THE CONSTITUTION, ATLANTA, GA, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1913.
Page Four.
There is a distinct connection between grand opera week and the revival of the projects for sinking the tracks of the Georgia and state railroads and building viaducts over Pryor street and Central avenue. The town is thronged with representative visitors from every portion of the south. Most of these people are well-traveled. They have a basis of comparison gained by visiting other large cities. And to them the sight of the hideous gulch running through the heart of Atlanta, the necessity of waiting for the passage of trains at Pryor street crossing, must seem an anomalous experience in a city otherwise metropolitan in appearance and appurtenances.
The plans so laboriously drawn up in Chief of Construction Clayton’s office and so glibly and inexplicably turned down by council offer at least a step in the direction of abolishing the canon that splits the heart of the city. They are not so complete nor so ornate or far-seeing as the civic center designs drawn some years ago by Harralson Bleckley and submitted to the legislature. Our judgment is that sooner or later Atlanta will come to an improvement of this magnitude. It is unthinkable that a city of our rate of growth and prestige should tolerate the inconvenience, the danger and the unsightliness that now attends the railroad approach to the union passenger depot.
It will require the expenditure of some millions of dollars and co-operation between city and state and property-owners to solve this intricate problem in the right way. But the need of its solution is so obvious, and the eventual profit from the improvement so tremendous, that early consideration urges itself upon the Atlantan who does not confine his mental processes to the needs of the moment.