March 2017
Features
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Can Atlanta United do what the city’s other big league franchises haven’t?
Atlanta is a sports town, just not a unified one. I know passionate fans of the Braves and Bulldogs, but also Lakers lovers, Phillies fanatics, Alabama die-hards, and Chelsea hooligans. Atlantans come from all over and bring their exotic sporting allegiances with them.
Major League Style: Atlanta United team members show off their stripes
Whether sporty and classic or bold and bright, stripes dominate menswear this spring. It’s fitting then that Atlanta United FC kicks off its first season March 5 in a signature striped kit. Here, four team members show off the iconic pattern.
Meet Atlanta’s other football fans
Neither Rain, nor sleet, nor early morning kickoff can keep Atlanta’s rabid soccer fans from cheering on their favorite teams. Here, fans of Manchester United—at Fadó Irish Pub in Midtown—talk about why they show up.
The Soccer Mom’s Lament
I could easily say that, with sports, my parents’ model of loving detachment was good enough for me, so it’s good enough for my kid. But I can’t deny there’s a system in place that measures a parent’s love for her child by how often that parent shows up. The kids didn’t create this system. We did.
Soccer is a uniting force at Fugees Academy
Soccer, Fugees Academy founder Luma Mufleh says, “defines the shape of our academy. Being involved in sports, playing on a team—that crashes all barriers, including language. In some ways, it is magical. Whether they’re good or not is irrelevant.”
Soccer in the Streets brings the game to MARTA’s Five Points station
With funding from Atlanta United FC (by way of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation), nonprofit Soccer in the Streets unveiled the first pitch built at an urban transit station. Sanjay Patel, the creator of Station Soccer, hopes to build nine more and create a league.
Monday Night Brewing’s big gamble along the Atlanta BeltLine
There will be much at stake later this year when Monday Night Brewing opens its ambitious second facility along with other tenants in a cavernous warehouse at the corner of Lee and White streets alongside a newly completed stretch of the Atlanta BeltLine.
It’s time pro women’s soccer teams felt the love
When a reporter in 2003 told Atlanta Beat coach Tom Stone that young girls in the metro area were crying because the team was shutting down, his was a caustic response. “If more of those girls’ parents had brought them to our games,” he said, “they wouldn’t be crying today.”
Your guide to soccer leagues in Atlanta
Whether you’re looking for serious play, a social club, or the perfect team for your family’s littlest kicker, there’s a soccer league for you. Here, a round-up of programs in Atlanta.
Atlanta is a soccer town 50 years in the making
Atlanta’s soccer scene has evolved over 50 years, starting with Braves executive Dick Cecil lobbying for professional soccer in the city.
Atlanta’s Guardians Football Club brings together players from around the world
If it seems like the Guardians club is the soccer pitch version of the United Nations, that’s by design. The club was started in 2014 by Jason Brooks, a 33-year-old player, coach, and die-hard fan who was bothered that—even in heterogeneous Atlanta—soccer tended to break down along racial or socioeconomic lines.
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The Connector
Thoughts on a half-century of Falcons heartbreak
The night the losing finally ended only to come roaring back once again, there was a quiet peace inside one man’s house out in Roswell. Yes, the night Atlanta almost won the Super Bowl—finally shaking off that dubious nickname of Loserville—and somehow still lost the Super Bowl, life went on. If only, perhaps, because that man knows the hounding howl of disappointment better than most.
Will the abandoned Olde Towne Morrow be revived?
Ten minutes south of the Atlanta airport, off Interstate 75’s Exit 233, past the Cracker Barrel, the vape store, and the Harley Davidson dealer, the road behind Southlake Mall leads to what might pass for a movie set done up to look like Mayberry. There you’ll find rose bushes in bloom, vintage homes with broad front porches, manicured landscapes. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll spy the broken glass, the boarded-up windows, and the drywall in shambles.
Technology hub Coda will fill a city block in Midtown
Joining a groundswell of high-rise construction across Midtown, Coda at Tech Square will be the Southeast’s first “Class T” office venture—a tech hub designed to promote innovation and collaboration.
The Milky Way is on display at Stephen C. Foster State Park
The International Dark-Sky Association designated Stephen C. Foster State Park in the Okefenokee Swamp as Georgia’s first Gold-tier International Dark Sky Park.
GPB host Celeste Headlee is here to listen. No, really, she is.
On Second Thought host Celeste Headlee came to Atlanta with many questions. Perhaps most poignant: “How do you live in what’s basically the black capital of America . . . and yet just a few miles outside of town you see Confederate flags flying everywhere?”
The Agenda
With Phoenix Flies, Atlanta Preservation Center offers a peek inside hundreds of city landmarks
This year the organizers will pay homage to the role women have played in keeping Atlanta’s—and America’s—historic fabric intact.
Allergic to human touch? Colleen Oakley’s latest novel explores the idea
In her new book, Close Enough to Touch, metro Atlanta novelist Colleen Oakley considers the practical and emotional ramifications being allergic to human touch. We recently chatted with Oakley about her inspiration for the book.
Every year Georgia Tech hosts a search for the world’s best new musical instruments
Most of the musical instruments that we play today have been around for decades or even centuries, from the piano (introduced around 1700) to the electric guitar (1931). At Georgia Tech’s annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, however, inventors show off what could be the instruments of the future.
Booth Museum spotlights the work of Georgia nature photographer Peter Essick
In 2015 Atlanta photographer Peter Essick strapped on cross-country skis and traveled across 10 miles of snow to Takakkaw Falls, the third highest waterfall in Canada, which he then scaled using ropes and ice picks—all to get a picture.
Novelist Taylor Brown pens an ode to Georgia’s “Little Amazon”
In Taylor Brown’s brilliant second novel, The River of Kings, brothers Hunter and Lawton Loggins kayak down the Altamaha River to cast their father Hiram’s ashes into the ocean.
Atlanta comic Mark Kendall uses humor to address representation
Getting a cease and desist notice from Morgan Freeman may be one of the best things that’s happened to Mark Kendall.
The Bite
Fresh on the Scene: Scout, Kitchen Six, Rize Artisan Pizza, and VeGreen
Get the early word on four new Atlanta restaurants: Scout, Kitchen Six, Rize Artisan Pizza, and VeGreen.
Review: Brush Sushi Izakaya chef Jason Liang is talented. He just needs an editor.
The idea behind Brush Sushi Izakaya—contained right there in the name—is that the Decatur restaurant would be an izakaya, the Japanese version of a gastropub. Designed to serve something for every taste, izakayas’ menus are by necessity ambitious, and Jason Liang, Brush’s founding chef, understands that.
Could the Kudu grill someday oust the Big Green Egg as the chef favorite?
Gunshow and Revival chef Kevin Gillespie, along with Macon-based entrepreneur Stebin Horne, created a South African–style open grill called the Kudu. (Thanks, Kickstarter!)
Chef Jarrett Stieber’s tips for serving radishes like a pro
Although prized most for their crunchy texture and peppery bite when raw, radishes become earthy and mellow—more like their cousin, the turnip—when cooked. Eat Me Speak Me chef Jarrett Stieber shares his techniques for both.
ASW Distillery is making the Atlanta’s first (legal) rye since prohibition
Justin Manglitz drinks only one cocktail. “It’s called The Steer’s Nuts,” says the 35-year-old Haralson County native. “It’s one part whiskey and two parts whiskey.”
The Christiane Chronicles: When it comes to scissors, Korean restaurants have it right
Scissors can slice, trim, or neaten up pretty much anything, yet outside of Korean restaurants, you rarely see them in the dining room. Why? Plus: The problem with tea at Chinese restaurants.
The Goods
It’s finally spring! Time to try this fun Piedmont Park workout
If your enthusiasm for the treadmill is waning (or nonexistent), take advantage of the warmer weather with this circuit training workout in Piedmont Park.
Traveling to Memphis? Here’s what to eat and do
This Mississippi River city offers more than Elvis and top-notch ribs. You’ll also find a wealth of civil rights history, hip bars, and one of the country’s largest urban parks.
My Style: Bertille Sefolosha, co-owner of Attom men’s boutique
Bertille and her husband, Thabo, a forward for the Hawks, are bringing a bit of European edge to the Shops Buckhead Atlanta.
Room Envy: This basement is far from an afterthought
Gone are the dark and dreary basements of 1970s sitcoms. Today’s terrace levels are no longer afterthoughts full of used furniture.
Where to shop for spring style in Buckhead
Cranes are sprouting in the historic, understated West Village, located loosely between East Andrews Drive and West Paces Ferry Road. Developers promise shiny new residential units and retail in 2017, but they’re pushing out some old favorites along the way.
Miscellaneous
Meet Mr. Yogi, the “resident historian” of the Porterdale Mill Lofts
Nobody calls him Gary Wilkerson. This is Mr. Yogi, or simply Yogi. He’s the proudest “river rat” that the rich soil of Porterdale’s Yellow River has ever produced, a hulking 67-year-old who briefly attended the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship but was quickly lured back by homesickness.
