Centennial Olympic Park

This guide to Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta starts with a numbers problem: organizers sold 330,000 personalized paving bricks at thirty-five dollars apiece, racing to fund a fifteen-million-dollar park on ground that was still warehouses and gravel lots just three years before the 1996 Olympics opened. It follows the construction firm that broke ground in 1995 and the foundation grants and donated land that filled gaps the bricks could not cover. You'll hear about the misspelled names and inside jokes still pressed into the pavement underfoot, a ledger of how close the budget came to not adding up. Look down as you walk the brick paths near the park's center.