There are businesses, investment advisors, retail shops and travel agents chugging along next to more artsy concerns like movie studios and glass-blowing hotboxes. Near the other end of Auburn, west of the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic District and the massive churches of Big Bethel and Wheat Street Baptist, beyond the shining black obelisk of the Equitable Building, is the Stuart Peebles Building, better known in the Fairlie-Poplar district as The Art Building . That's when Paige Harvey moved into the top floor, along with her enormous canvases of abstract animalistic motion. The middle floor is the habitat of Tom Haney and Paula Joerling, whose chunky sculptures contribute to the Romper Room ambience. The circa 1920 building looks like a Parisian souvenir dropped from the pocket of an eccentric child.
Long windows topped by faux gables smile out over boxes the residents keep stocked with flowers.
The building has always housed retail, but now, the store on the first floor shimmers with baubles and smells of bubbles. From there, a trip back east to 621 North Ave. brings a visitor to the Southern Dairies Building, a loft project that still looks as if squeaky-clean milkmen ought to be straightening their bow ties in the parking lot. Clean lines are found inside where glass doorways reveal counters and partitions that curve away into delicious whorls of colors. Between renters like eHatchery and Pogo Pictures, are landscaped gardens and courtyards. Copyright 2000 Creative Loafing Inc. All rights reserved.