By the book: Buckhead library may be razed
By KEVIN DUFFY <
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/11/08
In early fall, more than 40 architecture students from Mississippi State
University made a five-hour bus pilgrimage to Atlanta to study
buildings.
For the past couple of years they've narrowed their focus to just three
places: the High Museum of Art, the William R. Cannon Chapel at Emory
University and the Buckhead branch of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library
System.
John Spink/AJC
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The design of the Atlanta-Fulton County Library's Buckhead branch, which
opened in 1989, has won praise from experts in the field.
John Spink/AJC
(ENLARGE)
The library stands out for its controversial architectural style.
The "deconstructivist" library, with its unusual slate shingles and
fragmented shapes, is especially intriguing to the students.
"It's a lot more experimental than the other two buildings, so they have
a lot more questions," associate professor Rachel McCann said.
Design experts also admire the 18-year-old building on Buckhead Avenue.
It's won four awards, including two from the American Institute of
Architects.
"It's one of the most important buildings of the last quarter-century"
in Atlanta, said Robert Craig, an architecture professor at Georgia
Tech. "It's one of the handful in the city known well beyond the city
itself."
But the library's unruly character, its attempt to express the
excitement of city life and elicit reactions, might help bring about its
downfall in a changing but still traditional Buckhead.
Developer Ben Carter, the builder of the $1.5 billion Streets of
Buckhead project, is offering Fulton County $24 million for the 2-acre
site. He proposes demolishing the building, which sits in the middle of
his eight-block redevelopment, and relocating the library to a future
mixed-use building with condominiums and retail.
"The Buckhead area of our city is becoming more urban," Carter said.
"There is a great opportunity with public buildings to incorporate them
into a more urban-style project."
Under his plan, the new library would occupy two floors above a parking
garage. Patrons would gain entry via an elevator. An outdoor reading
terrace is possible.
His proposal would give the library more space, and his price might
provide the county with a small financial windfall.
But almost as important to some powerful people is that the odd building
would go away.
"That library, to my way of thinking, was an abortion the day it was
dedicated," Fulton County Commissioner Tom Lowe said. "I am a lover of
art. I can even stand abstract art. But God darn, who in the world would
build something like that? There ain't no damn artistic value to that
library."
Charles Loudermilk, the founder of Aaron Rents, agreed. "I see it from
my window. I think it's ugly," Loudermilk said. "I like brick and
limestone, stuff that looks like quality."
A portion of the $24 million - perhaps $5 million by Carter's estimate -
would fund the new library space; the rest would be the county's to
spend as it sees fit. The County Commission would have to approve the
sale.
"This is an opportunity for the county to receive some money - to
profit," commission Chairman John Eaves told the library system's board
of trustees, of which he is a member. "But it's also an opportunity for
the library to be brand new and relocated to the same immediate area."
"I think that it's absolutely worthy of exploring," John Szabo, the
library system director, said. "Once the Streets of Buckhead development
is completed, the library site is not going to be harmonious with the
overall development."
Trustees want Carter to suggest a standalone alternative but have not
ruled out the mixed-use location, which would be a first for a library
in Atlanta.
The developer said there's no room in his project for a library by
itself, but land in Buckhead could be found elsewhere.
Buckhead Avenue has been home to a library since 1942. The current
building, designed by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, was dedicated in
December 1989.
Back then, the design was just as provocative as it is today. A business
group, the Buckhead Coalition, tried to kill the project. Business
leaders called the look "modernistic battleship."
But shortly after its opening, the library began to garner awards.
"Energetic and lively, this branch library amid a nondescript strip of
neon lights, shopping centers and gas stations ... invigorates its
disjointed surroundings," a jury of the American Institute of Architects
wrote in 1993. "The dramatic geometry of the canopied entry creates an
aura of excitement not typically associated with a library and draws the
visitor inside to the quiet spaces."
In the 15 years that have followed, Buckhead's commercial heart has
changed dramatically. Towers stand where strip centers used to be. The
single-level library sticks out even more.
Reached in India where he's pursuing a new project, Scogin wondered
whose interests are paramount in the library discussion.
"To turn it over to private enterprise to decide on its fate I think is
hugely disappointing," said the former chairman of Harvard University's
architecture department. "It's sort of contrary to basic principles of
democracy and how the public is allowed to enjoy the kind of product its
government creates.
"The client is no longer the public. The client is private industry.
It's the developer."
In the Streets of Buckhead project, Carter wants to build hotels,
residences, office space and 80 upscale shops and restaurants. Land
clearing began last summer.
He made his pitch to library trustees in November. Buckhead Avenue, he
said, will become a retail destination and the current library is "kind
of a gap in the experience." The mixed-use library he proposed would be
entered on Pharr Road.
An Irish pub and an upscale boutique are slated to be built on two sides
of the library land, and another high-end shop is planned for across the
street.
"Right now I'll offer the county $300 a square foot," Carter told the
trustees. "If the library is 25,000 square feet and it costs $200 a
square foot [to build], that's $5 million. So there's $19 million out
there in this transaction to either enhance the library or go back to
the county or go back to the citizens."
He went on to say that due to "the rents we're getting from retail,
we're able to pay property owners in Buckhead numbers they've never
dreamed of."
Trustee Roger Rupnow asked Carter if it would be possible to move the
library building. Carter said no.
"If you want to take that gorgeous thing and move it somewhere, that'd
be great," he joked.
In an interview last week, Carter said he will build around the existing
library if he has to. "It's not a have-to thing," he said. He originally
offered $18 million for the land.
McCann said architecture that challenges ought to be protected.
"We're building way too many buildings to make ourselves comfortable,"
she said. "We don't build enough buildings to make us think harder. This
building does that. It's a brave building and we all ought to be
braver."
Razing the Buckhead library would be Scogin and Elam's second sacrifice
to mixed-use development. A conference center they designed at Emory
University, also from the late 1980s, was recently demolished to make
way for a project on Clifton Road.
Scogin and Elam "are the most internationally recognized avant-garde
architects we have," Judith Rohrer, chairwoman of Emory's art history
department, said. "Atlanta needs to have works by their most acclaimed
architects. It's really, really a shame that they aren't as appreciated
here as abroad."
The prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects is honoring Scogin
and Elam this week with a fellowship.
With one building gone and another in jeopardy, does Scogin feel
slighted in his hometown?
"We love Atlanta. I grew up there," he said. "I can't let that sour my
attitude on the place."
News researcher Richard Hallman contributed to this article.
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Chalk's International Airlines, formerly Chalk's Ocean Airways, was an airline with its headquarters on the grounds of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in unincorporated Broward County, Florida near Fort Lauderdale. It operated scheduled seaplane services to the Bahamas. Its main base was Miami Seaplane Base (MPB) until 2001, with a hub at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. On September 30, 2007, the United States Department of Transportation revoked the flying charter for the airline, and later that year, the airline ceased operations.
The airline was founded by Arthur Burns "Pappy" Chalk, and started ad-hoc charter operations as the Red Arrow Flying Service in 1917 flying a floatplane. After "Pappy" Chalk served in the Army Air Service in World War I, he returned to Miami and commenced scheduled service between Miami and Bimini in the Bahamas in February 1919 as Chalk's Flying Service. Chalk's first base was a beach umbrella on the Miami shore of Biscayne Bay. In 1926 a landfill island, Watson Island, was created in Biscayne Bay close to Miami. Chalk's built an air terminal there, and operated from the island for the next 75 years. During Prohibition, Chalk's was a major source of alcohol smuggled from the Bahamas to the United States.
Pappy Chalk sold the airline to a friend in 1966, but continued to be involved in the daily operations of the airline until he retired in 1975. He died in 1977 at the age of 88.
In the early 1970s, Frakes Aviation bought the rights to the aircraft and began a conversion program, replacing the old Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp radial engines with Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprops.[9] By 1985 three of Chalk's eight Grumman Mallards had been converted, with five ex-military piston engined Grumman Albatross aircraft making up the balance of the fleet.
In 1974, Resorts International purchased Chalk's Airlines, which became the primary air carrier to Paradise Island near the Bahamian capital of Nassau, where Resorts International owned and operated hotels and other resort facilities. After Resorts International constructed a short take off and landing (STOL) runway on Paradise Island and switched to using STOL-capable de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7 turboprop aircraft operated by subsidiary Paradise Island Airlines, it sold Chalk's in 1991 to United Capital Corporation, an Illinois-based investment firm (which was not affiliated with United Airlines).
The television show Miami Vice, a symbol of both Miami and the 1980s, featured a Chalk's seaplane in its opening credits. N2969, which had a fatal accident in 2005, as Flight 101 is featured in an extended scene at the end of the third-season episode Baseballs of Death, when the antagonist attempts to leave the US. The music video for George Michael's "Careless Whisper" and Miami Vice second-season episode One Way Ticket featured a Chalk's seaplane, N2974. In one of the final scenes of the motion picture Silence of the Lambs, Dr Frederick Chilton is seen disembarking a Chalk's aircraft in Bimini, where Hannibal Lecter is waiting to "have him for dinner". A Chalks plane also makes an appearance at the end of the movie 'After The Sunset' with Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek's characters embracing as they stand next to it. Chalk's fleet was as high-maintenance as it was glamorous. It was a unique carrier, its Watson Island base being the smallest port of entry in the United States. Chalk's revenues were about $7.5 million in 1986, when it carried 130,000 passengers. Most were staying at Resorts International properties, although island residents used the airline for shopping trips to Miami.
United Capital expanded Chalk's service to Key West, Florida, and Nassau and acquired additional aircraft, but struggled financially. In 1996, United Capital sold Chalk's to a group of investors, who operated the airline under the name Pan Am Air Bridge. In January 1998, Texas-based aircraft lease company Air Alaska purchased 70% of Pan Am Air Bridge, but following the collapse of Air Alaska, Pan Am Air Bridge filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection only a year later on January 11, 1999. James Confalone, a businessman and former Eastern Airlines pilot, purchased Chalk's out of bankruptcy for $925,000 on August 2, 1999; it had been reduced to two aircraft and only 35 staff. Confalone bought five additional Grumman Mallard seaplanes and arranged a contract to buy 14 larger Grumman G-111 seaplanes to expand the operation. On December 17, 1999, the airline was relaunched as Chalk's Ocean Airways.
In late 2001 following the September 11 attacks, Chalk's was forced to leave its longtime operations base on Watson Island due to security concerns over its proximity to the Port of Miami. Helicopter traffic had also increased around Watson Island.Operations moved to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where Chalk's already had its maintenance base.
The airline suspended operations after the crash of Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 on December 19, 2005. It had planned to resume flights between Fort Lauderdale and the Bahamas under its earlier name of Chalk's International Airlines on November 9, 2006, but its airworthiness certificate issued by the Bahamas had expired. It resorted to using aircraft "wet leased" from and operated by Big Sky Airlines to operate flights from Fort Lauderdale to Key West and to St. Petersburg, Florida. Chalk's added flights between Palm Beach International Airport (PBIA) and destinations in the Bahamas in late May 2007, but carried only 14 passengers through PBIA that August.
Chalk's ceased flying from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after September 3, 2007. After the final report from the Flight 101 crash investigation was released, the United States Department of Transportation revoked the airline's flying authority for scheduled service on September 30, 2007, effectively shutting down the airline. Chalk's continued to hold its FAR 121 operating with a part 298 authority in good standing, and sought to add 60-passenger regional jets to its FAR 121 operating licence, but these efforts never came to fruition.
Chalk's had claimed to be the oldest continuously operating airline in the world, having begun operations in 1917 and scheduled flights in February 1919, and having only ceased operations for three years due to World War II, two days due to 1992's Hurricane Andrew, and eleven months due to an "at altitude tragedy" on December 19, 2005. The title of oldest operating airline is now given to KLM of the Netherlands, founded later in 1919.
In 1994, Captain John Alberto and co-pilot Alan Turner drowned after their aircraft sank due to the failure of the airplane's bilge pump while they were taxiing at Key West. Captain Alberto left behind a wife and two children. Jimmy Buffett dedicated a chapter to Captain Alberto in his book A Pirate Looks At Fifty.
On December 19, 2005, Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 from Fort Lauderdale to Bimini made an unscheduled stop at Watson Island, Miami.[8] Within a minute of taking-off again, it fell into the sea near Miami Beach. Witnesses said they saw smoke billowing from the plane and the separation of its right wing as it plunged into the ocean.[18] None of the twenty people on board – eighteen passengers and two pilots – survived. At first, only nineteen of the twenty bodies were found (by the Coast Guard and Miami Beach Ocean Rescue); on December 23, 2005, the twentieth was found by two Miami-Dade firefighters while fishing on their day off. Investigators later identified cracks in the main support beam connecting the wing to the fuselage. The plane was a Grumman G-73T TurboMallard, registration N2969, manufactured in 1947. It was the second fatal accident for Chalk's Ocean Airways. A few months after the NTSB released its report on the crash, the airline shut down.
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