Welp…
We shared a story back in December of 2018 about a building located at 152 Nassau St. in Atlanta, Georgia. As it turns out, this little ol’ building is where the first country music hit EVER was recorded, “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane,” by Fiddlin’ John Carson in 1923.
Unfortunately, Jimmy Buffet wants to knock it down and build a 22-story Margaritaville Hotel. And, despite thousands of signatures on a petition to make the building a historical landmark, demolition has already begun.
According to Curbed Atlanta, Historic Atlanta sent a letter to city officials saying:
“I demand that you IMMEDIATELY issue a STOP-WORK ORDER and revoke the recently-issued demolition permits for 152 Nassau Street and 141 Walton Street—vital landmarks of the early days of Atlanta’s music and film heritage. The agreement between the City of Atlanta and Atlanta Partners, LLC is unenforceable because it violates Georgia’s Zoning Procedures Law (ZPL) and should be formally rescinded along with the demolition permits.”
An unfortunate turn of events regarding this situation, and as I said before, I don’t live in Atlanta so I don’t really have a horse in this race, but isn’t this such a metaphor for the current state of the country music world?
Everything classic, traditional, historical… let’s destroy all of that and replace it with something that’s cookie-cutter and commercial… like a fucking Margaritaville. The epitome of vanilla, commercialism.
Actually, this sounds exactly like the country music world right now. Next thing you know, they’ll be knocking down the Ryman to build a 145-story Florida Georgia Line all-inclusive resort.
