[00:00:05.19] FLOYD HALL: Thank you, thank you. Welcome to this conversation centered on the Atlanta Legacy Makers Project. I'm Floyd Hall. I have the pleasure and privilege of moderating this conversation, and I will let our esteemed panel introduce themselves because I think we should all hear our own voices. So starting with the far end, Fredalyn, go ahead. 

[00:00:22.68] FREDALYN FRASIER: Good afternoon, everyone. Pleased to see you. My name is Fredalyn Frasier. I am with Central Atlanta Progress in Downtown Improvement District. I'm an urban planner, urban designer. Oh, you need the mic. 

[00:00:39.31] LAURA MOODY: Hi, I'm Laura Moody with Purpose Possible and we were and are the project managers on this project. 

[00:00:49.19] CLARK TATE: Hi, I'm Clark Tate with Architecture Firm Point Office and we are the design lead on the project. 

[00:00:56.57] MATT CHERRY: And I'm Matt Cherry. I'm with a company called Lord Aeck Sargent. We're architecture firm. I'm a landscape architect working with Clark and the rest of the team on the design. 

[00:01:06.99] FLOYD HALL: And virtually, we have Samara. Minkin. I think you're on mute. 

[00:01:16.98] SAMARA MINKIN: Thank you. I apologize, and thank you, Floyd. I am Samara Minkin and I am with the mayor's office. Happy to be with you all virtually today. 

[00:01:31.15] FLOYD HALL: I'm Floyd Hall, so we just did that part. We can just keep going. Thank you, Catherine. And next slide. And so the very last box you see on that previous slide is William Downs. William is not here. William is a visual artist based here in Atlanta from South Carolina. William is doing some amazing art things in the world that have led him away from Atlanta today, so we will be doing our best to speak-- not for him, but to just contextualize his involvement in this project and maybe give you all some backstory on why he's part of this amazing team. Thank you. So Fredalyn, would you just sort of start with the premise of Atlanta Legacy Makers and what's the kernel of that idea? 

[00:02:23.78] FREDALYN FRASIER: Happy to do so. So Atlanta Legacy Makers is an initiative led, as I mentioned, by Central Atlanta Progress in the downtown Improvement District in partnership with the city, Samara there. And the whole idea here is to commemorate the legacy of these two mayors through a public installation and through storytelling. And the reason we got to this whole storytelling part is quite a good story in itself, so I'll share that with you. 

[00:02:51.08] But almost four years ago Gene Kansas, who is a developer downtown and proclaimed community builder, invited Gary Pomerantz to speak at the opening of his shared workspace on Auburn Avenue. And of course, Gary is the author of Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn. And in his book he traces the lineage of these two families, the Jackson-- well, the Dobbs family and then subsequently, the Jackson family and the Allen family through their social and economic and political rise within the city. 

[00:03:27.53] And as part of that discussion, he really pointed out the connection and the unique leadership that would really embody these two men. They led Atlanta through what we could call a defining moment in the history of Atlanta, and that is when we moved from the Old South to the New South, and it was a very pivotal moment in our history. And their legacy of leadership is what really we've built on and Atlanta is known for. 

[00:03:59.00] The whole idea that their willingness to collaborate, their willingness to bring people to the table, their willingness to partner, and the whole idea of equity and inclusiveness is something that has forged just the very being of Atlanta and how we operate as a city. And so this, out of that whole discussion-- because it was really-- I wasn't there, but I hear it was really good. Maria Saporta was there. And if you are not familiar with her, she's a journalist here. 

[00:04:36.02] And Maria pointed out the civic community really needed to come together and honor these two men somewhere at the corner of Peachtree and Auburn, and since then we've been working to realize that. But the project has taken on a much more bigger idea, and that is it's a real time project where you find art-- historic archives that are supplemented by contemporary voices through the podcast all coming together through community engagement, and they intersect to create art in a public realm. And so that's what we're all trying to make happen here. 

[00:05:20.04] FLOYD HALL: Through the magic of technology, we'll be hearing from Gary later on in this conversation, so don't leave. If anyone has to leave, don't. But also, Fredalyn, what I think is really important about this project is that this is a new, I think, take on documentation. I think we, as a city, are oftentimes lamenting, not capturing history as well as we probably should or could, and I think this is the moment where we're really trying to document some really pivotal moments in our city's history for future generations. And so I think that's what really drew me to this project and why I'm glad that we're at this public facing stage now. 

[00:06:03.21] FREDALYN FRASIER: Yes. 

[00:06:03.63] FLOYD HALL: Next. So I think this image here was from that night, Fredalyn-- 

[00:06:12.35] FREDALYN FRASIER: Yes, it is 

[00:06:13.48] FLOYD HALL: --that you mentioned with Gene and Gary, and we have the book there. So if you need a visual on this book, I encourage everyone to connect with Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn. Next. So I think this is a very important slide because I think, as we consider both the structure and the idea of what this is, many, many people have played a role in that. So this is the curatorial committee. So if you could maybe speak to some of the people who gave of themselves for this committee, but also who may be here today. 

[00:06:52.39] FREDALYN FRASIER: Samara? 

[00:06:53.74] SAMARA MINKIN: Yeah, so I'd love to talk a little bit about the curatorial process and how we try to approach that process as a part of the full legacy. And we wanted the curatorial committee, as well as the request for proposals, to really live up to the values of the two mayors. And we have the curatorial committee list up, you can see who's on it. But I want to start by acknowledging our committee chair, who I think is in the audience today, and that's Tristan Al Haddad. And Tristan, if you're there, it would be great for everyone to be able to see you. 

[00:07:26.90] TRISTAN AL HADDAD: I'm here. 

[00:07:27.31] SAMARA MINKIN: And if you're not there, for everyone who is, just to tell you that Tristan chaired our committee. He's a well known artist and architect, and his work is really recognized for its ability to explore and integrate diverse ideas in very innovative ways. And so you can imagine he was the perfect person to chair this committee that we hoped would be able to do the same. 

[00:07:50.62] And this committee, as you can see from looking at it, really contains the leadership in a cross disciplinary approach, leading urban planners, artists, architects, archivists, curators, landscape architects. And also important to us was that everyone be involved in downtown, downtown life, civic life, Georgia State, Georgia Tech-- new tech graduates are everywhere-- and folks working also on nearby projects. So it was important to us to have representation from the project happening on the other side of Woodruff Park. 

[00:08:30.12] So that context was really important to us because it's important that a curatorial committee for a project like this look like Atlanta, that it be composed of people who know Atlanta and are invested in Atlanta. It contextually matters. So you can see this amazing group. I won't call out-- name names, but you can see for yourself who you recognize. And thank you for that slide change. So let's talk about how the committee approached their work. 

[00:09:00.03] We put together a very intentional RFP that the proposal process, also again, we wanted to have that too reflect the values that we hoped the end product would reflect. So we wanted to have the goal, a beloved community, be a part of the foundational essence of how the project was put together. So we had a very intentional proposal that this curatorial committee all weighed in on, and we asked artists and architects and planners and landscape architects, archivists, to all team up. 

[00:09:34.08] And what we hoped for was collaboration across sectors. We hoped that through the process itself of building a team that people would meet each other, and that in and of itself would be a part of this legacy. And I think that that's what happened. We held a national competition. We narrowed down to finalists and the curatorial committee did not just weigh the proposals and vote, they talked and debated and argued and talk some more and debated some more. 

[00:10:06.45] They changed each other's minds. They advocated for one team or another. It was a very rich conversation. And in the end it was a close call because we had terrific proposals. And you're going to hear from the selected finalists team, and I hope you'll be able to see why the curators were so excited by this choice. 

[00:10:30.54] FLOYD HALL: This is a great time to, I think, highlight the fact that going from idea to concept to reality is never really a straight line. And so especially over the last couple of years, there have been many disruptions in many of our lives. But I would love for you, Laura, to maybe talk about the initial plan for what this was supposed to be, but then how we shifted and evolved it into something that was still, I think, very meaningful and important and impactful. 

[00:11:02.65] LAURA MOODY: Sure. So Purpose Possible, my firm, was brought on to take this nascent idea that had a huge community engagement committee that was excited about it and put some structure around it and move it forward. And we designed the brand, built out the website, and then created a very robust plan for community engagement, including film screenings, lectures, community tours, design charettes. 

[00:11:33.01] And then March 2020 happened and we had to really quickly figure out, how are we going to bring people in, keep them excited, give them information, and elicit feedback that we want to share with the design teams as they're making their applications to this project? So that's where Floyd came in. We reached out to Floyd and talked to him about creating a podcast based on the Where History Meets Sweet Auburn book, if you want to talk about that a little bit. 

[00:12:06.13] FLOYD HALL: Sure. Sure. So as Laura mentioned, there were many plans for public engagement, but public doesn't always have to mean in person. And so we begin to think about, well, what could public look like if it were virtual slash digital? And a public reading, if you will, of this book seemed like a very appropriate way to engage with the premise and the idea of this entire project. And so the plan was to first get Gary's blessing to do this, and to talk to Gary. 

[00:12:43.06] But then the thought was, well, this has to be something that sits in this intersection point of old and new and acknowledging and honoring the source material, but also really honoring the city and what it's become. And so I looked at the actual layout of Gary's book and for each section of the book, there was a-- my intention was to try to have a couple of guests for every section of the book. 

[00:13:14.33] One that can maybe speak to some of the history and maybe someone that could speak to what was happening now. And so this list of episodes for this podcast, the top row corresponds to the portions of Gary's book, but the bottom portions is more of a addendum, if you will, that just expands that idea. And I do want to give a shout out to Todd. Todd lent his voice to this podcast as well. 

[00:13:48.13] We're just talking about the notion of archival and how are we documenting our city's history. And so in each of these issues-- episodes, excuse me, there's a deep dive where we hear from Gary in every episode, and then we have really rich conversations that connect these ideas that were present then into what they look like and feel like now. 

[00:14:11.92] And we were really lucky to be able to add on to that those names at the end, including, at the time, the current sitting mayor of the city to maybe speak about the legacy of what being mayor looks and feels like and thinking about legacy and the past and the present. So all of the guests were very intentional, and so I would encourage everyone to revisit those episodes, if you will. 

[00:14:42.97] But also understand that everyone that's there, I think, was meant to be there, whether it be artists who maybe don't necessarily-- I guess if all those folks were in the same room, you may not really imagine them to be at the same dinner party, but in this context they're all at the same dinner party. So yeah. Thank you. Next. And with that being said, we get to hear from Gary talk about the premise and the idea for this book. 

[00:15:13.38] [AUDIO PLAYBACK] 

[00:15:14.78] - What was the origin story for this book for you? When did this idea become something that you really wanted to commit to? 

[00:15:26.34] - Well, I had been a history major at Berkeley and I had a couple of professors who taught the Black experience and they caught a spark with me. They might not have known it at the time, but they did. And I had started my career as a sportswriter at the Washington Post. I moved to Atlanta in 1988 and almost at once found or felt the profound resonance of race. 

[00:15:54.36] And I started looking for books that have been written about Atlanta and its history and I found pieces of the city's history scattered here and there, but nothing that brought it all together. No real, vivid picture of the city I was experiencing day to day while living in Atlanta. And that is a city that is innervated by day but segregated in matters of the heart, namely where you live, where you pray, and where you choose to be buried. 

[00:16:24.55] So it was early in 1991. I was a reporter at the Atlanta Journal Constitution when I decided, OK, I'm going to try to take on Atlanta, a biography of Atlanta and its racial conscience. And my initial idea was to write about Peachtree and Sweet Auburn as symbols to Southern dreamers, white and African-American. And then I started thinking, well, you can't write about streets. I want to write about people. 

[00:16:54.45] And in the South, you sort of are who your family is or who your family was. And families, with the passing of traditions and core beliefs across the generations, I mean, they're the foundation of any and every city. Like cities, families grow organically over time. 

[00:17:16.63] So I started to think, OK, if I'm looking for two families-- an African-American family, a white family-- whose lives across the generations can tell the story of the rise of Atlanta from the ashes of the Civil War through civil rights to the '96 Olympics, well, which families would it be? And it seems so obvious now. Well, of course, the Dobbs and the Allens. But it took me a long time to come to those two families. 

[00:17:50.25] I considered quite a few families. The Kings, Dr. King's family, and the Herndons, the Woodruffs and the Candlers. But what I was looking for was a family or in this case, two families who produced multiple generations of civic leaders in Atlanta, and through their stories you could see the city growing. I wanted to tell Atlanta's story intimately through family. 

[00:18:26.74] - What was the origin story-- 

[00:18:28.71] FLOYD HALL: One more time. 

[00:18:29.22] - --for this book for you? 

[00:18:30.69] [END PLAYBACK] 

[00:18:31.17] FLOYD HALL: All right. Go. 

[00:18:34.20] LAURA MOODY: So then we wanted to think about, now that we've engaged the community, we've given them this context around the project, now how do we get some feedback from them about what they want to see in this monument? About what Atlanta, what the words behind legacy mean to them. So normally in normal times, this would be done through in person activities. 

[00:19:04.06] You might have architectural drawings, examples of other types of public art from around the world, and people would put red sticker, green sticker, thumbs up, thumbs down to indicate their preferences. And obviously we had to get a little creative around that, and so we designed a online community feedback tool that's built into the Atlanta Legacy Maker's website and the designer of that tool, Sarah Lawrence, is over here. 

[00:19:32.99] And what I'd actually like you to do and why I'm sitting here holding my phone is you are welcome to actually pull up your phone, scan the QR code, and you can play and take advantage of the tool yourself for a moment and see how it works. It'll bring up this start page you head start. And then there's a little intro which you just heard, so you can skip forward and a little button will pop up. All done, keep going. And that brings up the activities. 

[00:20:13.46] So as folks were entering their feedback, playing along with us, the data was being aggregated on the back side and shared with the design teams in various phases as they were working on their applications. When things were narrowed down to finalists we got a little bit more information and so on and so forth. Catherine, if you want to advance. So this gives you some examples of the feedback that we received. 

[00:20:46.77] So how much do these phrases say Atlanta to you? And you can see there were some clear favorites, capital of the South and Atlanta influences everything were some top winners. And then we wanted folks to tell us how they wanted to see the space activated, because that obviously impacts design considerations and accessibility. And folks definitely had opinions about daytime activities. They wanted to be able to work outside, they wanted to hear music, and these are placeholders for the various types of activities that could take place on the site. 

[00:21:25.98] And then how should an artwork honor Mayors Alan and Jackson? And with this tool you could stretch and shrink the columns to give weight to the various sort of themes that are expressed in the actual artwork itself. And again, diversity and community and legacy were the top line. And all of that information, again, was passed along to the design teams, and we're going to leave it to Clark and Matt to talk about how that information was carried forward into their winning design. 

[00:22:03.92] CLARK TATE: Thank you, Laura. It's been really interesting to hear all of you talk about the thoughtful work that went into this effort on the front end to structure the project and to create the RFP. From our standpoint or from our viewpoint, the designer's viewpoint, we usually just see the finished product of the RFP, but clearly that's just the tip of the iceberg in all the work that's gone into this, so thank you. 

[00:22:30.08] We came across the RFP in the fall of 2020 and became really excited about the project and its potential for the city of Atlanta. We assembled a team of really talented collaborators who you see on the screen now, and a couple of whom are here today. Karen Jenkins, with Shear Structural, a structural engineer, and Kevin Edwards is here as well with Eberly. And we set about coming up with the design and our design was, fortunately, selected by the curatorial committee. 

[00:23:07.58] To talk a little bit about the design, it's essentially an elevated ring, a 50 foot diameter ring elevated on intermittent columns and fin walls, what we call fin walls. On the inside of the ring will be William Downs' artwork in mural form, and his artwork will generally and broadly tell the story of Atlanta from the mid '60s to the mid '90s, or the term bracketed by the two mayoral terms. 

[00:23:44.71] And to talk a little bit about some of the factors that began to shape the design early on, both literally and figuratively. First, any design on the site needed to respond to the existing conditions of the site, and the most insistent condition of the site is the long curve of the international peace fountain, so that began to us to suggest a round form for the memorial. Secondly, we knew we needed to create a canvas for William's work, and the inherent challenge there was that we wanted the memorial to be a three dimensional form. 

[00:24:29.26] William's work is traditionally two dimensional, and so we had to reconcile that within the design. Thirdly, we wanted the design to be somewhat quiet and stoic when viewed from the exterior, but that when you engaged with it and approached it, that it had deeper meaning and that it had intrigue and that it had possibilities for discovery within it. And then lastly, we really wanted to create a design that you experienced or a project that you experienced as opposed to one that you looked upon. 

[00:25:08.05] You have a really different relationship with the work of art when you have the ability to inhabit it, and we thought that was very important to us. The more experiential we made it, the more universal it became and accessible to everyone. Next slide. This is a view from the corner of Auburn and Peachtree. In order for the project to be successful to us, the site and the circulation around the site and into the site had to work as an urban space. And so with that, Matt, do you want to talk through some of the landscape interventions that went into this? 

[00:25:55.84] MATT CHERRY: So again, I'm Matt Cherry, landscape architect. Really fun to work on this project with Clark and the rest of the team and William. And so in the same way that this multifaceted project is about archive and messaging and podcast and honoring legacies of important people in our city, this design is about a lot more than just a statue, obviously. We have to-- Samara mentioned it, the sort of a genesis and idea behind making this a project was that it represents the beloved community, and the tenets of the beloved community are progress, access, ambition, and nature. 

[00:26:48.33] And so in many ways, this design embodies those tenets of the beloved community. It's progressive. It's not a statue of two men shaking hands, it's something that is transformative and experiential for people. If you could go to the next slide. In terms of the site itself, the way that we think of a public-- and it's not just a piece of art. It is a place. It's a place that you inhabit and it's a public place that lots of different types of people inhabit. 

[00:27:18.59] And in the same way that you-- that we rethink what a monument is, we also rethink the way that you design and experience a public space. This space was designed right before the Olympics in 1996. The way that you approach accessibility and inclusive design and feeling safe in a public space is completely different now than when you designed it in the early '90s. 

[00:27:50.33] For example, the corner of the site now has a giant landscape planter. It blocks sightlines within the site. It lacks defensible space in the site, for those planners in the room. It doesn't really think too much about durability and longevity. It restricts somebody in a wheelchair to one singular point of access. 

[00:28:18.60] So when we approached this, not only did we think about the piece itself, but where does it go on the site that is going to make it the most prominent and make it the most inclusive? You can go to the next slide if you don't mind. So the highest point on the site was really where it wanted to be. 

[00:28:35.55] And so in rather than a giant planter at the corner, that planter has now exploded into three pieces across the site, and those three pieces, each of those three pieces embodying the beloved community's idea of nature. Each of them embodies a different ecology found in the Piedmont region. The highest one is the woodland, the middle one is more of a meadow condition, and the lowest part is a lowland wet condition. A public space, it's not enough for it to be pretty and feel safe and pleasant. It has to perform. 

[00:29:16.23] And so durability, there is no paving pattern. We've learned in our years that that doesn't work in public spaces. The entire site is graded so that a person who's five years old and a person who's 95 years old experienced the site in the same way. The entire thing is accessible. There are no handrails, there's no ramps, there's no stairs. It's all accessible. It's all inclusive. And so access, ambition, nature, and progress are sort of embodied in that way. 

[00:29:50.39] CLARK TATE: One of the common goals that you heard Laura talk about and that you saw in earlier slides, a common goal between the city and the community respondents was that they wanted a design that facilitated various activations. And so what we're showing on this slide, you'll see a couple examples of activations of gatherings. The first one shows a standing room gathering of thousands of people or 1,000 plus people. 

[00:30:23.71] There's an activation showing a film screening, either a single point or a multi point film screening on the surface of the ring. Perhaps a wedding seating activations being shown, and cafe seating. So along those lines, two of the fin walls are operable in that they can be opened and closed to support acoustics, circulation, or view depending on what kind of use the park is occurring at the time. So the idea, the general idea, is that this design is adaptable at the ground level to accommodate a variety of uses. Next slide. 

[00:31:10.41] To talk a little bit more specifically about the monument and its relationship to the mayors, there are three unique ways in which the monument honors these two mayors, and they happen in horizontal layers from the top down. And to talk through that, at the top, one of the things that both mayors have stated was most-- they're most proud of in their legacies was the physical transformation of the city during their terms, or the transformation of the skyline, you might say. 

[00:31:46.88] So we were really interested in the notion that when you stand within this and you look up, the top rim of the ring would form an oculus that would frame the city skyline, and we thought that was a sort of subtle but powerful way to honor these two men. Moving down, the next layer would be the mural within the ring, and I mentioned that that will be where William's artwork is and it will tell the story of Atlanta in a time bracketed from the '60s to the '90s. William unfortunately isn't here today, but Floyd, do you want to talk about his work a little bit. 

[00:32:28.00] FLOYD HALL: Sure. Sure. So I've had the pleasure of working with William in the past and curated some projects featuring his work. And I think that artistically and I guess even aesthetically, I think William's work is very much-- it flows in a way that seems almost amorphous, but also gives you some narrative at the same time, which I think is very-- it's not easy to really pull that off. 

[00:32:56.50] And I would encourage anyone, if you're not familiar with William's work, to just search for his work online and see the way in which he approaches his art. But Samara, I would love for you to maybe chime in also on that, maybe speak to William's aesthetic and maybe how you all felt that his aesthetic fit with this particular project in a certain type of way. 

[00:33:20.50] SAMARA MINKIN: Yeah. Thanks, Floyd. The curatorial committee was really excited to see contemporary painting figuring so-- being such a focus of a sculptural piece and of a memorial. And there was a lot of discussion inside the curatorial committee around modern memorials and as a part of an extension of the broad national conversation around, what do we want to memorialize and how do we want to do that? 

[00:33:48.07] And it was also meaningful to the committee that this was a circular piece and that William's painting would be viewed in the round. And in a sense, it seemed to be upending and responding to the cyclorama which had recently been moved. And whereas that was one sort of statement of the South and our history and our narrative, this was a different one, and they were very taken by the notion of what we wanted to lift up. 

[00:34:16.96] And to very, very specifically actually lift our eyes up to see. And they loved how this fit into-- his work is both abstraction and figurative and references to the skyline and to Atlanta throughout it, but it's not literal and it's not a realistic representation of those things. So it leaves so much to the imagination and really prompts the viewer to bring themselves into their own conversation with the work. So all of those things were discussed inside the curatorial committee, and they felt very excited about this. 

[00:35:06.12] CLARK TATE: Next slide. And the last layer at the ground level is the layer in which the digital archive will become such an invaluable resource as the design develops. The ground level will have the most didactic information about the two mayors, and it will take two forms. One being text inscribed in the thin walls, which you can see in this rendering, and that text might take the form of quotes from the mayors, biographical information from the mayors, excerpts from Gary's book. That will be developed in concert with the archive. 

[00:35:46.02] Secondly, and you can sort of see this in the rendering, there's this notion of there'll be these vector lines that radiate from the center of the monument, and the lines will point to pivotal locations within the city that were either influenced by the mayors or the mayors influenced themselves. And at the terminus of each line within the site will be a brass medallion embedded in the ground that describes the location, describes the distance to that location, and ideally would have a QR code or something that people could access to receive more contextual information about that particular site. 

[00:36:26.92] So in the design currently-- and I should say the idea for that is to facilitate movement throughout the site, facilitate discovery. You might come across a medallion, follow a line into the memorial, learn more about the mayors, and so forth. The design currently, we are holding locations such as Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Morehouse College, City Hall, in fact, Georgia Tech. 

[00:36:54.54] But it will be really exciting to dive deeper into the history of these two mayors in the next phase of work with the help of the archive, and perhaps find places that are more nuanced but that are critically important to our city and to their participation in its development. So it's this sort of collaboration that we're really looking forward to in the next phase of work, and we look forward to partnering with archive in that respect. 

[00:37:35.26] [VIDEO PLAYBACK] 

[00:37:51.11] CLARK TATE: I don't know if we should sing or something as this-- 

[00:37:53.28] [LAUGHTER] 

[00:37:56.14] But that's it. We're available for questions if there are some. I think some have been-- 

[00:38:08.77] FLOYD HALL: Does anyone here have any questions? So we have a first question-- first comment, actually, is love this feedback tool. Love that. Love that. The first question though we have here is, do you have information on the demographics of the respondents? That's a great question. 

[00:38:27.70] LAURA MOODY: Because the tool was anonymized, we don't have specific demographic information about the respondents. However, we did make efforts to be sure to reach out to people who actually live and work within the footprint of downtown. And so in addition to doing social media outreach and media outreach about the tool and about the project, we also did a direct mailing as well to specific zip codes and households to reach people who may not be digital natives and following social media very closely. 

[00:39:05.89] FLOYD HALL: And Laura, is there going to be ongoing listening and sort of ways in which people can continue to-- I mean, for folks who are seeing this now who may want to still contribute their thoughts to this process, what can they do? 

[00:39:19.52] LAURA MOODY: Absolutely. So the podcast is still exists on the website. You can listen to all the episodes. There's also the continuing oral history program that you can listen to some additional, as we've mentioned, contemporary voices and their feelings and thoughts around the project and civic life in Atlanta. And as now that we are meeting again in person in this way, we definitely hope to have further opportunities for some more traditional in person events in the coming years as the project continues to develop. Do you want to speak? 

[00:39:58.96] FREDALYN FRASIER: Yeah. And I'll add one more thing. We were really keen on, before COVID, really bringing this information to the community as opposed to them coming to us. And so now as things are opening up, we've identified where we want to go to senior centers, where we want to go to recreation centers, and actually bring this information and get feedback from the community that way rather than expecting them to find us somehow through social media or on digital platforms. We recognize that we have to take all types of forms in terms of reaching the community, and so we're going to be very intentional in bringing this to the community as opposed to waiting for them to show up for us. 

[00:40:39.57] FLOYD HALL: The next question is, how many listeners tuned into the podcast? That is a question I'm not sure we have the exact stats on, but thousands, millions? We encourage everyone who, if you listen to it once, please listen again and tell your friends. What is the timeline for the project? 

[00:41:06.00] FREDALYN FRASIER: What? No design questions? We have now officially launched what we're calling our second phase of the project, which is the refinement of the design, which we'll need to then move forward with the additional community input. So that's one track that we'll continue to run for the next probably year and a half, right? But we're also-- this project, we didn't mention budget, but we are looking at close to $4.5 million for this to become real. 

[00:41:36.54] And so there is a fundraising effort that we're about to launch later this summer, and we'll hopefully raise those dollars in short order. And we also want to give-- again being inclusive, following these mayors lead, we want to give the community an opportunity to also contribute, so there will be a way that we'll have some crowdsource funding as well to support it. 

[00:42:04.03] FLOYD HALL: The next question. How will the text inscribed on the installation be selected? Is that a Clark question? 

[00:42:14.52] CLARK TATE: I suppose so. 

[00:42:15.33] FLOYD HALL: OK. 

[00:42:16.92] CLARK TATE: Well, I don't know exactly. I mean, I think it will be, like I said, a collaboration with the archive and with the team to talk through what makes the most sense, what is the most meaningful for the project. 

[00:42:30.96] FLOYD HALL: And I'll just add, I think that this project, to me personally, just really illustrates that archives are our living bodies and dynamic repositories, in a way. The archive helped inform the podcast, it's informed the project in a very physical way, and I think that it really just helps-- I think this really just helps, I think, inform how we should see archives as active spaces, not just a place where things go to just sit and collect digital dust. 

[00:43:02.73] LAURA MOODY: And the materials that we're generating are also going to become a part of the larger archive as well. The Auburn Avenue Research Library wants to host the podcast and some of the oral history components as well. 

[00:43:20.26] FLOYD HALL: Next question is, are additional installations on similar themes a possibility in the future in other areas around the city? 

[00:43:34.75] SAMARA MINKIN: If you have any ideas, send them my way. 

[00:43:38.35] FLOYD HALL: So possibly. I think that's the answer to that question. Are there any thoughts on how this monument might spur preservation slash development on Auburn Avenue? 

[00:44:00.05] FREDALYN FRASIER: Hello. Yes. That is a very good question. And in fact, there are efforts underway right now in terms of what we call it technical assistance program for businesses along Auburn Avenue that has been in existence for a couple of years, and we're beginning to see the fruits of that technical assistance in working with some of the different churches, as well as establishment. 

[00:44:26.21] So that tract is running as a separate type of project, but I would imagine that there could be some level of economic development associated with this project, specifically when we get to construction and reaching out to the community. But along Auburn Avenue, that has been a part of CAP's programming to provide technical assistance and help some of these businesses that are existence finding dollars right now. So that's a separate track, but it is occurring. 

[00:44:58.25] FLOYD HALL: In terms of proximity, we have a question that just sort of frames that up in a different type of way given the proximity of this project. Have you looked into Georgia State University's Digital Media, I think, building or center that is a block away? 

[00:45:13.28] FREDALYN FRASIER: Yes. So CMII is certainly someone that we would potentially want to partner with, although we have not come to the table with them just yet. But certainly there-- and there are a couple of other initiatives downtown where we want to wrap in that expertise. It's wonderful to have, to tap as many resources as possible, and they're certainly there in terms of a potential partner we want to reach out to. 

[00:45:41.28] FLOYD HALL: Can you tell us more about how you created this feedback tool? How did you select questions? 

[00:45:52.09] LAURA MOODY: So as I mentioned, design projects like this that are very often sort of a public private partnership, you often will do these types of exercises in a sort of a charette or a town hall opportunity where people will come in and literally, like I mentioned, put red stickers, green stickers, vote up, vote down. And so we wanted to take some of the key words and phrases and messages that were brought up by the community engagement committee, the curatorial committee as we were building out the RFP. 

[00:46:36.39] As we were actually developing the initial brand and language that we used to talk about the project in the beginning, we took some of those key words and phrases and wanted to express those and give people different ways of understanding and responding to those keywords and phrases. So some people are very visual, so the shrinking and growing of the columns was one way to interpret that information. Sliding bits of text left or right like, yes, this is what I think Atlanta is or no, was sort of a different way. 

[00:47:10.95] And the phrases there particularly talking about Atlanta were pulled both from pop culture references. Atlanta influences everything is actually a local business and brand that has been adopted by the local sports teams. Our current mayor has in Atlanta influences everything T-shirt. It's a very, very popular Instagram channel if you haven't been on it. And so they were both from the historical ways that we talk about Atlanta, like legacy and birthright and those kinds of historical terms, and then some pop culture current terminology as well. 

[00:47:55.92] FLOYD HALL: How did you decide on the color and materials of the monument? 

[00:48:02.79] CLARK TATE: Well, the material is called corten steel, and it's interesting to us in that it's a material that patinas over time and its sort of a living material. And we just felt like that was an appropriate material for these circumstances. It also contrasts with the existing materials that are there and works nicely with the treescape that will be there. 

[00:48:33.34] FLOYD HALL: I think that's the last question. Thank you all. Thank you all in the virtual space as well. Any final thoughts, any final comments as we close this out from our esteemed panel? 

[00:48:49.41] LAURA MOODY: Just that we hope that you all will participate to play with the tool when you get home and have more time, listen to the podcast, the oral history program. And we have a submit your own story function on the website as well, so if you have a particular story or memory or current thought about civic life in Atlanta, we'd love for you to contribute as well. 

[00:49:15.55] FLOYD HALL: Thank you all. 

[00:49:17.01] [APPLAUSE]