Origins of Underground

The twin viaducts project of 1927-1929, and the bygone city preserved beneath the streets

Drawing of Underground Atlanta — From the National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, 1980. Cutaway view of raised Alabama Street (facing south), showing upper and lower floors of buildings in what is now Underground Atlanta.

By the mid-1920s, increased traffic delays in the downtown center at the Central Avenue and Pryor Street railroad crossings near Union Station had business leaders and drivers demanding that something be done. Long before Atlanta was the city too busy to hate, it had established a reputation as a city too busy to wait!

The fast-moving automobile and slow-moving locomotive were constantly at odds, with multiple commentators in The City Builder complaining of the gridlock during so-called “rush hours” and advocating for more viaducts over the railroad tracks.¹ Writing in 1927, the Chairman of the Viaducts Committee of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce stated:

Traffic congestion has become the outstanding problem of the modern city. The motor car and its steadily increasing use has upset all calculations for city builders. ‘Bottle necks’ where the flow of traffic reaches its greatest congestion, exist in virtually all cities. It has become especially acute in Atlanta.²

Map of area — The streets around Union Station (labeled Union Depot here) to be covered. *Atlanta Constitution*, Nov. 21, 1926, p. 14.

The “twin viaducts” project of 1927-1929 would attempt to alleviate congestion for the entire commercial district around what was then Union Station (1871-1930).

The project would elevate the street levels of Pryor Street and Central Avenue running north to south (the viaducts), as well as raise Wall and Alabama Streets (the “laterals”) providing a seamless grid of concrete platforms for streetcars, automobiles, and pedestrians traveling east and west between Central and Pryor and connecting the area with the Whitehall-Peachtree Street Viaduct.

“This project quite literally entombed the original ground-level streets and storefronts below. What remained underneath would become what we now know as Underground Atlanta.”³

As Bryan Sinclair notes in his photo essay “Before Underground,” this was a new city readying to move on and up to something new. Photographs from this period available from GSU Library’s Digital Collections depict many business along these streets advertising moving sales and posting their new addresses in shop windows.⁴

Preparing for the Covering

The two images below show the excavation work on Alabama Street in 1927 in preparation for the street covering. Both areas can be found in Underground Atlanta today as Lower Alabama Street — on the left, looking west from Pryor Street, and on the right, looking east toward to the future Central Avenue Viaduct and Georgia Freight Depot, whose main level still stands today as Atlanta’s oldest existing building.

Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System Glass Plate Negative AFPL005x_006, GSU Library Special Collections & Archives

The plan was for storefronts and businesses to move their main entrances to the platform streets above, leaving the story below as a service entrance for deliveries with ample height for delivery trucks. The streets would need to be raised in some areas and lowered in others in order to accommodate motor traffic underneath. Up and down Alabama Street, modifications and upgrades to underground electric cabling, gas mains, sewers, and other improvements were required before construction could begin.

Similarly, concerns regarding drainage and grading would need to be addressed. Alabama Street would need to be elevated where it met Pryor Street, making it level with Whitehall Street (now Peachtree). In other sections, the brick paved street would be torn up, lowered several feet, and then repaved in order to maintain clearance below. At the same time, extensive excavation would be required to lower and relay the tracks for rail clearance beneath the viaducts.⁵

Drawing in black and white — Engineer’s drawing of the Pryor Street Viaduct at Wall Street “upon which work Is to begin at once.” *The City Builder*, August 1927, p. 8.

Photo with cars, streetcar, and trains passing next to Union Station — The finished project two years later: The Pryor Street Viaduct and Wall Street lateral shortly after completion, c. 1929, accommodating trains, streetcars, automobiles, and pedestrians. Union Station in the middle would be razed a year later and replaced by a new Union Station on a raised platform between the Forsyth and Spring Street Viaducts. Atlanta History Center Photograph Collection, VIS 170.3759.001

Newspaper clipping of viaduct construction — Construction of Wall Street lateral, looking west. *Atlanta Constitution*, Aug. 28, 1928, p. 7. This covered street would become part of Underground Atlanta four decades later.

Newspaper clipping with photo of cars, pedestrians, and streetcar on the viaduct — First traffic moves over the newly opened Central Avenue Viaduct. *Atlanta Journal*, Sunday, March 17, 1929. A streetcar enters from Wall Street to the left. The entrance to what would be Underground Atlanta is directly below.

Old Atlanta reborn …

Image of a hand pointing down below — Ad from 1970. Thanks, Atlanta Time Machine.

Beneath these elevated streets, blocks of old Atlanta would be abandoned and mostly forgotten for four decades — that is, until the 1960s, when a group of Atlanta visionaries led by Architect Paul Muldawer, GSU art professor Joseph Perrin, and associates at the Civic Design Commission had an idea.

What others saw as grimy and uninviting, they saw as having tourist potential: an “Underground” beneath the streets reimagined it as a nostalgic attraction reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans and Gaslight Square in St. Louis.⁶ The downtown attraction that we know as Underground Atlanta would first open to the public in 1969.

… and then almost lost again

Photo of railroad tracks next to Underground — In 1975, construction began on MARTA’s rail system lines (pictured), taking out approximately a third of Underground Atlanta’s original footprint, nightspots, and businesses. Photo by the author, 2024

The (first) real heyday of Underground Atlanta, with its gas street lamps, numerous live entertainment venues, restaurants, bars, and shops was relatively short-lived, lasting 1969 until around 1975.

In 1974, the new Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) announced its right of way plans to demolish almost a third of Underground’s footprint to make room for its new rail lines. This would force some 15 popular Underground night spots to relocate or close.⁷

Postcard 1 — Postcards from Underground Atlanta in the 1970s. During this period, many Atlantans and tourists visited Underground to experience a campy and romanticized version of the old South, preserved beneath the city streets.

Postcard 2 — Postcards from Underground Atlanta in the 1970s. During this period, many Atlantans and tourists visited Underground to experience a campy and romanticized version of the old South, preserved beneath the city streets.

Underground rebounds

Underground Atlanta has had many lives since it first opened in 1969. As of 2024, Atlanta-based Lalani Ventures and partners are currently transforming what was (once again) a largely abandoned site into popular mixed-use arts and live music destination. The ultimate plan is to create a multi-level complex with housing, office space, retail, restaurant, and art studio space, complete with a new hotel and community space including green pedestrian plazas.⁸