Peek inside the historic Atlanta Constitution building before it’s cleaned up

CL donned protective suits and respirators to bring you photos, glorious photos

By Thomas Wheatley Tuesday May 27, 2014 03:24 PM EDT

Joeff Davis

In the late 1940s, 143 Alabama Street in Downtown was home to the Atlanta Constitution, one of the city’s several daily newspapers. Between 1950 and 1960, Georgia Power executives worked in the five-story Art Moderne building. Today its windows - most of them, anyway - are covered with boards and bricks. City officials say the architecturally significant building located across the street from the Five Points MARTA station has been mostly unoccupied since the 1990s. But despite efforts to secure the building, in recent years it has served as shelter for the homeless. This week, crews will prep the city-owned building for sale by first removing the piles of trash that have accumulated over the years.

City Hall officials led CL and an AJC photographer on a tour of the building on Friday before crews started bagging and disposing the piles of trash that had gathered in the rooms, some of which have clear views of Downtown and the Georgia Dome.

The tour of the building - which long ago was stripped of valuable metals by looters, leaving dripping ceilings and holes in the walls - called for protective suits and breathing masks. Massive rooms, some of which are pitch black, are filled with debris, empty to-go boxes, and a few buckets used as toilets. In one room, dozens of black garbage bags were filled and tied (city officials were surprised by the bags). Beer cans, shoes, and empty bottles littered the floor. Caution is required while walking around many rooms because they might contain asbestos, lead paint, and other harmful substances. There are unconfirmed stories that over the years the building housed dozens of homeless people, including some families.

The building is in a prime location. And preservationists might be heartened to know that several prospective bidders have been actually interested in the building. Though windows are missing and a garden, replete with a tree, has literally taken root on the roof, officials say the structure appears to be in surprisingly good shape. That might be partly because the building was constructed when steel was sent to support war efforts, thus it is made mostly of concrete (some walls are six to eight inches thick, one city official estimates).

Some valuable components remain, however, like a few thick slabs of marble too heavy to carry out. Wooden handrails along the stairwell remain intact and secure. Painted-over glass partitions still stand in what was the former executive suite.

Crews are expected to start cleaning and securing the building this week, with showings for prospective buyers afterward. The city could unload the building in the next six months. Photos of CL’s adventure in the building are after the jump.

? ? ?

Joeff Davis
This door, located in the rear of the property, we entered through to begin the tour.

Joeff Davis
Most of the hallways and stairwells were completely dark except for the occasional shaft of window light.

Joeff Davis
Many of the rooms were filled with piles of trash. We wore protective suits covering our entire bodies and masks with air filters while touring the building.

Joeff Davis
Despite its trashed interior and boarded-up exterior, the building’s location and structure makes it valuable

Joeff Davis
Glue circles that once secured tiles in place along the ceiling and walls remain, leaving an interesting design throughout many rooms.

Joeff Davis
Our tour guides said the black garbage bags in the back of this room were not present during their last walk-around and were unsure who had put them there.

Joeff Davis
Much of the building’s interior has been stripped of anything valuable.

Joeff Davis
The darkness forms a frame for the light in this dead end hallway.

Joeff Davis
An empty Schlitz High Gravity can sits in a empty room.

Joeff Davis
Sunlight from an open window illuminates what’s left of a bathroom.

Joeff Davis
Rooms along the rear of the building overlook freight train tracks and the former home of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It’s now owned by the city and called 2 City Plaza.