I am not speechless, I am laughing. I was in Buckhead this April. Guess who invited me? Buckhead is beautiful! The two shopping malls, Lenox and Phipps are gourgeous. The restaurants are fantastic. The residential areas I saw are so wonderful. I stayed at two different hotels in the area and could not have felt safer. Of course I didn't go wandering around at 3:00am so cannot comment on Buckhead at that hour of the morning.

But of course I don't go wandering around in SF or Portland or Ventura or Rome at 3:00am either.

That is my 2-cents.

Ray Lewis, the model citizen, was convicted of obstructing justice-actively impeding a murder investigation involving members of his roving stretch limosine party by fleeing the scene, hiding/discarding evidence and lying to the police. He admitted the charges in exchange for the prosecutors dropping the murder charge, itself difficult to prove because the childhood friends were not interested in fingering the true culprit (I'm not suggeting Mr. Lewis was the murderer).

Steer clear of the bar scene and the streets in the wee hours and you'll be safe. The JW is attached to Lenox Square [mall] and down the street from Phipps Plaza, an upscale shopping mecca, and a mile or so from the principal drag.

We have an elaborate alarm system that, among other things, monitors for fire and break-ins (haven't had either). The credit we get against our homeowners insurance premium exceeds the cost of the monitoring.

Well we should definitely avoid all locations where those convicted of obstructing justice hang out. Give me a break. Atlanta may or may not have problems, but they have nothing to do with Ray Lewis and I think that's the point being made.

Gee Whiz, so glad I moved from midtown Atlanta where "something is wrong" and I had to step over the dead bodies to get to my apartment...to the wonderful magical central Florida where no children are abducted and left for dead and people are never shot.

Give me a break.

Avoiding the politcal commentary (which isn't that easy for me), I would mention, just in case Jason happens to be a very timid, shy, retiring, and nervous hipster, that the JW Marriott is actually ATTACHED to Lenox mall. Theoretically, you could valet your car, walk to the mall from you room, shop, see a movie, and dine at the very, very nice, hard-to-believe it's in a mall Brasserie Le Coze, and then cruise on back to your hotel at all hours without ever sticking your nose outside.

Oh, BTW, Atlanta residents...when is Freaknik, or whatever they call it now?

I've lived in Atlanta for nearly 20 years now, and have lived in the Buckhead area and now work less than a mile from the JW Marriott. There's always a chance of trouble, but no more so than in, say, Times Square/Midtown Manhattan or downtown Chicago or South Beach or any other place people hang out and party. Like anywhere else the odds are much greater the later it gets, and if you use common sense you're highly unlikely to have a problem.

Orcas' comments probably say more about his/her acquaintances than they do about Atlanta. Lots of people in Atlanta have alarm systems; lots of people don't. Everybody has stories about breakins because they do happen -- and they happen as much in the best areas as the worst, simply because that's where the stuff is. Everybody has stories about murders/kidnappings because everyone watches/listens to the same news reports, and the media plays to the fears of the public. But while the chances of having your home burglarized are reasonably high (happened to us last fall in our relatively safe and sedate suburban neighborhood), the chances of anyone being injured as a result are small, unless the burglar cuts himself on broken window glass -- they don't want to hit a house where anyone is home. Home invasions are scary, but the truly random ones where there's no prior connection between villain and victim are extremely rare.

My office buiding in Buckhead was the site of the Mark Barton office shootings several years ago (http://www.cnn.com/US/9907/30/atlanta.shooting.03/), and my home was burglarized last fall. From those incidents, I could conclude that Atlanta's a completely unsafe place to be. Or, I could recognize that there's absolutely no way to predict where some nutcase is going to shoot up a couple of businesses, and that burglaries happen everywhere. I don't spend my time worrying about it. That doesn't mean that I'm foolhardy about my personal safety -- I don't have much desire to go wandering about the area of Memphis where I'm staying this week, for instance, and there're parts of Atlanta I do give a wide berth to -- but I don't spend all my time talking about my alarm system (don't have one) or rehashing the latest sensational murder/kidnapping story on the news.

"Justin's owned by Sean Puffy Combs. More information disclosed it was an after hours private birthday party for a family member of Bobby Brown..."

well that pretty much sums it up. A cafe owned by a low life giving a party for another low life attended by a group of even lower lifes...why are you surprised there was trouble?

I'll add my 3 cents to this so that you come away with a nickel's worth of advice.

Lived there, done that. High priced retail operations generally do not attrack well heeled customers if the area is dangerous.

Use your own common sense.

BTW: house alarms. It's a real marketing ploy in the Atlanta metro area. I've relocated a number of times and I have NEVER received so many telemarketers calling to sell me home alarms as I did while we lived in Marietta. Unbelievable. And, NO, we didn't have a house alarm.

Enjoy your stay in Atlanta.

Freaknik doesn't happen in Atlanta anymore. It peaked in the early '90s and with all the prep for the Olympics, Atlanta found ways to thwart the party (traffic jams), so they moved on to Florida (Daytona maybe?) and was it Galveston or somewhere else in TX? I'm not even certain it really "happens" at all these days they way it used to.

What makes Sean Combs a low life? I suppose you know all of Bobby Brown's family members and they are all low lifes as well just because you think he is? Troll alert!!!

I don't know about Sean Combs but you have to admit Bobby Brown has been incarcerated a few times.

GT - Yes, I would indeed agree that Bobby Brown has probably earned the title "low life," but the poster indicated the party was for one of Bobby Brown's family members and then referred to that person and all the attendees as low lifes. I guess anyone who is related to someone who has done bad things is automatically bad as well? I bet that would make a lot of us low lifes (most families have at least one or two black sheeps among them).

Hello snowrooster and baylady:

Ray Lewis got away with murder, pure and simply. He is an overrated linebacker with a bad attitude.

The best thing to happen in the NFL last year was when T.O. mimic'd Lewis' ridiculous pre-game dance.

You want a model citizen look at Ted Bruschi.

mm

You are correct snowrooster and I agree with you about the generalizations.

Well, I will make a generalization about Atlanta and a specific comment about Buckhead. Buckhead is, in my experience, one of the safest areas in Atlanta. And I've been in that area several times a year, almost every year, over the last 35 years.

Now for the generalization: Atlanta is indeed a much less safe city than it was 35 years ago. The attraction of a nice Southern city, the proliferation of racial problems, and the inability of the city to keep on top of its growth have all contributed to its decline in terms of safety. There are places I wouldn't go in Atlanta even in broad daylight, but Buckhead isn't one of them.

mm - Impressive the way you have access to Ted Bruschi's closet and found it skeleton free - you must know him pretty well. Also astounding that you witnessed Ray Lewis commit murder. You might want to clue law enforcement in on what you saw. You are amazingly insightful!!

Here's an interesting website on crime statistics. According to this website, Atlanta is #1 in the US, for its size, in dangerous crime.

http://www.morganquitno.com/cit05pop.htm#METRO

I apologize if people took personally my observations that our friends and family living in Atlanta were concerned about crime. My husband is a native of Atlanta and we enjoy visiting his family there and old friends. This trip, we visited Buckhead and even, Lenox, as my son had heard about it. And no, we didn't fear for our lives, or even our wallets, when we were there.

Our kids' favorite stop, this trip, was to the Coke Museum, which somehow we had never gotten to. My favorite was the orchid house at the botanical gardens.

Atlanta is a much more sophisticated and worldly city than it was when we lived there 20 years ago. I could have commented on this positive change, I guess. It's just that this post was about crime, and I had actually noticed more of these concerns expressed during this trip than I had in the past. I'm glad many of you are living in communities in the area where you aren't concerned. I have, by the way, lived all over the US including the southside of Chicago, where I was born, and am not naive about crime.

The problem, IMHO, is the lack of pedestrian areas in the city, and one that is hopefully going to get better within the next few years. The fact that you have to drive everywhere means that there are little parts of town where you can walk from place to place, leaving many areas desolate and unfortunately, prey to crime. The city is trying to combat this by not reopening many of the foreclosed bars on the "Buckhead Strip" to new bars, but rather to shops and cafes. This will take a while. But since you still have to get in your car to travel from Buckhead to say, midtown or Centennial Park, there is very little sense of security walking around, since you often aren't surrounded by other people the way you are in NYC or San Fran. That being said, Lenox and the hotels you mention are fine. Plenty of high end shops and restaurants nearby which are walkable. Even the "Buck Ride" as I think it's called shuttles people around. HOpefully with the opening of places like Atlantic Station and other new urbanist destinations, pedestrian traffic will increase and crime stats will decrease. No matter where you are tho, exercise caution the way you would in any major city.

Orcas, I appreciate your returning to post a clarification about your post. My own response was probably more heated than it should have been.

I think what set me off is that your post implied that thankfully, most people don't have to live in a town (i.e. Atlanta) where they live in fear due to high crime. You probably didn't mean it to sound that way but when I read it, that's what my impatient eyes leapt to.

I think anybody today, no matter what size their town is, should be aware of their surroundings and be sensible about the potential for crime. Few people can call their town crime-free.

We do have our share of crime in Atlanta. I would never deny that this is true. At the same time, there are several large U.S. cities that suffer from higher crime rates in some certain categories. There is one Northeastern city where carjacking and car theft is at an all-time high (yes, higher than Atlanta). I would name these cities but I am not hear to bash another city. That's not my purpose.

I'm glad you've gotten to enjoy more of the city recently as it does have a lot to offer. It does bother me that even we natives tell tourists to avoid downtown after dark. But frankly, there's little to attract them there so it wouldn't make much sense anyway. That's the sad part. I am hopeful this will change in the next decade.

Dear snowrooster,

Thank you for the kind comments. I'm blushing!

Much appreciated.

mm