Where do Cabbage Patch Kids come from? Why, a Mother Cabbage at BabyLand General Hospital in Cleveland, Ga. AJC photos by Jamie Gumbrecht.

Did you recognize the image in this week’s Access Points photo game? No, it’s not the Georgia Aquarium or Cabbagetown, as some of you guessed, but rather, the Mother Cabbage inside the new BabyLand General Hospital in Cleveland, Ga.

Several of you made great guesses that it had something to do with Cabbage Patch — I particularly loved the response from eagle-eyed reader Alicia, who recognized a piece of a Cabbage Patch Kid head on the left side of the photo. Here are some of my photos from the Cabbage Patch Kids Appalachian Christmas Celebration, and a story I wrote last year about the Cabbage Patch Kids 25th anniversary.

It seems that almost everybody in Georgia had stopped at the old BabyLand General Hospital in downtown Cleveland at some point in the last few decades. The new, 70,000-square foot BabyLand General opened last month just a …

Continue reading Access Points 17: Mother Cabbage at BabyLand General »

Most Wednesdays, at 4 p.m., I post an image from around Atlanta and ask you to guess what it is. Because I intend to be on my second slice of pumpkin pie when I should be posting the answer tomorrow, I’ve got something else for you: the brand new Access Points map!

The idea behind our Access Points photo game has always been to reward people who’ve been exploring Atlanta, and to educate those who are seeing it for the first time. By making each of these a point on a map, I’m hoping it’ll make it easier for everyone to try something new without feeling lost.

And if you’re new to our game, this is a good way to get into it. Each point links back to an object that might keep you guessing, even if you know the location.

I’ll make sure to update the map every week, once the answer is revealed. Check back next week for a new view on Atlanta!

For instant updates, follow @insideaccess on Twitter.

Continue reading Access Points Map: Track the game around Atlanta »

This week's Access Point was a bronzed glove worn by Johnny Sain during Game 1 of the 1948 World Series. It's at the Atlnata Braves Museum. AJC/Jamie Gumbrecht

Did you make a guess at this week’s Access Point photo game? A few commenters were in the ballpark (Pun!) when they correctly guessed it was at Turner Field. It’s actually inside the Braves Museum and Hall of Fame inside the park gates. It’s pitcher John Sain’s glove and ball from Game 1 of the 1948 World Series, when the Boston Brave pitched a shutout against the Cleveland Indians.

There are many balls and gloves in the museum — and jerseys, World Series rings, photos and even a train car –  but this one stands out. The museum received it after Sain’s death, bronzed like baby booties you want to hold forever in one time.

It would be easy to miss among all the red and blue, but even easier to miss some of the story behind it. There’s only so much room on an information card. (Here’s a short piece from when I went on …

Continue reading Access Points 16: 1948 Sain glove at Atlanta Braves Museum »

Henok Demisse continued the week-long task of cleaning the 10 Murano glass chandeliers at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in 2008. AJC file photo

For this week’s Access Points photo game, shazzzzee was the first to name what it was and where you can find it: it’s a chandelier at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. I think CJ wins, too, for the category I just invented, “Best Abstract and/or Romantic Response,” for saying it was like a  cloudy sky over Lake Lanier.

Chandeliers at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. AJC/Jamie Gumbrecht

There are 10 of these Murano glass chandeliers, each about weighing nearly 600 pounds. They’re made of 150 individual pieces of hand-blown glass, colored with silver and gold. They were designed for the center by Andromeda International, which also did work for the W Hotel in Atlanta.

You can get a lot of views of them: through the glass wall in front of the buliding, strung high above you on the ground floor, or relatively close if you …

Continue reading Access Points 15: Cobb Energy Centre chandelier »

Readers Steve and Luis were on to something in those first guesses — it’s a model in the High Museum’s John Portman exhibit. But even if you hadn’t seen the model of our city in the “John Portman: Art & Architecture,” some of you might have recognized the distinct tip of SunTrust Plaza in Midtown.

SunTrust Plaza. AJC file photo

It is among Atlanta’s tallest buildings and remains one of its most distinctive, with a busy streetscape at the base and a recognizable crown. The best view of many of Portman’s buildings is on the inside, but the exterior of SunTrust Plaza makes it stand out on the ground and in the skyline.

It’s 1.6 million square feet, 60 stories and has a tenant list including SunTrust Banks, lawyers and dentists. In the past, it held  a Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia gallery.

When the building opened in 1992, it wasn’t SunTrust Plaza, but One Peachtree Center. A December 1992 …

Continue reading Access Points 14: SunTrust model in High’s Portman exhibit »

Did you recognize this week’s Access Point? Like I hinted, it’s not a cow.

It’s the ‘Cowpony’ at Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville.

Cowpony, by artist Lori Musil, lives at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville. AJC photos by Jamie Gumbrecht

Tip of my imaginary cowgal hat to commenters Robbie and Fisherman, who names the place to find it within minutes of each other this morning.

This pony began in 2001 as piece of public art in New Mexico’s Trail of Painted Ponies project. This was just before every city seemed to have a fiberglass animal public art project. You might’ve seen the “We Let the Dawgs Out” project in Athens, or the Tybee Turtle Tour on Tybee Island.

In New Mexico, about 120 artists decorated identical fiberglass horses. Artist Lori Musil painted this one after her horse was lost in a herd of cows, the Booth Museum reports.

On her Web site, Musil explains that she made smaller version of the Cowpony to sell after the life-size pony had gone on to a …

Continue reading Access Points 13: ‘Cowpony’ at Booth Western Art Museum »

Did you make a guess at this week’s Access Points photo game? Maybe quietly, without saying so in the comments? It showed original fixtures inside the Superb, a Pullman car at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth.

Inside the Pullman train at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth. AJC/Jamie Gumbrecht

If you’ve been inside the train car and noticed the metal work at all — it runs along the sides, and appears in the lower left corner of this photo — it would be because they look quite ornate, and very old.

And it is old: this Pullman car was built in 1911. President Woodrow Wilson campaigned in it, but it’s far more famous for the journey it took with President Warren Harding’s during a 1923 trip across the United States.

It was luxurious, offering five bedrooms for passengers and space for a two-person crew. Steam heat came from behind those fancy vents, and there was air conditioning provided by ice blocks.

Harding set off from Washington, D.C. in June, and used a …

Continue reading Access Points 12: Southeastern Railway Museum train »

Recognize this week’s Access Point? Lain Shakespeare did — he was the first to say it was a Henry Moore sculpture at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

It's "Oval with Points" by Henry Moore at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. AJC/Jamie Gumbrecht

I think of this week’s photo as a gentle reminder to visit “Moore in America” before it leaves Atlanta at the end of October. The gardens are lovely on their own, but the Moore sculptures change the way you see it — or, in this case, the way you see what’s in the background.

The show features 20 pieces on loan from The Henry Moore Foundation. “Oval with Points” is nearly 11 feet tall, but you might have missed the bronze sculpture over in the pitcher plant bog, among carnivorous plants that trap and digest insects.

Workers installed a Moore sculpture at the Botanical Garden in April. AJC file photo

The piece was inspired by an elephant skull Moore kept in his studio. “By bringing the skull very close to me and drawing various details I found …

Continue reading Access Points 11: Botanical Garden Moore sculpture »

If you could identify the item in this week’s Access Points photo game, you’re smart — just like Jaye Boyer, who guessed correctly that it’s the East Atlanta Kids Club logo, as it appears in a mural at Sopo Bicycle Co-op.

See the butterfly on the backpack? It's the East Atlanta Kids Club logo. AJC/Jamie Gumbrecht

I don’t expect everyone to have seen this mural, but if you have, I expect you remember it. It’s painted on the wall inside Sopo Bicycle Co-op, which lives inside a concrete room in the alley behind the Australian Bakery in East Atlanta Village.

When the non-profit bike shop moved there in 2005, the walls were bare, boring. Organizers wanted a mural, and looked to the East Atlanta Kids Club, an organization founded in 1998 to work with kids in southeast Atlanta ages 7 to 17.

Sopo interns worked on a bike at the East Atlanta shop this summer. AJC/Jamie Gumbrecht

Rachael Spiewak, one of Sopo’s founders, said the Kids Club was one of the things that attracted them to …

Continue reading Access Points 10: East Atlanta Kids Club mural at Sopo Bikes »

Were you right about this week’s Access Points photo game?

Access Points 9: Ride the Ducks at Stone Mountain Park! AJC file photo

It’s something wet, but wasn’t Six Flags White Water, nor was it anything floating in our flood waters, as some of you guessed. It’s Ride the Ducks at Stone Mountain Park! Snowman was the first to guess correctly in the comments — good eye!

Visitors talk about the ducks like they’ve been floating the water around Stone Mountain since the 1940s, but in fact, they only  moved into the park in 2004.

From an AJC story introducing the ride:

It looks like a bus — and a boat. Actually, it’s both.

Amphibious open-air vehicles are cruising Stone Mountain Park to give visitors 40-minute tours of the park — on land and on lake.

The new attraction, “Ride the Ducks, ” is the first addition to Georgia’s top tourist destination since May 2002, when the park opened Crossroads, a simulated 1870s Southern town. …

The Ducks were getting good and broken in, loading up …

Continue reading Access Points 9: ‘Ride the Ducks’ at Stone Mountain Park »