Actual Factual Georgia

A: The reasoning behind PDK gets a big "IDK" from Mike Van Wie, the airport's director. IDK in social networking and texting speak stands for "I don't know," so he has no idea why the official name of Georgia's second-busiest airport is DeKalb Peachtree Airport and its abbreviation is PDK. The confusion is caused by the Federal Aviation Administration's official identifying code for DeKalb Peachtree Airport. That's PDK, which jumbles the "P" and the "DK." And that leads many folks, even that ever shrinking species called native Atlantans, to use PDK or think that the official name is Peachtree DeKalb Airport. "PDK doesn't really go together with DeKalb Peachtree, but we've never heard of any confusion," Van Wie said. "To air traffic, we're Peachtree Ground or Peachtree Tower. We'll answer to all of them, but more often than not, this is PDK." Anyway, Peachtree-DeKalb flows better when coming off the tongue than DeKalb-Peachtree, but maybe because that's what I've called it my entire life. At least Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has an easily identifiable code. I think we all know what ATL stands for.

Q: I’ve seen pictures of Terminal Station in Atlanta. It was a beautiful building. Where was it and what’s there now?

A: Terminal Station, which featured majestic towers and Beaux Arts architecture, was one of two train stations – in addition to Union Station — that served downtown Atlanta for most of the 20th century. Terminal Station was designed by P. Thornton Marye – whose company also designed the Fox Theatre – and was built on Spring Street in 1905. It served more than 80 trains a day in the 1920s, but was obsolete by the 1960s. Terminal Station was torn down in 1971 to make room for the bland and boxy Richard B. Russell Federal Building at the corner of Spring and Mitchell.