July 21, 2012

Doraville Mailbox of the Week: Contemporary Modern ¹

by Joseph Geierman • Doraville Spotlight, Midcentury Architecture

Mailboxes don’t get enough respect. Not only are they important tools that connect us to the wider world, but they are also the first thing visitors see when pulling up to a home from the street. Mailboxes tell a story about the people who own them – and of course there are a lot of great stories being told all over Doraville. This post is one in a regular series that looks at mailboxes from all over the city – if you have one that you think should be featured, please leave a comment and I will get in touch with you!

This week’s mailbox is pretty close to home for me – in fact it’s in front of my own home! We searched hard to find an affordable, modern mailbox. If they were still making the style I featured a few weeks ago, we would have gone with that. Instead, we ended up purchasing a mailbox called the “Vista.” It’s one of the few modern looking boxes you can purchase for under $150.

My inclination would have been to just leave my mailbox alone. We had actually kept it going way beyond its natural life already, though. Several years before, the latch you use to open the door had broken off and the delivery person had left a note saying we needed to fix it. Instead of installing a new box, we’d just screwed a knob onto the front of the box’s door. A few years later, when it was looking really rusty, I just painted the box gold and the post black. After a good decade, though, the poor thing was falling apart and the door wasn’t even closing anymore. It was time for a new one.

Replacing the mailbox took my partner B.J. about 40 minutes. First he had to knock the old one off the post. Then he nailed on a new block of wood for the box to sit on. Finally, he screwed the new box onto the post.

I feel like the new box really complements the mid-century style of my ranch home in the mid-century Northwoods neighborhood.

July 16, 2012

Northwoods Gets a New Sign ⁰

by Joseph Geierman • Doraville Spotlight, Midcentury Architecture

Three years ago, Michael Halbert, a resident of Doraville’s Northwoods neighborhood, showed a concept for a new neighborhood entrance sign to Cindy Bradford (who also lives in Northwoods, just a few doors down from him). She loved the design, and kept showing it to people around the city, looking for a way to replace the neighborhood’s existing signage with the new sign.

The existing entrance signs had been commissioned by the city many years ago. While functional, they were starting to look a little worn, and they were not very noticeable.  Here is a picture of one of the entrance signs as they existed at the time Cindy started publicizing Michael’s design.

Here is Michael’s original concept for the sign:

In November, 2010, Cindy contacted Bonnie Grey Flynt, the president of the Northwoods Area Neighborhood Association (NANA), and showed her Michael’s entrance sign concept. Bonnie brought the topic up at one of NANA’s meetings, and the general consensus was that Michael’s sign concept was fantastic – perfect for Northwoods. It also helped people realize how sad the existing signage looked. After a little discussion and opening it up to the neighbors, NANA made a decision to put together a committee (led by Cindy Bradford) that would work on raising money for and installing new signs. Bonnie was also able to get permission from the Mayor and city council to install new signs in place of the existing ones if NANA could raise the funds.

For over a year, Cindy and the sign committee have been working to bring Michael’s mid-century inspired entrance sign to life. They have been raising money, deciding on placement of the first entrance sign, working with the city on permitting, getting bids and selecting vendors, and finally setting the date for the first install.

The committee ended up selecting Signworks Unlimited, a metro-Atlanta company with a great portfolio. The first of the new entrance signs finally went into the ground at the McClave entrance into the neighborhood (off Buford Highway) on Friday, July 13. Despite the supposedly unlucky date, everything went really well and the install was not marred by bad weather or faulty design. This is good, because the neighborhood held a dedication ceremony for the new sign the following morning – on Saturday, July 14 at 8am.

In preparation for the event, the city had public works remove the old sign, cut the grass and pick up litter from the area.  Some neighbors who have requested anonymity also scrubbed the brick planter and re-planted it.

The dedication ceremony for the new sign was a great event. About 40 neighbors – mostly from Northwoods, but also from other Doraville neighborhoods – got up bright and early to celebrate the location of the new a real example of Northwoods’ neighbors coming together and celebrating.  Tim and Pegge Snyder brought coffee. The Sweet Hut, a local bakery, donated pastries. Great food and conversation, as one would expect, ensued:

NANA President, Bonnie Grey Flynt kicked the ceremony off with an introductory speech that touched on the area’s nomination to the national register of historic places.

She also presented a NANA Presidential award to Michael Halbert for designing the new Northwoods sign.

Cindy Bradford then spoke for a few minutes about the journey the neighborhood has taken so far to get to this point, and also about the work still to do (there are about 4 other entrances to the neighborhood that will need signs).

Finally, it was time for the dedication. Cindy Bradford and Doraville Mayor, Donna Pittman did the honors of cutting the ribbons wrapped around the entrance sign.

Here are members of the sign committee, enjoying the  fruits of their labor.  From left-to-right: Coni Binkley, Rick Dovi, Tim Snyder, Joseph Geierman, Cindy Bradford, Nina Yakubov (photo by Bob Kelley):

It was a great event that brought people from all over Northwoods and Doraville together. There was even confetti and a champagne mimosa toast to commemorate the occasion. Most importantly, it was an awesome reminder of it every day when people drive into the neighborhood now.

You can view more pictures at the Northwoods Neighborhood Facebook page. If you want to make a donation towards finishing the Northwoods sign project, please contact Cindy Bradford at cindybradford@hotmail.com