Modern Arcade Loses Corporate Sponsor

Reading of les arcades de Paris, I am reminded of another little marketplace called Underground Atlanta, que j'ai flanné many times. It is an interesting little place, an underground arcade meant to preserve the old downtown Atlanta by excavating to the ground plane of years-gone-by and then lining the underground streets with Johnny Rockets, Sweet Factory, and other such enterprises. In the street itself, covered not with glass but with rocks, pavement, steel, and maybe some dirt, are vendors on wheels, selling name bracelets, airbrush portraits, and other memorable knick-knacks. On the corners and in the central intersection of the main street and the most prominent alley are typically the arts: street musicians, commissioned musicians, and jugglers. You would never assume (at least the proprietors would never want you to assume) that above you bustled a modern city of a half-million inhabitants.

Underground Atlanta is faltering. It is an underground mall; stuffy, badly lit. That is the schtick of the place, nevertheless it remains unappealing. It was mostly a place to kill time before or after going to the World of Coke across the plaza, but now the World of Coke has moved farther south by Centennial Olympic Park, CNN, and the new Georgia Aquarium. The major corporate/tourist backbone for the arcade has disappeared and with it, the customers. Atlantans remorse the impending demise of Underground Atlanta because in the American context, something like Underground Atlanta, essentially a mall but with a forced history, is unique and represents "the little guys." Of course, Johnny Rockets and Sweet Factory will carry on (that's the beauty of franchising, Mouret's dream not yet dreamt), but oddly enough, it was the mall itself, the underground arcade which was held dear, not the stores or storeowners inside it.