Seeing the buzzin3 picture of the northeast corner of the former Grant Field (now Hyundai Field) brought back memories of the history of that northeast corner, which was part of the original eight acres provided as the original land for the Georgia School of Technology in 1885. A railroad man turned land developer and namesake for Peters Park, Richard Peters, donated 4 and sold another 4 acres to the state Board of Regents to build Tech. The flat land, aka called the "the Flats" is where the Coach Heisman's football and baseball games were played. in 1920, the northeast corner of the Flats was the outdoor court of Tech's first intercollegiate basketball team in 1920, coached by Coach Alexander as a member of the Southern Conference. Then they discovered it got cold and rained during the winter, so the home games moved to the Atlanta Auditorium. In the early 1930's, basketball was moved back on campus to play in a small gym built on that same northeast corner by federal funds, which was called the Naval Armory to support Navy ROTC and ceremonies. One of two 4-sport letter winners at Tech, Coach Hyder played basketball there in 1932-1937, with Coach Dodd as his freshman team coach. There was no room on the narrow bleachers except for students and faculty, with no other fans allowed to watch the games. The Tech team, then in the SEC beginning in 1932, was 10-0 undefeated SEC regular seasons champions in 1937 and SEC tournament champions in 1938 (but no NCAA tournaments, with the NCAA tournament beginning in 1939, a year after the NIT began). with no fans at home games except students. After 1939, the Heisman gym and pool were built next door to the west, where Tech beat Kentucky regularly and we had class registration there. I played many a pickup game in the hot or cold, depending on the time of year, in the naval armory. In November 1956, Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now McCamish Pavilion ) was built with the current 32 steel beams from the Atlantic Steel Company on 17th Street as Tech's basketball home court, with Tech losing the home opener to , of all teams, the Duke Blue Devils. The naval armory on the north east corner met it's demise with opening of the Edge Center in 1981. And the Edge Center was demolished in 2024 for the building of the Fanning Center, to be completed in 2025.
My apologies for the lengthy history of the northeast corner of Hyundai Field. I really like that acre of land, mainly because it was across the breezeway from Miss Twiggs' athletic training table, the best food I ever ate up to that point in my life. All the Tech athletes ate there three meals a day and many lifetime friends were made.
