The Crum and Forster Building Needs Your Help!

The next step in designating the Crum and Forster as a Landmark Building will take place on Thursday, June 4, 2009, at 6 p.m. when the designation will be heard by the City of Atlanta Zoning Review Board.

Please show your support for the Atlanta Preservation Center's continuing efforts to preserve the Crum and Forster by:

• Attending the meeting on Thursday, June 4, 2009, at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers on the second floor of City Hall
• Writing a letter to the Zoning Review Board in support of the Landmark designation for the Crum and Forster building

Your letter to the Zoning Review Board should:

* Be faxed or emailed to the Atlanta Preservation Center no later than June 1, 2009. We will ensure that your letter is presented to the Zoning Review Board on June 4.

APC fax: 404-688-3357
APC email: boyd@preserveatlanta.com

* Use standard business letter formatting with this inside address:

City of Atlanta Zoning Review Board
Attn: Ms. Charletta Wilson Jacks
Bureau of Planning
55 Trinity Avenue, Suite 3350
Atlanta, GA 30303

* Include your statement of:

• the importance and value of the building to both Atlanta and the Midtown neighborhood;
• the importance of both the local architectural firm (and the NY architectural firm that designed the building) to Atlanta and the nation
• the value of the building in contrast to recent re-development efforts in Midtown

Background information on the Crum and Forster building: Designed in 1926 and constructed1927-28, the Crum and Forster building is the earliest building of its kind to be constructed in the Midtown area of Spring Street. It housed the first regional office of a national insurance company to construct its own building in Atlanta. Prior to the construction of the
Crum and Forster building, this section of Spring Street was residential or undeveloped.

The design of the building is a collaborative work between the New York architectural firm of Helmle, Corbett & Harrison and the Atlanta architectural firm of Ivey & Crook. The principals of Helmle, Corbett & Harrison produced designs which were major contributions to two phases of 20th century American architecture: first, the period of the American renaissance working in Beaux Arts historicist styles and second, in the development of Modernism. Over a four decade long practice, Ivey and Crook produced some of Atlanta's most distinguished residential and commercial architecture.

Thank you for your continuing support of the Atlanta Preservation Center's efforts to save the Crum and Forster building.

If you have questions, please call me (404-688-3353 x13) or Boyd Coons (404-688-3353 x12) or email rebecca@preserveatlanta.com