why I didn’t notice. The city cites “financial problems” that closed the entire chain. A commenter at InDecatur dishes juicer gossip, “I ran into one of their bartenders a few months back, who told me that the license was suspended because of nonpayment of back taxes.” The city goes on to assure the public that they’ll find the right establishment to fill this prime locale.

Trinity Triangle

OK, so here’s the one we haven’t seen any updates on. After months of delays, demolition is scheduled to start this month on the oh-so-sketchy Relax Inn, the old temporary city hall, and the mostly burnt down “My Sister’s Room”. Dairy Queen will need to be relocated for a time, but has been promised a spot in the new development. This blurb from Intown Atlanta gives a little more insight… “Both of these establishments will be demolished to make way for Decatur’s first downtown apartment development in more than a decade.” Anyone know who the developer is or what the plans look like?