The Old Marietta City Hall

This was the Marietta City Hall when I was growing up. As you go into the center doors you could go into the first door on the left you could pay your utility bills. Mrs. Gocha was the person behind the counter mostly likely to wait on you. To the right was a big table full of blueprints and maps. I don’t know but I think that was the city manager’s office and maybe where you went to get a builder’s permit. Someplace in the back was a meeting room with a long table. That is where the council members and the mayor met.

In front of you is a very long steep stair case. It went up to the T.A.C. T.A.C. was the Teenage Canteen. Before we were teenagers we yearned to go up and mingle with the teenagers a few years younger than we were. In fact, a few times we did, and each time, the old lady or her husband who ran the place would quickly figure out we were not old enough and kicked us out.

The T.AC. had two pool tables. That is another thing we wanted to do, play pool. And that is where they usually caught us, when we were novices playing pool.

After we became teenagers the T.A.C. was no longer forbidding so we rarely went. Then, we yearned to go to Past Time Grill and Billiards.

Smarter teenagers probably yearned to go to the moon and became engineers and scientists.

In the same building as City Hall around back was the Fire Station. As a young kid who roamed Marietta Streets it was always a treat to go by the Fire Station and look in at the big red shiny fire truck. There was just something pleasing about seeing the big red shiny fire truck that is just hard to describe.

The modern Marietta City Hall is a complex of non-descript buildings built probably between 30 or 40 years ago that take up a whole block. I don’t know the buildings by their looks, only by their location. They don’t hold any memories either.

A-a-a-a-k-k-k-k-k-k!!! (that's me giving the modern City Hall a raspberry.