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Atlanta is, like numerous other cities, a city of neighborhoods. Profiled below are some of Atlantas`s most distinctive intown districts.
Downtown
At Atlanta`s famed Five Points, a quintet of streets spins from the city`s early commercial center towards some of its most compelling landmarks. Close by are the 1889 State Capitol, capped with glittering gold mined in north Georgia, the Georgia State Univeristy, the Atlanta/Fulton County Stadium, home of the Braves and the Falcons, and the Omni Coliseum, where the Hawks play; the World Congress Center and the CNN Center. A skip away, between the bases of finance and governments, Underground Atlanta spreads its attractive shops, restaurants and nightspots over 12 lively acres. Next to Underground Atlanta you find the World of Coca-Cola. In contrast to downtown`s soaring twentieth-century skyline, you should visit Woodruff Park which offers a lunchtime oasis for the office crowd. Don`t miss Peachtree Center, the galaxy of gleaming hotels and office towers.
Midtown
North of downtown, corporate elegance continues into burgeoning midtown -- but the mood changes. Along these wide, shady streets, cushy condos contrast with the spacious, spruced-up older houses, while restaurants and nightspots run the gamut from jeans to dress-up. Nearby, at the north end of Piedmont Park you should visit the Atlanta Botanical Garden which shelters rare tropical and desert plants. In Midtown you find also the Fox Theatre and the Woodruff Memorial Arts Center.
Buckhead
About six miles north of downtown Peachtree enters Buckhead which is Atlanta`s answer to Beverly Hills. Its elite homes and fashionable lifestyle belie its humble beginnings, when the head of a hapless buck, tacked up outside a long-ago tavern, gave birth to the section`s singular designation. Today, a far cry from humble, Buckhead is the locale of the currently "cin"c restaurants, favored watering holes of the city`s young professionals, and such ultrachic shopping enclaves as Phipps Plaza and Lenox Square. Buckhead includes also the elegant 1928 Swan House and the 1840 plantation plain-style Tullie Smith House, part of the Atlanta History Center complex.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Historic District and "cSweet Auburn"c
About a mile east of downtown`s Five Points is the Auburn Avenue site of the birthplace of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Also on the artery dubbed "cSweet Auburn"c is the Ebenezer Baptist Church, were he and his father preached. Next door is the Freedom Hall complex, location of King`s gravesite and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change. The two-block district was named a National Historic Site in 1980.
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