The Coffin’s art house
Tom and Stephanie Coffin are among the most creative and industrious people you could ever meet. Since arriving here in the mid sixties for Emory grad school, they have contributed much to the quality of life in Atlanta. They were among the group that birthed and raised The Great Speckled Bird to be “the Wall Street Journal of Underground newspapers”, as 60 Minutes called them. Without The Bird it is unlikely Atlanta would have had such a counter culture.
All recordings copyright the strip project
Audio Player
Arriving in Atlanta
Audio Playerhard work of creating a newspaper
Audio PlayerThe Bird introduces counter thought to the region
Audio PlayerThe Bird introduces counter thought to the region
Audio PlayerWest Coast influences
Audio PlayerThe Albany Movement
Audio Playerstepping on the Atlanta stage
Audio Playerprotective aura of a woman with small child
Audio Playertoo hot at the Byron Pop Festival
Audio Playertrouble finding housing
Audio PlayerSeattle roots and Beat bloodline
Audio Player1968
Audio PlayerStephanie and son stroll The Strip
Caught for history
Audio PlayerThe Strip to 14th Street
Audio PlayerTalkin’ to Tom Coffin
Tom was later the head arborist for Atlanta, charged with protecting our tree canopy. The developers were upset with him for doing a good job and not giving them free reign, so fellow travelers in city government fired him as incompetent. He sued the city and he won in court as a whistleblower on corruption. Now he continues the fight to keep Atlanta’s trees healthy through The Tree Next Door organization.
Audio Player
starting The Great Speckled Bird
Audio PlayerMost memorable moments
Audio PlayerMini-riot on 14th Street
Audio PlayerColony Square developers destroy the street
Audio PlayerLife at The Birdhouse on 14th
Audio PlayerEmory Herald Tribune leads to The Bird
Audio Player1970s bring back harder times
Great Interviews, glad they’re online. H.Romaine
Great Interviews, glad they’re online. H.Romaine JUST found it, 11.22.2014
I grew up as a kid at 67th 12th Street, N.E Atlanta , Ga. Lived in that house from 1960 until my mama died in 1973. Rode my bike along with a couple of neighborhood kids thru all the underground parking lots, Crescent Ave, apt complexes,. I remember finding copies of the Great Speckled Bird in the underground garages, etc.. It was a very scary, but exciting & now I see it as quite a historical time of my childhood. There is a parking lot where my house once stood. Stories I could tell of my life as a inner city kid at 67 12th Street N E Atlanta Ga
Please do tell any you would care to share. That must have been a unique childhood. Did it have any effects?