Exit to Future World

Sears, Roebuck & Co. opened this gigantic retail store and warehouse on Ponce de Leon Avenue in 1926.  The parking deck on the west side dates from the 1960's.  The building was still being used as a warehouse until 1989, and the city of Atlanta occupied a small portion of the building from 1991 to 2008.  In 2011, the city sold the building Jamestown Properties, which began a massive renovation and revitalization project.

Bruce Weiner's Microcar Museum in Madison, Georgia was supposedly the largest collection of microcars in the world.  We visited in January 2013, as they prepared to close the museum and auction off these fascinating twentieth-century treasures to the highest bidder.

The Craigie House, built in 1911 and vacant for the last 28 years, has been purchased by someone who plans to use it as a single family home. #atlanta #architecture #history

Biff-Burger in St. Petersburg, FL

Wells Fargo - Decatur, GA

Dekalb County Courthouse (1967)

Dante’s Down the Hatch is a classic Atlanta restaurant created “around the illusion of an 18th century sailing ship. The Buckhead location, which opened in 1981, closed its doors for the last time today. A high rise building will take its place.

Davis Brothers - Bartow, FL

Chattanooga's Terminal Station, designed by Donn Barber, opened in 1909.  The last train left the station in 1970, but the building re-opened in 1972 as the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

The 732-bell Carillon was built for the Coca-Cola pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. In 1965, it was moved to Stone Mountain park. A keyboard is connected to a underground vault of electronics, which control the bells in the Carillon’s tower. Mabel Sharp has played the Carillon since 1974.

Designed by Kenneth Johnson in 1965, this branch of C & S Bank in Atlanta was an amazing triumph of groovy mid-sixties modernism. But, for at least a quarter century, many of us could only gaze at its abandoned shell as we drove down Moreland Avenue and try to imagine what it had looked like when it was in use. Unused since the eighties (if not earlier), one of the coolest buildings in Atlanta has "always been empty" to me and many others. In the spring of 2011, as the owners prepared to finally demolish the structure, the architect's stepson revealed several original photographs of the building in its original setting. Check out my gallery of other photographers' takes on this bygone curiosity.

The War Department used the building as a storage depot and as administrative offices. Sold for development in 1979, the building is presently known as Ford Factory Square and is occupied by apartments and retail shops. Architects for the adaptive reuse project were Bradfield Associates.

Movies Worth Seeing served as an alternative to mainstream video rental stores for 25 years. It closed in 2011.

Before CVS took it over in the early '90s, there was a Mom & Pop grocery store called Superior Foods on North Highland Avenue. On this particular day, I walked past and noticed this old sign leaning against the dumpster. Apparently, after a couple of decades, CVS was remodeling and decided to clean out the back room. Nice font.

The St. Petersburg Pier dates back to the 1880s, but this inverted pyramid was built in 1973.  It was designed by William B. Harvard, Sr. who also designed Pasadena Community Church and the Hospitality House at Busch Gardens.  The space-age design was given an eighties update in...the eighties.  In 2010, the city council voted to demolish this building.

The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida moved to its new home in 2011.  The new structure has enough gallery space to permanently display its entire collection of works by Salvador Dali.

St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, FL