Fairlie-Poplar
Encyclopedia
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
in downtown Atlanta
Downtown Atlanta
Downtown Atlanta is the first and largest of the three financial districts in the city of Atlanta. Downtown Atlanta is the location of many corporate or regional headquarters, city, county, state and federal government facilities, sporting facilities, and is the central tourist attraction of the city...
. It is named for the two streets that cross at its center, northeast-only Fairlie and southeast-only Poplar. Fairlie-Poplar is immediately north of Five Points
Five Points (Atlanta)
Five Points is a district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States, the primary reference for the downtown area. The name refers to the convergence of Marietta Street, Edgewood Avenue, Decatur Street, and two legs of Peachtree Street Five Points is a district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States, the...
, the definitive centerpoint and longtime commercial heart of Atlanta. It is roughly bounded on the southwest by Marietta
Marietta, Georgia
Marietta is a city located in central Cobb County, Georgia, United States, and is its county seat.As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 56,579, making it one of metro Atlanta's largest suburbs...
Street, on the southeast by Peachtree Street
Peachtree Street
Peachtree Street is the main street of Atlanta. The city grew up around the street, and many of its historical and municipal buildings are or were located along it...
or Park
Woodruff Park
Woodruff Park, named for Robert W. Woodruff, is located in the heart of downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The park's are north of Edgewood Ave, between Peachtree Street NE and Park Place NE...
Place, on the northeast by Luckie Street or Williams Street
Williams Street
Williams Street Productions, LLC, operating under the name Williams Street, is a division of Cartoon Network, which is owned by Turner Broadcasting, an operational unit of Time Warner...
, and on the northwest by Cone Street or Spring Street. It has smaller city block
City block
A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
s than the rest of the city (about half by half), and the streets run at a 40° diagonal
Diagonal
A diagonal is a line joining two nonconsecutive vertices of a polygon or polyhedron. Informally, any sloping line is called diagonal. The word "diagonal" derives from the Greek διαγώνιος , from dia- and gonia ; it was used by both Strabo and Euclid to refer to a line connecting two vertices of a...
.
Fairlie-Poplar contains many commercial and office buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local interpretations of prevailing national architectural styles, including Chicago
Chicago school (architecture)
Chicago's architecture is famous throughout the world and one style is referred to as the Chicago School. The style is also known as Commercial style. In the history of architecture, the Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century...
, Renaissance revival, neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
, commercial, art deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
, Georgian revival
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
, and Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
styles, are found here. The buildings of the district also represent the shift in building technology from load-bearing masonry
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
and timber
Timber
Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
walls to steel and concrete framing. Individual buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
that lie within the Fairlie-Poplar Historic District include the Flatiron Building
Flatiron Building (Atlanta)
The English-American Building, commonly referenced as the Flatiron Building, is a building completed in 1897 located at 84 Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, on the wedge-shaped block between Peachtree Street NE, Poplar Street NW, and Broad Street NW, also creating a one-block break...
, Rhodes-Haverty Building
Rhodes-Haverty Building
The Residence Inn Atlanta Downtown is a 21-story hotel tower occupying the former Rhodes-Haverty Building at 134 Peachtree Street NW and Williams Street in the Fairlie-Poplar historic district of downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The building was designed by Atlanta architects Pringle and Smith...
, the Empire/C&S Building, the Prudential/W.D. Grant Building, the Retail Credit Company Home Office Building, the Elbert P. Tuttle U.S. Court of Appeals
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* Middle District of Alabama...
Building, and the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse.
History
Fairlie-Poplar developed during the late 19th century, when AtlantaAtlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
emerged as the commercial center of Georgia and the Southeast. At the time, the area was promoted as "Atlanta's new modern fireproof
Fireproof
-Track List for Original 2002 Release:# "Fireproof" – 3:46# "Just 2 Get By" – 4:17# "Echelon" – 3:25# "Stay Up" – 3:40# "Behind Closed Doors" – 2:55# "Epidemic" – 3:14# "Hindsight" – 2:57# "Light at My Feet" – 3:28# "A Shame" – 3:17...
business district". It constituted a major northward expansion of Atlanta's post-Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
business district, which was largely concentrated along Peachtree and Alabama Street (now Underground Atlanta
Underground Atlanta
Underground Atlanta is a shopping and entertainment district in the Five Points neighborhood of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States, near the intersection of the east and west MARTA rail lines. First opened in 1969, it takes advantage of the viaducts built over the city's many railroad tracks...
) and along Marietta Street. The new business district contained a wide variety of wholesale
Wholesale
Wholesaling, jobbing, or distributing is defined as the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services...
and retail
Retail
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
operations, which marketed a broad spectrum of consumer goods and services. Public agencies and many of Atlanta's business offices were also located there.
Building material
Building material
Building material is any material which is used for a construction purpose. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, sand, wood and rocks, even twigs and leaves have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use, some more...
s included brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
, stone
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
, cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
, wood, pressed metal, glazed terra-cotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta is a ceramic masonry building material popular in the United States from the late 19th century until the 1930s, and still one of the most common building materials found in U.S. urban environments...
, and plate glass. The buildings in the district range in height from two to 16 stories
Storey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
, the taller ones constructed with concrete or steel frame
Steel frame
Steel frame usually refers to a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal -beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame...
s, while the smaller buildings were built with load-bearing masonry and timber structural systems.
Georgia State University
A few of the buildings that make up the Georgia State UniversityGeorgia State University
Georgia State University is a research university in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Founded in 1913, it serves about 30,000 students and is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities...
campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
are woven into the Fairlie-Poplar district. The first building that was acquired in Fairlie-Poplar was the former C&S Bank Building on Marietta Street in 1993, which became the Robinson College of Business. The Rialto Theater
Rialto Theater
Rialto Theatre may refer to:in Canada*Rialto Theatre , a former theatre that is a National Historic Site of Canada*Rialto Theatre , 1943-1991; demolished 1991, within one year of acquisition by Cineplex Odeon and renaming as "The Phoenix"...
and the Haas-Howell Building followed in 1996 on the corner of Forsyth St. and Luckie St. The Helen M. Aderhold Learning Center is also located on Luckie Street and is one of the most modern lecture
Lecture
thumb|A lecture on [[linear algebra]] at the [[Helsinki University of Technology]]A lecture is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history,...
buildings on the campus. The Aderhold Center also provides retail and restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
space on the street level surrounding it, causing it to further blend into the district.