The Southern Bell Telephone Company Building, now known as the AT&T Communications Building, is the main telephone exchange for downtown Atlanta. It is located at 51 Peachtree Center Avenue, on the northeast corner of Auburn Avenue.
It was designed for Southern Bell by Marye, Alger and Vinour, in an austere art deco style. Originally planned to be 25 stories in height, which would have made it the tallest building in Atlanta, it was completed in 1929 at six stories. Additions in 1947, 1948 and 1963 brought it to its present 14 stories.
The building is crowned by an incongruous microwave communications tower.
Famous quotes containing the words southern, bell, telephone, company and/or building:
“It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Its quick silver bell beating, beating
And down the dark one ruby flare
Pulsing out red light like an artery,”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“The press and politicians. A delicate relationship. Too close, and danger ensues. Too far apart and democracy itself cannot function without the essential exchange of information. Creative leaks, a discreet lunch, interchange in the Lobby, the art of the unattributable telephone call, late at night.”
—Howard Brenton (b. 1942)
“Some fluctuating notions concerning repentance, virtue, honor, morality ... hovered around Lady Dellwyn’s thoughts but were too wavering to bring her to any fixed determination. She became a constant attendant from one public place to another, where she met with many mortifications. But yet even these were not quite so dreadful to her as to retire and be subjected to her own company alone.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“The limits of prudence: one cannot jump out of a burning building gradually.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)