Maybe this week’s Access Points photo game was a little too detailed. Interesting guesses — it is, indeed, a painting that involves a man’s jacket — but nobody was able to correctly identify it as the Zell Miller portrait hanging at Manuel’s Tavern.

Look more familiar now?

A portrait of former Gov. Zell Miller…

Or now?

…at Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta. AJC/Jamie Gumbrecht

Manuel’s is a bar art museum right in Poncey-Highland. Beyond the glowing beer signs and TVs, every photo of a police officer, painting of a naked woman, playing-card-and-dollar-bill-tacked-on-the-ceiling has a story behind it. Different versions of those stories might emerge based on the person asked and the amount of time till last call. But the  depth of institutional memory behind this portrait made for particularly good storytelling.

Zell Miller and Manuel  Maloof, the onetime DeKalb County executive and tavern owner, were big friends. It wasn’t particularly strange to have the former governor’s image …

Continue reading Access Points 7: Zell Miller portrait at Manuel’s Tavern »

Vision nightclub in Midtown in 2006, just before it closed. Its owners, Alex and Michael Gidewon, want to open a new club on Peachtree Street. Neighbors oppose it. AJC file photo

What does it mean to have fun in Midtown? What should it mean?

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A story on the front page of the AJC last weekend described two perspectives so different, it’s hard to believe we’re talking about the same neighborhood.

The first: a $4 million nightclub unlike anything else in the city — “Video screens on the ceiling. Marble-top bar counters. A state-of-the-art fog system.” — a more mature version of a few years ago, when the blocks between 10th and 14th street were filled with high-profile clubs.

The second: a dense residential neighborhood with new condos, offices and restaurants. Families, young professionals, retirees. New, but comfortable. Busy, but quiet.

The first comes with …

Continue reading Can neighborhoods and nightclubs coexist in Atlanta? »