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- <text id=89TT1665>
- <title>
- June 26, 1989: American Notes:Atlanta
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- June 26, 1989 Kevin Costner:The New American Hero
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 31
- ATLANTA
- Underground, Off the Ground
- </hdr><body>
- <p> As a complex of shops and restaurants where warehouses once
- stood, Underground Atlanta was meant to be a symbol of the city's
- new vibrancy when it opened in 1969. Instead, it became a study in
- urban failure: thieves and rowdy teenagers patrolled abandoned
- storefronts as shoppers fled to the suburbs. The place was
- shuttered in 1982.
- </p>
- <p> Now Atlanta is trying again. Nearly 5,000 boosters braved a
- thunderstorm last week to celebrate the reopening of Underground
- after a 2-year renovation that cost $142 million, including $85
- million in city-backed bonds. The complex, decorated in
- turn-of-the-century style, will eventually boast 140 stores,
- restaurants and nightclubs -- as well as dozens of security guards
- meant to reassure the suburbanites and tourists who are essential
- to the downtown's revitalization. Critics charge that the city's
- money could be better spent elsewhere. Protesters disrupted Mayor
- Andrew Young's opening address by chanting "Atlanta keeps the
- homeless underground." But if the project succeeds, it will create
- 3,000 new jobs and generate $5 million a year in additional tax
- revenues.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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