Rags to Riches

Today we bring you the an old office building, a formidable part of Atlanta’s African American history.  The owner founded the company in 1920; making it the first privately owned African American business in Atlanta.   The company occupied the building until 1980, when they built a new office space, right down the street. This beautiful building has sat unoccupied ever since. Due to its downtown location, there is a heavy presence of squatters, vagrants, and drug abusers.

Old record books can be found stacked in the basement

The owner, who was born a slave, quickly became Atlanta’s first black millionaire; his thriving business opened branches in Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. The building was built in 1892, originally a private residence, was converted into offices in 1920. 

A gas heater still hangs below a beautiful gold painted ceiling 

Sadly, the building was full of trash, left behind by the several squatters. Every window was boarded so there was hardly any natural light inside.

The original time clock hangs on a wall, surrounded by scattered papers 

As we made our way through the two-story building, it was hard not to notice the beautiful woodwork around the door frames and hand painted lettering on the glass.  The entryway pictured below contained a fair amount of marble.

The entryway

The deteriorating ceiling

Down in the basement we found a small corridor that led to a utility room.

The corridor

To no surprise, we found that the entire room had been scrapped, leaving only empty breaker boxes behind.

The utility room

Upstairs we found two safes, one locked and one wide open, both too heavy to be saved when the company changed locations.

Safe #1

Safe #2

The only natural light peeked in from this skylight on the second floor.

Skylight

And also, to no surprise, we found plenty of drug paraphernalia.

Needles and spoons

Thats all folk's! Till next week -- Bloody and Turtl