Carter Presidential Library

It was from this background that Mayor Andrew Young confronted the need to develop a balance of uses for this land that together would serve the broadest public interest. Under the Mayor s direction, old and new ideas were blended into a composite plan to return the land to productive use without further delay and to enhance the quality of life in the City of Atlanta and in the State. The plan included the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and a parkway consisting of a pair of two-lane roadways, one traveling east and one traveling west, that diverge to circumscribe the Presidential Complex. 

The Carter Presidential Library. (Photo courtesy of the Carter Presidential... 

When former President Jimmy Carter returned to Georgia in January, 1981, Andrew Young, his friend and former member of his cabinet, had been elected Mayor of Atlanta. Commissioner of Transportation Tom Moreland, who had served as Governor Carter s Commissioner, remained in that position. At that juncture, Mr. Carter was formulating plans to establish a Presidential Library but had not yet developed a plan to finance the library project. The large tract of unused highway land had become an eyesore and a place for crime. Public officials were weary of the controversy and the failed efforts to resolve the impasse as to how the highway land would be used. 

The former president was much more actively involved in the selection of a library site and the promotion of the Presidential Parkway than was publicly revealed. The Portman plan, which had been presented to Governor George Busbee in November, 1979, provided for a Presidential Library located just east of Moreland Avenue. When that property was rejected as a library site. Commissioner Moreland invited Mr. and Mrs. Carter to view a location near the center of the cleared rights-of-way. That land, located on CopenhilP and possessing an excellent view of Atlanta s skyline, was readily approved as a... 

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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ ]

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