Editor’s note: “Dispatches” are occasional stories of people, places, scenes or moments from around Georgia that aim to be immersive.
The golden warmth of Christmas week was gone, and on Peachtree Street, you could feel winter arriving. It was rare to see a season change so quickly. A sudden urgency to the wind. The gentle humidity dissolving, swept away by something fierce.
North along the ridge, a scene kept repeating. The wind moved in narrow circles, pulling fallen leaves from the ground to the air. In these whirlwinds, the leaves were flying again, as if something dead could be charged with a last spark of life.
Credit: Natrice Miller
Credit: Natrice Miller
It was Monday, the 363rd day of a strange and tumultuous year, and I was taking a 2.6-mile walk from the old Atlanta Journal-Constitution headquarters to the new one. From the past to the future, through the beating heart of the city, talking with people about hope.
Passing the birthplace of Coca-Cola and the Azalea Fresh Market, I found Larry Jones in Woodruff Park. He said he was 60 years old, divorced, recently out of jail, staying in the shelter at Central Presbyterian. But he was not giving up. A job alert flashed on the screen of his phone. He had worked as a chef, and people loved his meatloaf. The recipe was a secret. In 2026, he was going to find a way.
“Can’t stop me,” he said.
Credit: Natrice Miller
Credit: Natrice Miller
Late morning, 46 degrees. Downtown was quiet. The clouds had parted overhead, revealing a cold blue sky. A recent Gallup poll painted a grim picture. It said 68% of Americans thought economic conditions were getting worse, and 74% were dissatisfied with the general state of affairs. These feelings were no less real for being subjective. You were allowed to feel how you felt.
And yet there were hidden worlds in the gloom, joyful places scattered amid the decay. These places existed whether or not you knew of them. Fan clubs, subcultures, flourishing communities of interest.
“I’ve come to see a band,” said Alistair Stuart, age 69, standing outside the Westin Peachtree Plaza, wearing a hat that said the band’s name.
Umphrey’s McGee. A rock band that formed at Notre Dame in the ’90s. They were still magnetic enough to command The Tabernacle for two nights this week, including New Year’s Eve, and to draw Stuart here all the way from London.
Credit: Natrice Miller
Credit: Natrice Miller
North on Peachtree, shoulder to the wind, into that sort of no-man’s-land between downtown and Midtown. You probably know the vibe. Certain parts of the city get by on their vast potential, on what could be rather than what is. Here was the Shakespeare Tavern, still hanging on, freshly beautified with a mural from the artist Demetri Burke. The mural featured a quote from Shakespeare.
“Lord, we know what we are,” Ophelia said in “Hamlet,” “but know not what we may be.”
Atlanta is my hometown, and I don’t quite know what it is. Someone keeps burning or tearing it down and then building it again. You see construction cranes all over the city. The former AJC building on Marietta Street is now an art gallery where you can pay your water bill. CNN Center is becoming The Center. Outside, a sign says CNN, Cable News Network. It is a historical marker.
Credit: Natrice Miller
Credit: Natrice Miller
In Midtown on Monday, the robots had taken the streets. A Waymo car gingerly pulled into The Georgian Terrace, the empty driver’s seat still an unsettling sight. A delivery robot rolled down the sidewalk. It had four wheels and two white lights that almost resembled eyes. The screen said, “Orion is on delivery.”
They were all over the place. Mayra was also on duty, as were Kumiko, Danica and Modson. A sign on the sidewalk said, “How do we know 2026 is gonna be great? Because you’re here.” At the Taco Mac where my brother and I used to watch the Falcons, another sign said PERMANENTLY CLOSED.
The dead leaves made a skidding sound on the asphalt as the wind tossed them around. The past was gone, and the past was still here. Just south of 10th Street was the place where former Atlanta Journal reporter Margaret Mitchell wrote “Gone With the Wind.” About three blocks north, in 1949, she was fatally struck by a speeding car.
Credit: Natrice Miller
Credit: Natrice Miller
An ambulance blared past, rushing south on Peachtree Street. Pedestrians crossed in the crosswalk, looking down at their phones. Outside Colony Square, across the street from the new AJC offices, Tamia Durden stood in the cold wind and talked about the future.
She was only 25, with a job at an architectural firm, but she had other aspirations. She imagined putting together an art show with her acrylic paintings and her digital mixed-media collages and her miniature sculptures, providing magnifying glasses so her audience could see the work more closely. Durden perceived the doom and gloom in the atmosphere, but she was going to live her life.
“May as well,” she said. “We’re here.”
Credit: Natrice Miller
Credit: Natrice Miller
It was early afternoon, the wind still rushing, the sun shining brightly through the cold, the old year dying and the new one waiting to begin. Soon, the final AJC newspapers would roll off the presses. Some would be kept, some thrown away. Time would go on, and so would the city, tumbling down, rising up, becoming itself all the while.
Credit: Natrice Miller
Credit: Natrice Miller
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