Westinghouse South Escalators to Peachtree St. at the MARTA Peachtree Center Station in Atlanta

This is my last video from the February Atlanta trip.

These are probably one of the longest escalators in the Southeast, located at the MARTA* Peachtree Center Station in Atlanta, GA. This particular bank ends at a transfer area to another bank of shorter escalators leading up to the street level. There is another bank of south escalators that lead up to Ellis St., however those escalators were closed off for maintenance. The north escalators on the other side of the station go directly into the Peachtree Center.

*Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

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Education

Tags:

• Westinghouse
• Escalator
• Escalators
• Up
• Down
• Peachtree
• Center
• Station
• MARTA
• Metro
• Atlanta
• Rapid
• Transit
• Authority
• Downtown
• ATL
• Georgia
• GA

[CampbellArchitect]

Actually, there is another way...and keep the historical part intact. That is a major "monument", so one has to be careful. I will approach MARTA with it when I get to move home to Atlanta - for sure! Smiles, Janet

[escalatorgeek881]

@CampbellArchitect Oh gosh I forgot about that factor. Yeah in my opinion it wouldn't be easy to fix the issue without somewhat sacrificing the historical resemblance in it. If I were MARTA through, I would of tried placing some pictures that are aligned to the ground plane along the walls of the tunnel, and see if that would of somewhat fixed the problem.

[CampbellArchitect]

You are right! And we knew it designing it - and couldn't stop the Project Manager from doing so! To replace those tiles today would be impossible - Winburn Tile out of Winburn, Arkansas went out of business I think in the 1980's. The last family person running it was Sinclair Winburn & he was in his 70's then. The company was over 100 years old.

But you are right! I have a neat way to fix it...may have to approach MARTA and get them to hire me to do the design of the fix!

[escalatorgeek881]

@CampbellArchitect Cool. I was thinking just get new tiles that look similar to those and this time having them parallel to the ground plane (which would require cutting along the escalator diagonal), or you could suggest a complete modernization and slap in some stone or drywall and place some pictures of Atlanta along the escalator tunnel to give it a more local feel, and then change the floors and ceilings to better match the new walls.

[escalatorgeek881]

@escalatorgeek881 (continued) And then in the transfer area where I started the video at, have a huge mural that would greatly represent Atlanta. I don't know for certain what would work best, since I haven't been there in a while.

[CampbellArchitect]

(continued to the one I just posted)

Daniel Chang and I argued with Norm McDermott about drawing the tile grout lines along with the escalator, telling him people would feel like they were falling down, and we lost. We told him that people would feel "off-balance" - and you do.

And that's why that ride is so bizarre! It is the perception hightened by the lack of normal orientation to the ground plane, with horizontal and vertical tile grout lines!

Janet Coral Campbell, Architect

[escalatorgeek881]

@CampbellArchitect Just curious, how many other stations in Atlanta have you designed? I remember when I was there I was extremely fascinated by the different aesthetic features each station had, including this one, which I remember had a rock-like ceiling and walls in the main platform area, mixed in with the classic combinations of a smooth concrete floor and tiled walls that is seen in many subway stations.

[escalatorgeek881]

@CampbellArchitect Very very interesting. I thought the same thing, because when you run the tiles parallel to the escalators instead of perpendicular to the direction of gravity it fools people into thinking that they are on a flat, perfectly level surface when travelling up/down the escalator. With this, people often get the illusion that the direction of gravity has been changed, which then makes them dizzy and off-balance.

[CampbellArchitect]

I was one of the architects (intern, 1978-80) that did the drawings for the station, and I was the one who found the materials for Joe Amisano, at Toombs, Amisano & Wells including the tiles ( figured out how to make the same color as the floor when glazed - a real trick).

I can tell you why that ride is so bizarre. If you look off to the right as you go down, do you see how the tile changes from going normally horizontally and vertically on the grout lines, to being set on the diagonal?

[Fangyuzhe]

@escalatorgeek881 I didn't realise it wasn't actually very steep. But when you put it that way, that's definitely why it feels that way. It's still kind of a thrill riding it.