Atlanta City Information

Atlanta Hotels

Atlanta City Information Atlanta is a lively , thriving city, the capital of Georgia, and a center of commerce and the arts. Many fortune 500 companies have corporate or regional headquarters in Atlanta, and young professionals are moving there in ever increasing numbers.

Many visitors come to Atlanta looking for the Old South stereotypes: white columned mansions surrounded by magnolias and owned by languidly moving, elegantly dressed ladies wearing white gloves and hoop skirts, and speaking in a southern drawl.. What they find is much more cosmopolitan and a lot more interesting, though it is still possible to relax with a glass of lemonade under a peach tree. Atlanta has spent the last 135 years building what has been described as the Capital of the New South and the Next Great International City.

Atlanta is the city of Martin Luther King, Jr., father of one of the country's most important social revolutions, and of Ted Turner, who brought the world a revolution of another sort. The dramatic downtown skyline, with its gleaming skyscrapers, is testimony to Atlanta's inability to sit still, even for a minute. And its role as host for the Centennial Olympic Games in 1996 (it had already hosted Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994 and the Democratic National Convention in 1988) finally convinced the rest of the world that Atlanta is a force to be reckoned with as well as a great place to visit.

Consistently ranked as one of the best cities in the world in which to do business, Atlanta is headquarters for hundreds of corporations, including Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, UPS, Holiday Inn, Georgia-Pacific, Home Depot, and BellSouth and Cox Communications. A major convention city and a crossroads where three interstate highways converge, it's home to the country's second busiest airport and is the shopping capital of the Southeast. Although the city limits are only 131 square miles, the metro area is vast and sprawling. With 3.5 million in population and still counting, there seems to be no limit to its growth.

There are major art, science, nature, and archaeology museums, a vibrant theater community, an outstanding symphony, a well-regarded ballet company, opera, blues, jazz, Broadway musicals, a presidential library, Confederate and African-American heritage sites, and dozens of art galleries.

Add to that entertainment attractions such as Georgia's Stone Mountain Park, a regional theme park, a botanical garden, and major league sports teams, and you have the ingredients for a family friendly city. The culinary spectrum ranges from grits and biscuits to caviar and sushi. Fried chicken and barbecue are available, but Atlanta also serves up Thai, Ethiopian, and Russian cuisine.

The 1960's saw the beginning of downtown development with the rise of the million-square-foot Merchandise Mart, designed by an innovative young Atlanta architect named John Portman. It became the nucleus for the nationally renowned Peachtree Center complex. Portman's futuristic design for the downtown Hyatt Regency in 1967 introduced a towering atrium-lobby concept that at the time was considered to be quite revolutionary. Today, Peachtree Center, a 14-city-block "pedestrian village," contains three Portman designed megahotels as well as the Atlanta Market Center, 200,000 square feet of retail space, many restaurants, and six massive office towers. Its various elements are connected by covered walkways and bridges.

MARTA rapid-transit trains began running in 1979, and today most of Atlanta: city center and vast suburbs, is accessible by bus or subway.

In 1980, a revitalized black neighborhood called Sweet Auburn became a National Historic District, its 10 blocks of notable sites including Martin Luther King, Jr.'s boyhood home, the church where he preached, a museum, and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change. It is probably the major black history attraction in the country, and in the last several years, has undergone a major revitalization and restoration.

Media mogul Ted Turner inaugurated CNN in Atlanta in 1980, following with Superstation TBS, Headline News, and TNT. The High Museum of Art opened its doors in 1983. In 1989, Underground Atlanta, a retail/restaurant/entertainment complex with a historical theme, came into being.

The city prepared for the 1996 Olympic Games with new parks, hotels, and sports venues. In the center of downtown is Woodruff Park, which recently underwent a $5 million renovation. The Olympic Village, erected just north of the central business district, now provides housing for Georgia State University students. South of the Olympic Village and stretching to CNN Center is the 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park: a major gathering place during the Olympics, with its dramatic Olympic Ring fountain, lawns, and gardens. Reopened in 1998, it regularly hosts concerts, street festivals and other cultural events and anchors the city's efforts to revitalize commercial and residential development in a once neglected corner of downtown. The Olympic Stadium, the site of the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the track and field events, has been reincarnated as Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves baseball team.

Currently the spotlight in Atlanta is not on growth and how to encourage it, but on growth and how to manage it. This has resulted in major improvements in transportation and in restoration of the historic and downtown areas.

Atlanta's arts community has deep roots. The Atlanta Ballet is the oldest Ballet Company in America. Visitors come to Atlanta for a taste of the South and find they have discovered an international flavor. Atlanta's position as the cultural capital of the South affords patrons an array of options. The presence of both traditional and experimental arts organizations means that neither the classics nor avant-garde works are neglected. A typical year's offerings include traditional Shakespeare, symphony and grand opera as well as child and adult-oriented puppet theater, post-modern psychological drama and alternative productions of well-known works.

There are a wide selection of offerings in the visual arts too. Besides the architecturally renowned High Museum of Art, Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum and The High Museum of Art Folk Art and Photography Galleries, the city has many private and public galleries that sponsor a variety of artists and styles. Traditional, primitive and modern painting, sculpture, studio crafts, drawing, and photography are part of the wealth of artistic offerings on view at any given time.

Atlanta enjoys four definite seasons. Warm summers and mild winters allow nearly year round golfing, fishing and outdoor living. The Stone Mountain nightly laser show and the park's many recreational opportunities keep millions of visitors coming back. Nightlife is hopping at Buckhead where young sophisticates gather for dancing to great music until 4:00AM. Families keep a lively pace visiting the bounty of fun -filled and educational offerings from the Atlanta zoo to Cyclorama and SciTrek. There is no limit that can be placed on the possibilities of an Atlanta vacation!

Population:
404,000 in center city; 3.5 million in greater Atlanta

Location:
Georgia

Elevation:
1,050 feet

Area:
131.8 sq. miles (entire metro area : 800 square miles)

Time Zone:
Eastern Time Zone. When it is noon in NY City, it is noon in Atlanta. EDT observed April-October.

Weather:
Average Temperatures (in Fahrenheit):


Temperatures:


Month
High
Low


January
51F
35F


February
54F
37F


March
62F
43F


April
71F
51F


May
79F
60F


June
86F
67F


July
87F
70F


August
86F
69F


September
82F
64F


October
72F
54F


November
61F
43F


December
52F
37F




Pleasant temperatures in the summer and mild winters make Atlanta a pleasure to visit year round. Dress appropriately for cooler weather Jan.-March.

National Holidays:


Jan 1: New Year's Day
3rd Monday in January: Martin Luther King Jr Day/ Robert E Lee's Birthday
3rd Monday in February: Presidents' Day/Washington's Birthday
Last Monday in April: Confederate Memorial Day
Last Monday in May: Memorial Day
July 4: Independence Day
1st Monday in September: Labor Day
2nd Monday in October: Columbus Day
Nov 11: Veterans' Day
4th Thursday in November: Thanksgiving
Friday after Thanksgiving: Holiday
Dec 24: Christmas Eve
Dec 25: Christmas Day
Holidays occurring on a Sunday are moved to a Monday


Emergency:
911

Business:
9-5 Mon.-Fri.

How to get around:
Public Transportation:
MARTA Call for schedules: (404)848-4711 (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) is one of the most advanced rapid transit systems in the United States. All buses and train stations accept the MARTA Trans card. For a flat weekly or monthly fee, patrons have unlimited use of the entire system. Cards are sold at RideStore locations at the airport and major stations and in many grocery and convenience stores. With the card, transfers are not needed. Children three and under ride free.
Trains run every 4 minutes on weekdays between 5am and 7pm. From 7pm-1am they run every 10 minutes. On Saturday and Sunday they run every 10 or 15 minutes until 1am on Sunday morning and 12:30am on Monday morning.
Buses follow the same schedule.

Taxis:
Atlanta's 2000+ cabs operate under a limited flat rate structure by zones. The fare from the airport to the downtown business district is about $20. for one passenger. Sales tax is extra, as is baggage.

AAA Yellow Cab
(404) 255-3333

Rapid Taxi Co
(404) 222-9888

Yellow Cab Dunwoody
(770) 394-9999

Airport:
Hartsfield Atlanta International
Tel: (404) 530-6600 Fax: (404) 530-6803
Distance from city: 10 miles (16km)
Airport Code: ATL

Hartsfield Airport is the size of a small city and employs 35,000 people. The Atrium, a 225,000 sq. ft. 4 story structure, topped with a 60 ft. wide skylight connects the north and south terminals. It contains over 40 restaurants and shops and is also the location of a 20,000 sq. foot conference center with accommodation for the running of 15 meetings simultaneously.


Transportation between Hartsfield and the Metro Atlanta area: Buses run from 5 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and from 5:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. weekends and holidays.
MARTA's rail system operates from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Friday and from 6 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. weekends and holidays. Rail cars run every four minutes between the airport and Lindbergh Center Station. Suggestion: buy a Trans Pass and use it throughout your stay.

Metro Area Shuttles:
Reservations required. Check with dispatcher at Airport Shuttle desk

Amtrak:
Brookwood Station, 1688 Peachtree Street NW (404) 881-3060. Service daily to and from NY Penn Station and New Orleans

Greyhound Bus Lines:
232 Forsyth St., SW (404) 584-1728

Driving in Atlanta:
Atlanta is served by three major highways: Interstate 85N (the Northeast Expressway) and its counterpart I85S (the Southwest Expressway); Interstate 75 North and South; and Interstate 20East and West. In Atlanta, the rush hour never seems to end. The public transportation is excellent, and most visitors find that it is easy to manage without a car, or by renting one for excursions way beyond the city.