Urban indigestion

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Heather Kuldell

PATRICK DEUX: Patrick Davis and Patrick Busko have a perfect view of the Super 8 Hotel next door.

It's not quite Easy Street, but living in the 123 Luckie Street Lofts works out well for Patrick Busko and Patrick Davis, life partners who are also business partners. For them, downtown living -- with its tourists, drifters and random craziness -- is like having your own real-life TV channel. Plus, they get a bonus: a top-to-bottom view of the Super 8 motel.

CL: Where are we?

Busko: We're in Fairlie-Poplar, but no one ever knows where that is. So I say I live downtown. Then people say, "Where?" and I say by Centennial Park. It's a block up.

Davis: And we work in the Flat Iron building, which is three blocks away.

And that's your commute? You don't have to move your cars?

Davis: No, and it's great. In a city known for sprawl and horrendous traffic, that's not even part of our reality. We walk to the park, we walk to the grocery store and we walk to the office.

So you're pretending it's New York and you walk everywhere?

Busko: I don't think Atlanta is the 24-hour metropolitan center New York is, but there's a lot you can do in this town by walking around.

Davis: We think the smartest thing the city could do is to get a trolley system like they have in San Francisco. Even if there were just a trolley that looped from downtown to Midtown, it would be phenomenal. The trick is trying to find things downtown that aren't touristy. We're really not about chain restaurants.

Are the tourists a pain?

Davis: The tourists are fine; it's the vagrants that are difficult. That's a complex issue. Everyone has rights, but everyone has responsibilities too. And when someone goes to the bathroom on my front door, that's a little too much.

Davis: And we're not talking about a little tinkle.

Busko: In the three blocks from here to the office, you can really get harassed, and it's a bit out of control at the moment.

Davis: If we wanted a completely predictable "white bread" experience, we would have found that. People say that Fairlie-Poplar is the residential heart of downtown, but sometimes it's the residential heartburn -- there's just a little too much spice.

Anything else that makes living downtown exciting?

Davis: The Super 8. We both enjoyed the 50-year-old conservative-looking man who put on fishnets, a red skirt and a blond wig, and went walking down the street.

Busko: He seemed to be touring the neighborhood in drag.

Davis: Another night, there were girls jumping from bed to bed like trampolines.

Busko: A la "The Man Show" -- but they had no shirts on. We've seen it all: girl on girl, a guy going solo, whatever.

Davis: It's our own Spice Channel. During Widespread Panic concerts, smoke actually billows out of the windows. But it's all fun. That's what the city's about: having different types of people mixing about.

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