September 18th, 2021, 9:00AM

This Week's Tour...

...met at 9:00AM Saturday on the Beltline Eastside Trail near Parish (R.I.P...soon to reopen as "Painted Park"!). We walked for 1 1/2 hours, covering 1 mile of the Beltline, ending at Ponce City Market.

"The Tourists"...
...shouting out to this week's tourists, recent Dawsonville residents (2 not pictured) recently relocated from Houston. Welcome to the ATL!

Thanks for a great tour!

Map of the week...
...is really an aerial photo of the Atlanta Crackers stadium, Ponce de Leon Park (built 1905, destroyed by fire 1923, rebuilt 1924). This photo is undated, but it shows both the Sears Building (1926) and the Ford Factory (1914)...so it is the "new" concrete and steel ballpark sometime between 1927 and 1964. I included a street level pic from the 1950's. 

I'm geeking out about a couple of things in these photos:

- The aerial photo shows the original rail spur going into the courtyard of Sears, not just stopping alongside it (like we experience today in the "Shed").

- The 1950's photo shows cards and overhead streetcar power lines...but no trolly tracks. If there is still a "streetcar", could it be an electric bus? The original streetcar on this route was number #2. The current MARTA bus route today? Also #2! 

- Notice the Sears sign in the street photo...PCM designed their new sign to follow that same design!

Thanks for the pics, 

Emory!!

Tree of the week...
...singling out one of the hundreds of specimens from the dozens of collections along the arboretum.

The Georgia oak is native to the southeastern United States, mainly in northern Georgia, but with additional populations in Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina. It grows on dry granite and sandstone outcrops of slopes of hills at 50–500 meters (160–1,640 ft) altitude.

The tree was first discovered in 1849 at Stone Mountain, Georgia, where several stands of pure specimens grow along the popular walk-up trail at around 1,300 feet (near the large chestnut oak in the middle of the trail and before the rest pavilion halfway up the trail). Georgia oaks are also found at nearby monadnocks, including Panola Mountain and Arabia Mountain in Georgia.

Quercus georgiana  

Georgia Oak

"Stump" of the week...
...featuring a question raised during the tour that Jeff couldn't answer.

Q: What is happening on "Three Tree Hill"?

A: I enjoy pointing out the hill on the west side of the Atlanta Beltline Eastside trail; it's not a natural slope and is most likely the result of piling up tailings from leveling out the original railroad bed. I enjoy pointing out how several trees were long established on this hill prior to the ABI development (including Atlanta Champion Scarlet Oak!), but the remaining trees and shrubs were volunteers only able to root (and prevent erosion) after Trees Atlanta stabilized the hillside with a woven willow branch fence. 

So, you can imagine my surprise when we saw the hillside this weekend with quite a bit of evident clearing! But, fear not! Only invasives (kudzu, cherry laurel, etc), leaving enough native volunteers in place to keep the hillside stable and also offer them plenty of room to grow!

Hasta luego (or never), cherry laurels!

August 14th, 2021

 This Week's Tour...

...met at 9:00AM Saturday on the Beltline Eastside Trail near Parish (R.I.P...soon to reopen as "Painted Park"!). We walked for 1 1/2 hours, covering 1 mile of the Beltline, ending at Ponce City Market.

"The Tourists"...
...shouting out to this week's tourists, an Atlantan returning to the south from Seattle. Welcome home!!!!

Thanks for a great tour!

Map of the week...
...has us returning to an oldie but goodie...a map of Atlanta's city limit expansions...focusing on the last concentric circle expansion (from the Zero Mile Marker in today's Underground Atlanta) in 1889.

Thanks for the pic, 

reddit!!

Tree of the week...
...singling out one of the hundreds of specimens from the dozens of collections along the arboretum.

PSYCH! This week's tree is a native flowering plant currently in full bloom in the prairie on the western edge of the Eastside Trail. 

Sesbania herbacea (syn. Sesbania exaltata) is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common names bigpod sesbania,[1] Colorado River-hemp,[2] and coffeeweed. It is native to the United States, particularly the southeastern states, where it grows in moist environments. It can be found elsewhere as an introduced species. It is a woody herb growing to 3 meters or more in height. The leaves are made up of many pairs of oblong leaflets. The inflorescence is a small raceme of pealike flowers with yellow or purple-spotted petals.

Sesbania herbacea  

Coffeeweed

"Stump" of the week...
...featuring a question raised during the tour that Jeff couldn't answer.

Q: Where was the 1996 Olympic Gold medal baseball game played?

A: Here I am during the game at the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium!

Thanks, John McLean! Friends since 1981!