One of the usual tourist stops for travelers to the area is the CNN Center in the midst of the business around around Centennial Olympic Park. The attraction there was a tour of the business, if only to take a ride on the world's longest freestanding escalator. As the photo shows, it goes up and up and up. The machine used to be part of a theme park in the complex in 1976, but that is long gone. CNN took it over, sooner rather than later.
You couldn't just get on the motorized stairway. You had to pay for the tour. OK, it was still a must.
Then came the pandemic in 2020, and the tours stopped. Sigh. Even though the pandemic had eased quite a bit during our visit three years later, the tour still hadn't reopened. (Note: That's in spite of the fact that we ran into natives who told us to make sure to go on it.) So there were no rides for us.
That's not going to change in the near future, either. A little research shows that CNN is moving out of the CNN Center downtown. The business is moving to another part of town with much less space. Very little production takes place in Atlanta any more, so there's no need for a great many employees.
Well, at least you can still look at the escalator. It was a nice companion as we had lunch in the food court, which didn't seem particularly busy on a Tuesday afternoon.
Luckily, we can see what it looked like to ride the thing. You may have seen more exciting videos in your life.
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