Christa at Pecanne Log and CL’s Thomas Wheatley recently designed – and auctioned off! – a bunch of Atlanta-themed cookie cakes for a recent Burnaway fundraiser.

The cookies themselves are definitely worth a look – especially the Beltline and Bike Shorts man – but nothing gets Christa’s creative writing juices flowing faster than getting to point out the inadequacies of her favorite Atlanta journo.

Thomas is still struggling with expressing himself in an efficient manner via decorative gel. It was really hard for me to hold back when I wanted to mentor him artistically yet not smother his creativity. Often he wanted to use hot pink buttercream frosting to recreate architecture that would look better in a more natural color and with a more delicate line, but I had to sit back and let the Olympic Spirit carry him. Sometimes I would lose my patience and covertly churn out a design (anything you see below that uses cursive script, obviously).

Photo courtesy of Pecanne Log

Back on her Decatur horse, Pecanne Log says that the city “was home to the original NIMBYs”.  Christa has unearthed a 1939 AJC article where the writer unearthed a few odd facts from “The Inventory of County Archives – DeKalb” about Decatur from an even earlier time.

Among them, a 1860 plan to build a wall on the west side of Decatur to keep “that offensive, boisterous and growing community of Atlanta on its western boundaries”, and a little ditty that Decatur residents used to recite as a rallying cry against laying track for the “dirty” railroads within the city limits.

Christa also references the oft-cited rumor that Decatur residents actually turned down an offer to become the “terminus” station for the coming rail line, but I’ve always heard conflicting reports as to whether this is in fact true.  Most state this as fact – or at least accepted rumor – but a couple doubting Thomases have mentioned to me that there’s actually no proof of such an offer being made (and rejected) and that Atlanta (aka Marthasville, aka Thrasherville, aka Terminus) is actually a more logical spot for a number of railroads as that’s where many of them intersect.

Perhaps the aforementioned aversion to having track inside the city limits was expanded upon to come up with this revised history, which puts Decatur in a slightly more favorable light?  I dunno.  It sure would be interesting to look at “The Inventory of County Archives” though!

If it wasn’t too busy to pay attention, Atlanta might still be reeling from the recent one-two punches it recently received from author James Howard Kunstler and musician-turned-urban biker David Byrne after the New Urbanism conference set up shop in downtown last month.

But today, what’s left of the dwindling Atlanta blogosphere (seriously, it’s hurting these days.  we lost yet another yesterday – good luck in Chi-town Ben!) is peeing its collective pants over a nicely articulated piece by Christa at Pecanne Log, who decided to write the response to “America’s Greatest Urban Minds” herself after no one else stepped up to the plate.

Here’s a tangy, yet undeniably sweet taste of her post “There’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”…

I also HATE when people compare Atlanta to other cities, even indirectly. Sometimes I get fired up and do this myself, and then I hate myself for it. I haven’t lived in that many other cities, so what do I really know? And if people want a city where they don’t have to have a car, or where they can be cooler than literally everyone else in the United States, or where they have more job opportunities in a particular industry, or where there are New England autumns, or where all the big policy problems are already solved, then Atlanta just isn’t going to be able to fulfill that need (even Decatur can’t provide a good Connecticut fall experience, as much as it tries). That’s cool! Do what you need to do! But when there’s some Atlanta vs. Denver, or Atlanta vs. whoever else debate, the cities just don’t usually line up enough to make any real comparisons. It becomes just a subjective exercise in what one wants out of a city.

Decatur Connecticut Fall Experience Festival!  Who’s with me!?

Did you know that downtown Atlanta’s very first parking deck, the one that was destined to sire dozens of off-spring, still stands tall and proud along Peachtree Center Avenue?

A great post on Pecanne Log reports that the “Ivy Street Garage” opened to the public with 600 glorious parking spaces on June 3, 1925 and was deemed “one of the sites of Atlanta.”

But good ol’ granddad ain’t housing the “most comfortable parking you’ve ever known” anymore.  Nowadays it hosts chemistry labs and lecture halls.  And if you attempted to drive a car up it’s painted ramps today, you’d send hundreds of GSU students fleeing.

Yep, according to the Log, Atlanta’s oldest parking deck is GSU’s Kell Hall.

Click over to Pecanne Log for some old timey pics and more info!