digATL | The Digital Atlanta Portal

Originally Atlanta’s first modern parking garage, Kell Hall began as a 1920s “automobile hotel” and later became Georgia State’s first permanent building, illustrating urban ambition, cost effective development, and adaptive reuse. A testament to the resourceful and inventive spirit of GSU’s early leaders, Kell Hall endured through more than seven decades of growth and innovation as Georgia State evolved from the University System of Georgia’s “Atlanta Extension Center” to a world-class urban research university.

The announcement in September 1990 that Atlanta would host the 1996 Olympics surprised and thrilled many Atlantans. The ’96 Summer Games would be the one hundredth anniversary of the modern games, and Athens, Greece, home of the modern Olympiad, had also put in a bid. But Atlanta lawyer Billy Payne was determined. Ultimately dubbed by the President of the International Olympic Committee Juan Samaranch as the “most exceptional” Olympics thirty years later, the lasting legacy for Atlanta is still complicated. Was hosting the Games ultimately just an opportunistic business venture, or was it motivated by a real desire to show off “the city too busy to hate”? Between a serial bomber, a charismatic lawyer, and a city searching for its identity, the conclusion is still mixed to this day.

Contains original materials donated to GSU Library’s Special Collections & Archives. These items are comprised of correspondence, legal documents, notes and research materials, photographs, and artifacts belonging to the late Civil Rights leader Lonnie King, Jr. They chronicle his life, career and involvement with the Atlanta Student Movement, NAACP, Morehouse College, and Georgia State University.

Information form for the historic district known as Kirkwood. Contains Sanborn maps, early plattings of the properties, interviews, as well as historic photographs and newspaper clippings.

Date created:
Spring 2002