Rachel Garbus

4 days ago | atlantamagazine.com | Rachel Garbus

Photograph by Kazim Yildirimli / iStock / Getty Images PlusOn a cold night in January, Diane Hughes, a volunteer with the Point-in-Time Count, approaches a young person in tight jeans, smoking a cigarette outside a midtown Publix. “Hi, there,” Hughes begins. “I’m helping conduct a survey about people experiencing homelessness in Atlanta. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?” They nod, cautiously.

2 weeks ago | atlantamagazine.com | Rachel Garbus

Tomasina Ray, RMS Titanic, Inc. president, with a recovered chandelierPhotograph by Martha WilliamsAt first glance, the fluorescent lighting and the long metal shelves look like the interior of any storage warehouse. The white porcelain dinner plates, stacked in neat rows, could be from any restaurant—until one sees the logo stamped in red ink on their faces: White Star Line. These plates spent decades at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

2 months ago | atlantamagazine.com | Rachel Garbus

March is Women’s History Month, a time when many organizations showcase the diverse contributions women have made to the long march of human progress. What to do, then, if your target audience can’t read, write, or sit still for more than 30 seconds? Such challenges are no impediment for the creative minds behind the Children’s Museum of Atlanta, who specialize in the art of play-based learning for children ages zero to eight.

2 months ago | atlantamagazine.com | Rachel Garbus

If you’ve ever looked at a flickering neon sign and thought, I bet I could make one of those, be advised: You almost certainly could not. At once a science and an art, neon demands an artisan’s understanding of glass and a chemist’s mastery of the noble gases. The process is rarely executed by a single person but rather completed in steps by a series of trained experts.

2 months ago | atlantamagazine.com | Rachel Garbus

On January 18, 2023, gunshots rang out in the South River Forest. When the smoke cleared, a Georgia State Patrol trooper had been shot in the side, and Manuel “Tortuguita” Téran was dead, shot 14 times by law enforcement. Tort, as they were called by friends, had been living in a tent in the South River Forest for months with a committed group of self-styled Forest Defenders. They were protesting the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, known by critics as Cop City.