In 1996, Marcus Sakey landed his first job out of college — at Atlanta’s Turner Broadcasting — behind the scenes in animation. At the time, he never imagined someday being in front of the camera.
Fifteen years later, Sakey finds himself hosting his own TV show on the Travel Channel called “Hidden City,” where he travels to a different city each episode to dig into its iconic, historical crimes. Tonight, he ventures back to Atlanta, where he lived from 1996 to 2003 and met his wife.
“The idea is to explore cities through their stories,” Sakey said in a recent interview. “I go into each city from the viewpoint of a novelist. The idea is to understand the people as characters, to know what they were going through from my perspective.”
A fictional crime author, Sakey said “Hidden City” takes a slice of foodie traveler Anthony Bourdain’s whimsy, a taste of light-hearted ABC drama “Castle” (which stars a crime novelist) and a dash of MTV’s “Jackass,” because he’ll partake in activities reminiscent of the crimes spotlighted on his show.
Over the course of 12 episodes, he gets pepper-sprayed like a protester, attacked by a dog and tackled by cops after trying to “steal” a car. “It’s not just gimmicks,” he said. “I want to understand why people act the way they do, and get the adrenaline rush of being on the run.”
For the Atlanta episode, taped in June, Sakey pursued three stories: the legendary Great Locomotive Chase early in the Civil War, the Buckhead day-trader killing of 1999 and a notorious Gwinnett County drug case from 2008.
The thematic tie of the stories, he said, is the Atlanta area’s relentless focus on commerce and transportation, with an eye toward the future.
Sakey worked to drive home that theme with a visit to a dank maintenance tunnel downtown. A sign marks the spot where the city officially staked itself as a railroad hub in 1837. It’s also a popular hangout for homeless people. “History,” Sakey told his audience, “smells a lot like urine.”
Ratings for “Hidden City,” which debuted Dec. 6, have been modest.
After three episodes, Nielsen ratings data has the show averaging 346,000 viewers, down 25 percent compared to “Ghost Adventures,” which held that time period a year ago. Sakey is not deterred, noting viewer reaction has been positive so far.
“We’re very pleased with how ‘Hidden City’ is performing,” a Travel Channel spokesman said via email.
Here’s a quick overview of the three crimes Sakey spotlights in tonight’s Atlanta episode:
The Great Locomotive Chase
In 1862, Union scout James Andrews and several volunteers commandeered Confederate locomotive the General in Kennesaw and tried to destroy the rail line leading up to Chattanooga in hopes of cutting off supply lines.
William Fuller — on the Confederate side and using a train called the Texas — eventually caught up with the General and captured Andrews, who was hanged. On the show, Sakey describes the incident as “the daring rogue vs. the tireless voice of law.”
“This is such novelistic territory — two men squaring off. Behind enemy lines, one man steals a train right under their nose,” Sakey said. “If Andrews had pulled this off, it might have changed the course of the war.”
Today, the General is featured at Kennesaw’s Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History, helping to keep alive this epic episode from early Atlanta. The day-trader killing spree
More than a century later — July 29, 1999 — Sakey was working at a Web design company at Atlanta’s King Plow Arts Center during the height of the dot-com boom. Mark Barton was trying to make a living as a securities day trader, speculating on short-term price fluctuations.
But with financial losses piling up, Barton snapped and turned to violence, first killing his family, then nine employees at two Buckhead day-trading firms. Finally, he killed himself as police were closing in.
Buckhead, Sakey noted on the show, was known more for “shopping sprees than shooting sprees. It’s Elton John’s neighborhood.”
In the segment, Sakey recounted that awful day with then-Mayor Bill Campbell, who was the public face of horrified Atlanta residents — many huddled around office TV sets as the scope of the tragedy around them unfolded in live news reports. Campbell, later convicted of tax evasion, rarely does interviews but accepted this one, Sakey said, because of its narrow scope.
Sakey met the former mayor at Midtown’s Silver Skillet diner, because that’s where dot-com deals often were struck back in the 1990s. Plus, Sakey recalled, “When I worked at Turner, I spent many a lunch at Silver Skillet. I think the hash browns are still in my belly!”
The dot-com firm at which Sakey himself worked in 1999, he said, eventually “imploded spectacularly — but without gunfire.”
The kidnapped drug dealer
With its miles of highways and a giant international airport, Atlanta’s image as a transportation hub has been key to attracting business. In 2008, those same assets lured big-time drug dealers moving their contraband throughout the East.
That summer, mid-level cocaine dealer Oscar Reynoso was kidnapped and held for ransom by a Mexican cartel for owing $300,000. He was hidden in a Lilburn basement, bound by chains, gagged and beaten.
Federal agents found him alive.
Sakey interviewed undercover officers involved in the raid at Manuel’s Tavern, a longtime downtown hangout for politicians and journalists.
“I like a place where you have no idea if it’s dark or sunny outside,” he said.
“Who would have known Atlanta is a hub for Mexican drug cartels?” Sakey said.
TV preview
“Hidden City”
10 p.m. Tuesday, Travel Channel
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