- [Announcer] Major funding for "The Day Atlanta Stood Still" was provided by the Katherine John Murphy Foundation.

Additional funding was provided by the Sartain Lanier Foundation and the Thomas H. Lanier Foundation.

(solemn orchestral music) - They informed me at some point that, you know, two people got out.

That's... That's tough to take.

- We could not, in the space of three seconds maybe, think that somebody died.

It was not conceivable.

- And I started screaming, "Don't you understand?!

"Don't you understand; they're not coming home!

"They'll never be home!"

- I felt like the most important thing for me to do at that point was to get to my little brother.

No one was able to prepare him.

- Many of 'em my wonderful friends.

The shock of it was terrible.

- [Narrator] It was the deadliest crash in aviation history up to that time.

On Sunday morning, June 3rd, 1962, the news tore through Atlanta that a jet plane carrying 106 of its citizens had crashed on takeoff at Orly Airfield near Paris, France.

In the agonizing hours that followed, it was confirmed that all had perished.

Most of the passengers were members of the Atlanta Art Association, ending an art tour of Europe.

This is their story, the story of who they were, what brought them together in death, how one city was torn apart by their loss, and how that city was changed by the determination to honor their memory.

(light upbeat orchestral music) Atlanta has always been driven by commerce.

By 1962, the city of one million was a bustling center for transportation, communications, and finance.

Its airport, now graced by a new terminal, was the aviation hub of the Southeast.

Mayor William B. Hartsfield's decades of strong leadership had firmly secured Atlanta's claim to be the unofficial capital of the new South.

- Atlanta, a city that calmly says to the world, "We are too busy to hate anybody."

- [Narrator] Respected businessman Ivan Allen Jr. was settling in as the new mayor in Bill Hartsfield's formidable shadow.

Ivan Allen and his elegant wife, Louise, were first among Atlanta's elite.

- Atlanta has by reputation become one of the legends of the South and of the nation, a legend of progressiveness and a legend of what happens to a city that is determined to move forward in the direction, in the direction of progress.

- [Narrator] But in some ways, Atlanta was still an overgrown version of a small Southern town, and that meant segregation in most areas of life.

- I don't want to integrate the swimming pool.

I don't think you want your own children and the colored children swimming in the pools together.

I know that you don't!

- It was the typical Jim Crow, Deep South that I encountered when I arrived in 1962: segregated restaurants, still colored and white water fountains, still segregated buses, a basically white power structure.

- [Narrator] Still, Atlanta was weathering the civil rights movement more gracefully than most other cities in the South.

It was integrating schools and some other public facilities without violence.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had recently moved the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headquarters to Atlanta.

In race relations and other areas, the city was positioning itself for the future.

- We were very conscious that certain things had to be in place to attract people to come to Atlanta for good economic reasons.

We were getting our school system in shape.

We wanted to have appropriate cultural facilities; performing arts as well as the visual arts.

We wanted to have a national sports center, and the Braves eventually came.

So, here we were, planning on all these fronts.

- [Narrator] On some fronts, much work was needed.

Compared to the entertainment, nightlife, and culture found in America's truly cosmopolitan cities, Atlanta in 1962 was a backwater.

The city's provincialism was rooted in its history.

- At the time, Atlanta's first citizen, Hardy Ivy, was building his cabin in what is now downtown Atlanta.

It was in the woods then.

Other Southern cities, such as Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, were actually thriving cultural cities and had been so for generations, but that's because they were coastal cities.

Atlanta was an inland city, and it took the development of the railroad for Atlanta to become the thriving city that it is today.

- [Narrator] By 1962, the Atlanta Art Association was the city's most established cultural institution.

It ran the High Museum of Art, named after benefactor Mrs. Joseph High, and the Atlanta Art Institute.

But it was still basically a volunteer operation, run largely by society women.

Other arts groups faced their own challenges.

The highly-acclaimed Atlanta Ballet and several emerging theater companies were struggling and homeless.

The lack of a decent auditorium for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was especially embarrassing.

Whether or not the men who ran the city's business and government knew art, they all knew what they liked.

They liked whatever attracted more business to Atlanta.

For that, they needed culture.

- Basically, the Atlanta businessman was following the advice of their wives and mothers and sisters, who said, "John," or, "Joe," or, "Bob, "we've got to do a better job in the arts."

- [Narrator] On May 8th, 1962, the Atlanta Art Association voted for a plan to strengthen its struggling art school and upgrade the High into a first-class, professionally-run museum.

The action took place on the eve of the members' tour of Europe.

More than 100 Georgians were about to embark on a 25-day guided tour of Old World art treasures.

- It was to mark Atlanta's becoming an international airport, an international city, and there was much excitement.

It was the trip to go on in the eyes of many people.

- [Narrator] The tour group included board members, other patrons, artists, and some who joined the Art Association just to get in on the bargain trip.

- I think they were mostly women, a good many older women, widows on the group.

Some of them had been the heads of the museum or symphony support groups and some had been associated with some of the little theater groups around town.

Most of 'em were from Buckhead.

They lived in this general area of North Atlanta.

- [Narrator] Many of those signing up for the tour were community leaders from old Atlanta families.

Among them: Roby and Louise Robinson, Georgia Supreme Court Clerk Katherine Bleckley, and Henrietta Ayer.

- The women of that time almost all did exactly the same thing.

They went to a good college, mother went to Sweet Briar, they came home, they were part of the Junior League.

My mother married a doctor.

Some married lawyers.

They had children during World War II.

They were wonderful mothers.

They did a lot of civic work.

They played a lot of bridge.

They had a lot of social life.

And they all had known each other forever and ever.

- [Narrator] Among those breaking the mold was Raiford Ragsdale, the strong-willed daughter of a political family.

She was the first women on the Atlanta Board of Education, a stalwart in the Democratic Party, a Woman of the Year in fine arts, and a strong supporter of the High Museum.

- Raiford was a character in this town.

She was president of many things and rather strong in her opinions and very strong in her point of view.

- I'm sure Raiford was thrilled about going on the art tour, for two reasons.

One is because it would expose her to many beautiful, beautiful things, and secondly because it would educate her left brain about some of the history and experience and location of many art objects and traditions.

- [Narrator] Attorney Baxter Jones and his wife, Julia, were among Atlanta's most attractive and prominent young couples.

A progressive on civil rights issues, Baxter Jones typified the city's new generation of political and civic leaders.

- He'd run for Congress.

He didn't win, but he upgraded the quality of political campaigns by his mere presence.

- [Narrator] Julia Jones, a graduate of the Chicago Art Institute, was a very energetic community volunteer.

She made their Buckhead home a gathering place for artists, patrons, and literati.

- Two or three months before their trip to Paris, Baxter and Julia were very excited about a new painting that was hung in their living room.

I told Baxter in looking at it, I said, "You know, that looks like, to me, "an airplane flying into a storm."

- [Narrator] Jewish couples like Ruben and Janet Crimm were excluded from some of Atlanta's most prestigious social clubs in those years, but they were welcome in the Art Association.

Ruben Crimm was a highly regarded transportation attorney.

- He would travel up to Washington often to appear in front of committees and he would lull his opponents into thinking that, "Oh, this is going to be an easy one.

"Somebody with a Southern drawl doesn't know anything."

And he apparently had a reputation for his ability to turn the table around.

- [Narrator] Thomas and Charlotte Little went on the trip to purchase antiques and study European architecture.

Trailblazers in historic preservation, they had met in the early-1930s at historic Williamsburg, where Tom was one of the original architectural draftsmen and Charlotte was a docent.

After World War II, they moved to Atlanta, and Tom became head architect for the Georgia Historical Commission.

Working as a team, the Littles directed 18th-century restoration projects all over Georgia.

- My father, of course, had the architectural background that was needed to do reconstructions as well as restorations.

My mother's major role was as designer, interior designer.

So, they worked together.

- [Narrator] Much of Thomas and Charlotte Little's handiwork can still be seen today.

Delbert Page, a resident partner in the national accounting firm of Ernst & Ernst, led the tour with his wife, Winifred.

A dedicated civic leader, Page had been elected president of the Art Association in 1960.

- He was a tall, likable individual, (laughing) one of Atlanta's business leaders.

If you were a successful business leader in Atlanta, it was taken for granted that you were a leader in its cultural life, you see.

- [Narrator] Vasser Woolley Jr. was an exception.

Woolley was board chairman of Seydel-Woolley & Company, a chemical manufacturing business.

A bachelor until late in life, the Georgia Tech graduate was known not for cultural interests but for lavish alumni football parties at his rustic log cabin home near the Tech campus in midtown Atlanta.

At the age of 51, Woolley married his secretary.

She died 14 years later, in 1961.

- He was pretty distraught about it.

I don't think he had gotten over it very well.

Probably one reason he was going to Europe to visit my mother for a while in Belgium.

- [Narrator] 13 artists, professional and amateur, were in the group.

One was Helen Seydel, a portrait painter who had been married to Vasser Woolley's nephew.

- She and my Uncle Paul had a home out on West Paces Ferry that overlooked a lake, and the largest view over the lake was her studio.

And I can remember because it was all glassed in there.

And a couple of my friends and I used to like to go and hang out in the woods on the other side on days when Aunt Helen was painting nudes.

- To go into Helen's house, no children, and everything was peaceful and quiet.

And Helen said, "Would you like a Coca-Cola?"

And I said, "Oh yes."

And she takes this crystal glass and cracks ice, put cracked ice in it, poured the Coca-Cola on the cracked ice, put it on a saucer with the thinnest sliver of lemon.

I'll never forget it.

I thought, "(gasping) If this is what it is to be an artist, "I wanna be an artist."

- [Narrator] But shortly before the art tour of Europe, Helen Seydel's marriage ended suddenly and unexpectedly.

Crushed by the divorce, she looked to the trip as a spiritual resurrection.

The likes of Vivian Lee and Rex Harrison sat for artist Doug Davis.

He joined the tour in Paris for the flight back to Atlanta.

Davis was the son of a pioneer stunt pilot who had died in a plane crash.

(soft piano music) Abstract artist William David Cogland was striving to earn the recognition Davis had achieved.

Cogland produced commercial art to subsidize his serious work.

At his own expense, he taught art to patients at the state mental hospital in Milledgeville.

Cogland signed up for the tour seeking inspiration and connections.

- He had paintings in galleries all over the country and he wanted paintings in European galleries.

A friend of his, Doug Davis, was already a international artist, and David said, "That's how you do it.

"You go over there, "you make arrangements with those galleries, "you send 'em the work, and now you're international."

- [Narrator] As Cogland made phone calls at his desk in preparation for the trip, he doodled unconsciously on a notepad.

The last sketch his brother found on the pad appeared to depict an airplane crash.

Though she didn't live in Atlanta, Louise Turner was a student at the High Museum and a mainstay of the Buckhead art scene.

She joined the trip to Europe with her husband, Bob, a banker and gentleman farmer in the Middle Georgia town of Marshallville.

- She was commissioned and best known for her camellias and magnolias, and they sold all over the United States.

But her love truly was to paint the residents of the town who did not commission her, and these residents were primarily black citizens.

She found them intriguing.

As a matter of fact, there was an article in the "New York Times" about her art that said it was a cultivation of soul and spirit.

- [Narrator] The art tour attracted a sprinkling of others from outside Atlanta and a few even from other states.

Frances Hill, a tireless arts volunteer in Montgomery, Alabama, eagerly signed up for the trip, along with her mother and a sister living in Atlanta.

Her son, Inge, feared that the plane would not return her safely.

- I was one of those who had a premonition or a fear that this was going to happen, even before she left.

I never said anything, but I was just very frightened by that prospect.

- [Narrator] Betsy Bevington had apprehensions about flying as well, but she didn't let it dampen her excitement over the European tour.

Betsy and Milton Bevington were a popular young couple raising three sons in Buckhead.

Betsy, a Wellesley graduate, studied at the Art Institute and volunteered as a docent at the High Museum.

- Originally, she had planned to go with her father, but her father had died three months prior to that, so she went with her mother.

And her interest was to see in real life the sculpture and paintings and what have you that she'd read about and seen.

And it was also somewhat therapeutic for her mother, who had been a widow for three months.

- [Narrator] In all, 122 passengers, mostly Atlantans, eagerly boarded a chartered Boeing 707 at the Atlanta airport on May 9th.

Most of them were making their first trip to Europe.

Susan Coltrane was one of the youngest women on the tour.

She had quit her job with First National Bank of Atlanta in search of adventure.

The women were dressed in high heels and stockings and suits and hats, and we got on the plane as though we were going to church.

It was a very dressed-up, turned-out occasion.

And when we got to the transatlantic portion of the trip, people actually got up, went to the ladies room, and changed into sleeping gear.

The trip started and ended in Paris, and we were there for a day-and-a-half.

But when we entered Paris, it was a brilliant sunny day.

And the way the European window boxes were out, full of flowers, it was such a stunning thing to see.

- [Narrator] From May 10th to June 3rd, the group saw many of Europe's greatest art museums and historic sites.

- [Woman] You reminded me it was Mother's Day.

So happy to get cable, my first ever!

Museums and churches today, Versailles Monday.

I have so much to tell you.

Love, Mama.

- [Woman] This bell has been ringing for 400 years.

I miss you.

Do right.

Love, Mother.

- [Woman] Happy birthday!

We leave for Rome Monday.

Plane should be in Atlanta Sunday night, but I know it will be late.

Love, Mama.

- [Susan] We had a wonderful time.

The head of our group almost was like a scoutmaster with us in one sense in that he was always looking out for us and making sure that we saw certain things.

One of the jokes of the trip is that he had gone so far as to have a little booklet with him, "How to Pronounce Famous Artists' Names."

- [Narrator] By the time they reached Rome, Susan Coltrane had made up her mind to leave the tour, remain in Europe a while, and perhaps find a job.

- Because I was one of the youngest people on the trip, "Are you going to be okay?"

They sort of were taking messages back to my family to let them know that indeed she was doing just fine and that they left me in great shape.

- [Narrator] The tour was full of festive occasions.

Tom Lanier celebrated his 50th birthday with his wife, Nell, and their friends, Sikes and Carol Young, in Italy.

On May 30th, the group left Rome for Paris, and Milton Bevington flew there to surprise his wife and mother-in-law.

On the evening of June 2nd, Henrietta Ayer had dinner with her daughter, Penny, a student at the Sorbonne, and give her glowing accounts of the trip.

Saul and Mildred Gerson dined with their son Bob's French fiancee, Micheline Tindel, and her parents.

On June 3rd, shortly after noon on a beautiful Parisian Sunday, the group boarded their Air France charter, the Chateau de Sully, at Orly Airfield for their return home.

There was room for Milton Bevington, but he booked a separate return flight.

- We never flew together.

Once we started having children, my wife was somewhat apprehensive about flying that she wasn't scared to be on an airplane, but she was somewhat apprehensive of the consequences of an accident.

- [Narrator] Micheline Tindel and her parents came to the airport to see the Gersons off.

- I was crying a lot because I wanted to go (laughing) and it was not possible.

- [Narrator] After the passengers boarded, the Tindels walked up to the terminal restaurant, where they could watch the flight depart.

Milton Bevington had put Betsy and her mother on the plane.

He too lingered in the terminal to watch the takeoff.

Onboard, Francoise Authie saw that the passengers had fastened their seatbelts.

She then joined two other flight attendants, Jacqueline Gillett and Marcel Lugot, in the tail section.

(speaking foreign language) - [Translator] I was buckled in my seat in the rear of the plane.

I couldn't see anything.

There was no window.

I don't know if the plane ever left the runway at all.

- Plane went down to the end and came back, and finally it got up off the ground, and then white smoke started to come up from the runway.

And then the plane kept going on the ground and just, you know, went outta sight.

- [Translator] The plane didn't seem to hit anything.

For my part, I don't remember anything except a change in the engine noise.

- [Narrator] The jet careened down and off the runway.

Then it exploded, singeing some houses in a nearby village.

The tail section broke away and the rest of the plane disappeared in what witnesses called a holocaust of burning jet fuel.

- And then black smoke came up, and then (pausing) you had a feeling something was wrong.

- We saw planes going, but we didn't know it was theirs.

We just saw the smoke.

My father left to go down and find out what was going on because we couldn't imagine what had happened.

- You can't go out to see it, so you sort of look out the window of the terminal and keep watching and...

They inform you at some point that, you know, two people got out.

That's... That's tough to take.

- [Narrator] Amazingly, flight attendants Authie and Gillett survived with only minor injuries after being thrown a hundred feet by the force of the explosion.

- [Translator] There was a lot of smoke and debris.

Our backs were turned, so we didn't see any flame, just a lot of smoke and debris, and we walked out.

- [Narrator] Their co-worker, Marcel Lugot, died in the hospital a few hours later.

Everyone else onboard had perished instantly.

The death toll was 130.

It was the worst airplane accident in history up to that time.

- And I was hysterical.

We could not, in the space of three seconds maybe, think that somebody died.

It was not conceivable.

It's still not.

- The morning that that plane went down, my roommate and I were in our apartment in Paris, studying away for our exams that were to start the following day.

And I remember that there was a little radio in the room that was turned down very low, and it was jabbering frantically in French.

But it was so low and we were so preoccupied that we weren't really listening to what it was saying.

I now know what it was saying.

- [Narrator] The news reached Atlanta by radio that Sunday morning as many people were in church or on their way.

The first reports on the AP and UPI teletypes were chilling, but sketchy.

But by the time Micheline Tindel reached her fiance, Bob Gerson, by phone, he already knew of the crash.

- I was getting dressed to go to the airport when I received a phone call from a friend of mine here in Atlanta asking had I been watching TV or listening to the radio.

I had not.

He broke the news to me.

I suppose, out of disbelief more than any other reason, I subsequently went down to the Air France office in downtown Atlanta.

I knew Colette, who ran that office.

Colette confirmed to me that my parents did not survive.

I just couldn't believe it.

- [Narrator] In Atlanta, the broadcast bulletins were delivering more details.

With each report, the number of confirmed casualties mounted.

- That day, I was supposed to pick up my parents at the Atlanta airport when their plane came in.

Well, the radio came on, said there'd been a plane crash in Paris, France, and it was a Air France plane.

And I started adding up, I said, "Oh my gosh, it could be them."

- I felt like the most important thing for me to do at that point was to get to my little brother.

He was only 12 and had been staying in my parents' home with an aunt.

It was a Sunday morning, and like most little fellas, he was watching television, watching cartoons.

And they broke in and said that the plane had crashed, and he heard the news; no one was able to prepare him.

He heard it on television.

- I remember that I ran outta the house and ran up the (pausing) the hill to my neighbor's because I wasn't particularly fond of this aunt.

And I think it was because, as a 12-year-old, her major flaw was that she cooked runny eggs.

But I just didn't want to be with her at the moment.

- When my brother and I heard about the crash, we were up at Lake Martin.

And they put Inge and me in the boat with Father, and he told us that there'd been a plane crash and that we didn't know for certain, but that we thought it was the one that Mama was on and Aunt Lee and Granny.

- We were taken the morning of the accident to our country club, and it felt odd (pausing) being herded away from the house.

- And after some time, I remember, driving back up to the house, there were cars everywhere along the street.

And the door opened, and there peering back was probably the faces of 20 or 30 people, all of whom we knew.

- The rabbi said to us, "Something has happened "and your parents are not coming right now.

"They're not coming home right now."

And my older brother said, "Well, when are they coming home?"

And I looked at him and I started screaming, "Don't you understand?!

"Don't you understand; they're not coming home!

"They'll never be home!"

- [Narrator] Mayor Ivan Allen was at the family farm 75 miles west of Atlanta when his wife called him and told him what little she knew.

Listening on the car radio as he sped back to the city, he heard the terrible news confirmed.

His anguish was deeply personal.

- Many of them were my friends.

Most of them I had known at one time or the other in the civic, business, cultural life of Atlanta.

Bob and Nancy Pegram were good friends of mine.

Nancy, she was Nancy Frederick, I had had my first date as a boy, I had ridden my bicycle over on 15th Street to have a date with her on Sunday afternoon when I was about 10-11 years old, had known her all through life.

Roby Robinson and Louise Calhoun, I dated Louise Calhoun also.

Many of 'em my wonderful friends.

The shock of it was terrible.

- [Narrator] Word of the tragedy reached veteran WSB Radio reporter Aubrey Morris in church.

Morris had also known the majority of the victims.

- First thing I did, went to the Air France office in the old Fulton National Bank Building.

Well, by 11 o'clock, I was on the air.

I broadcast the names of the passenger list as it came over teletype in the Air France office.

- [Narrator] At City Hall, Mayor Allen announced that he and City Attorney Edwin Stern would fly to Paris that afternoon.

- This, this strikes so deeply in Atlanta that I feel that part of the official family of Atlanta should be there.

- [Narrator] As stunned Atlantans bought newspaper extras on Peachtree Street, WSB decided to send Aubrey Morris with Allen and Stern to cover the story.

When they arrived at Orly and were met by the mayor of Paris, Allen immediately asked to visit the crash site.

- There was still the smoldering wreckage of the Air France jetliner, the personal possessions of the passengers strewn over a large area.

Several houses nearby had been clipped by the wings of the plane as it came in to crash.

Firemen were still on the scene.

French police had the place cordoned off.

Everything had been done to remove the bodies.

They had been placed there.

But we went out to the ruins and there were evidence of some of their remains still there.

For instance, I found what I thought was the type of skirt that Nancy Frederick had worn when in Atlanta.

- [Narrator] The mayor also spotted a necktie that he himself had purchased as a Christmas gift to one of the men who had died in the crash.

And he found a charred portion of a travel brochure for the art tour, reading in part, "Your trip will be carefree and unforgettable."

It crumbled in his hand.

- This is WPLO News, Preston Charles reporting.

A shocked and saddened city is planning memorial services for more than a hundred of its citizens killed in the crash of a giant jet airliner in France yesterday.

Churches throughout the city have scheduled special services.

Flags on many buildings fly at half-mast.

Atlanta's mayor, Ivan Allen, in Paris to aid in the identification of the charred bodies and possibly make arrangement for their return to Atlanta, described the scene as one of stark horror and devastation.

- [Narrator] Allen insisted on viewing the remains of all the victims.

Many were burned beyond recognition.

- The mayor simply would shake his head and keep going until he went through that heart-wrenching experience of viewing the remains of each victim.

And that's what I call a man with courage and character, because he didn't have to do that.

He did it for them so he could then convey that message to the families.

- [Narrator] Two other Atlantans took part in the grim mission: "Atlanta Constitution" editor Eugene Patterson and Navy pilot Bill Dilts, whose mother had perished in the crash.

They would later follow the French government's investigation, which concluded that the accident was probably caused by the pilots' reaction to a problem in the control system.

- What happened was he tried to take off with his trim tabs, his elevator trim tabs full forward, which meant the tail surface was pushing the nose down onto the runway.

- [Narrator] Instead of resetting the tail stabilizer, pilot Roland Hoche hit the brakes to abort takeoff.

But it was too late.

- You're getting to the flying speed at V1 and V2 is your liftoff.

Anything after that, your chances on an abort would be pretty bad.

I think that he probably aborted somewhere around V2.

- It woulda been better if he'd put his foot on the instrument panel and horsed it into the air.

He could not stop, so he had to fly.

But he tried to stop.

(soft church choir singing) - [Narrator] On June 6th, 500 American and French mourners attended an interfaith memorial service for the crash victims at the American Cathedral in Paris.

- [Man] The Catholics in the Archdiocese of Atlanta were very shocked to hear of the plane crash in Paris on Sunday.

There were a good many Catholics- - [Man] The Greater Atlanta Council of Churches shares the grief of the entire community and its bereaved families in the tragic loss- - [Man] Not only the member of our Jewish community, but the loved ones and friends of all those whose lives were snuffed out at this moment are invited to be present and to worship with us.

- [Narrator] Messages of condolence poured in to the Atlanta Art Association from throughout the city and around the world.

Among them were telegrams from President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 19 husbands and two wives were widowed by the crash.

54 adult children and 43 children under 18 lost one or both parents.

- We were orphaned and felt orphaned.

We had an aunt who came to live with us, my paternal aunt.

And (pausing) we tried to move on from there, never speaking about the events.

It was almost as if my parents never existed.

- For years, we did not talk about it.

And years later, I had friends address it with me, and they said, "You know, it was so weird "coming to your house, Lee, "because nobody ever talked about your mother, "and it was like she was a ghost."

- Other people, for the most part, wouldn't talk about it.

Those that would would (pausing) say things like, "I understand how you feel," which was absurd, or, "It's God's will," which (pausing) really offended me then and now.

- I never felt orphaned.

I think to this day that it's incredible that an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old, my sister and brother-in-law, would take on the responsibility of raising a 12-year-old, but they did.

- [Narrator] Members of the Buckhead community acted quickly and with compassion.

More than 30 orphaned children were adopted or otherwise provided for the day after the crash.

For the two daughters of engineer Frederick Bull and his wife, Elizabeth, finding guardians was tragically unnecessary.

The children died at Orly, along with their parents, their grandmother, and Frederick's uncle; an entire family wiped out.

The summer was filled with memorial services and funerals for the victims.

In such a closely knit community, many Atlantans were attending a seemingly endless stream of them.

"Constitution" editor Eugene Patterson wrote, "It is doubtful that any American city "ever lost at a single stroke so much of its fineness."

- [Reporter] Atlantans have started a movement for memorializing the 114 Georgians who died yesterday in the worst single plane crash in history.

Chairman Russell Bellman of the Art Association says there have already been a lot of questions from people who want to give something to the art museum as a memorial.

The victims have been described as the cultural, civic, professional, and business leaders of Georgia.

- The city can best do its part by having an appreciation of what these people have stood for in the past and, to some extent, replace their good thoughts and their good intentions by carrying on in the same fields, which I know Atlanta people will do.

- [Narrator] One Atlantan secretly doing just that was Robert Woodruff, the mercurial chairman of Atlanta's most famous enterprise, the Coca-Cola Company.

Woodruff was no arts enthusiast himself.

But in 1960, a group of fellow businessmen, led by First National Bank executive George Goodwin, had convinced him that Atlanta's weakness in the arts was stunting the city's economic growth.

- I knew that the symphony needed a home.

Theater surely need a home.

The museum a new place, but it was small.

They had just come out of an old house.

And the art school was still in the old house.

Meanwhile, all of 'em were struggling to finance themself.

- [Narrator] Woodruff anonymously pledged $4 million for a cultural center in Atlanta's largest green space, Piedmont Park, on the condition that the city match it with $2 million more.

At the time of the disaster at Orly, arts supporters were campaigning for voter approval of those matching funds in a bond referendum.

But in August, voters rejected Mayor Allen's entire package of proposed bond issues, including the one for a tax-supported cultural center.

A few months later, Art Association Board Chair Jimmy Carmichael, president of Scripto, received a discrete message.

Woodruff might still pledge the $4-million challenge grant, this time for an arts center on non-city property memorializing the Atlantans lost at Orly.

The Art Association and the Symphony Guild merged into the Atlanta Arts Alliance, led by Carmichael and department store magnate Richard Rich.

In March 1964, they announced the anonymous $4-million grant and set out to raise $3 million more for a memorial center to house the High Museum, the Atlanta School of Art, the Atlanta Symphony, and a repertory theater.

Atlantans enthusiastically answered the appeal to memorialize the dead at Orly with a privately-funded arts center.

One of the few controversies about it was what to name it.

- Yeah, there was a working title, the Atlanta Culture Center.

And it was that word "culture" that many Atlantans objected to, and among them was our late columnist Celestine Sibley.

She wrote a column about culture, calling it "cul-chuh," and the said that such a name was pretentious, was tacky, and was countrified.

She suggested the name "Arts Center."

- [Narrator] By January 1965, the community campaign was in high gear.

Thousands of volunteers scoured the city and suburbs, raising funds.

Schoolchildren made and solicited donations in Operation Button Week.

The symphony brought Jack Benny to town as guest violinist in a benefit concert.

But in January 1966, the low bid for the center's construction came in well over-budget at $9.5 million.

Woodruff pledged another $2.5 million.

But he warned he would withdraw all his money if the alliance could not raise over $1 million still needed to sign a construction contract by October 1st.

Gudmund Vigtel, the new director of the High Museum, was discouraged.

- It looked almost hopeless and there was a great deal of gloomy faces around.

And... Then, an approach to the Callaway Foundation in LaGrange produced $1 million, and that put us over the top.

- [Narrator] Many relatives of Orly victims were on hand as ground was broken for the Atlanta Memorial Arts Center on June 3rd, 1966, the fourth anniversary of the tragedy.

On October 5th, 1968, several days of grand opening festivities for the center began.

During the first evening of the ceremonies, French Ambassador Charles Lucet unveiled a gift to Atlanta from his government.

It was a rare bronze casting of Auguste Rodin's sculpture "The Shade."

The human form seemingly bent in grief was described by Lucet as representing the reconciliation of death and destiny.

As for those who had lost loved ones in the flames at Orly, some remained or became active supporters of the arts center.

Others found more comfort in distancing themselves from it.

All were affected by the tragedy in ways they would never outlive.

Milton Bevington and his second wife, Paula, became supporters of various civic and charitable causes.

Bevington organized a children's medical research memorial with some of the other victims' families.

- That was a big help to me.

That kinda put me on a positive track of not worrying about myself, but worrying about making something happen that would be a benefit.

- So many of my young friends who were still in that same age group lost parents.

And it was an opportunity for all of us in that age group to see young people suddenly thrust into the management of business and the control of wealth that had no plan for that.

- I miss not being able to have a father, a daddy, somebody to go to and say, "What about this, what about that?

"Help me make these decisions.

"Decide for me.

(laughing) "Make it easy."

- I learned early on that I had to take care of myself in many ways.

And I began to- Took me a while to learn that I had to live for the present because tomorrow may not be there.

- I know that I am very family oriented.

I know that I (pausing) love and care for my kids, probably more than I would under other circumstances.

- [Narrator] Penny Armstrong chose to get back on the horse and became a Pan Am stewardess.

- Tragedies, no matter how painful they are, always make you stronger.

It doesn't matter what in the world happens to you.

It's a matter of how you react to what happens to you, and that's a lesson I've carried with me always and it's been very useful.

- We fly a lot.

We go back to Paris several times a year and we make other trips.

And I must say, we're both nervous to this day.

And invariably, without question, at takeoff time, we're like this, without fail.

- [Narrator] Ivan Allen earned a place in history as one of Atlanta's greatest mayors.

Under his eight years of leadership, the city achieved a record of growth, prosperity, and racial harmony that was the envy of the South.

After leaving the mayor's office, Allen chaired the board of the Atlanta Arts Alliance.

He enlisted the board's first black members, starting the organization on a path of diversity that would more fairly reflect the city.

In 1982, the Atlanta Memorial Arts Center was renamed the Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center on the 93rd birthday of the man who by then had given it about $50 million.

To some, the public memory of those lost at Orly appeared to be slipping away.

- I know that as a visitor, unless I happen to stumble across "The Shade" on the front lawn, that I certainly wouldn't have any indication of why the arts center began.

- I think the arts center is doing a fabulous job and is providing a wonderful service for the city.

I don't know that it is perceived as a memorial at all.

- The Atlanta Memorial Arts Center was a memorial to the victims of the Orly crash, and that was sincere.

They meant it to be that.

But in addition to that memorial argument was the argument that Atlanta has reached the point in its development where if it is to be a significant city, as we now say, an international city, it is going to have to have well represented within it all of the elements of the arts.

I doubt that it would've been accomplished, certainly not at that time, had it not been a memorial to the people who were lost at Orly.

So, in a way, you could say that this is a lasting memorial to the memory of 106 very splendid people who lost their life.

- [Narrator] The Arts Center, with its four divisions, became the linchpin of Atlanta's national reputation in theater, visual arts, arts education, and classical music.

The Alliance Theatre Company emerged as one of the country's leading regional theaters.

The High Museum also grew to national distinction.

In 1983, it moved into a spacious new building designed by Richard Meier.

The Atlanta College of Art blossomed into a highly-accredited school, entering the 21st century with a student body of over 400 and a continuing education enrollment of more than 2,000.

The center's most celebrated success became the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Internationally revered choral conductor Robert Shaw was musical director from 1966 to 1988.

Shaw retired at age 70, handing the baton to his critically-lauded successor, Yoel Levi.

By then, Shaw had led the ASO into the top tier of American symphony orchestras, with numerous successful world tours and award-winning recordings to its credit.

(light upbeat music) Atlanta early in the 21st century is a 100-mile-wide metropolis of more than four million residents, including many from other parts of the country and the world over.

The elite white Buckhead society no longer dominates economically or politically.

Elected officials now reflect the majority-black population within the city.

Women, who in 1962 would have spent their time volunteering, pursue professional careers.

Atlanta is a far different city from the one that suffered through a summer of grief and sorrow in 1962.

- You know, I think Atlantans really believe in the symbol of the phoenix, that it's always rising again from the fire.

It tends to get on its feet and make something out of a situation.

I think that that is the story of Atlanta.

- [Narrator] The Woodruff Arts Center arose from the ashes at Orly to become one of the most successful cultural institutions in the Southeast.

It's making plans to build a new world-class symphony hall and yet another High Museum expansion to accommodate the grandest exhibitions.

But scores of other theater companies, music and dance groups, art schools, museums, and galleries also provide cultural opportunities on a level of quality, quantity, and diversity unthinkable in 1962.

Most Atlantans attend events at the former Theatre Atlanta without knowing it was built in memory of Helen Cartledge, who died in the Orly crash.

They pass by the sculpture "Icarus" at Agnes Scott College and the imposing stained-glass window overlooking the sanctuary of St. Philip's Cathedral in Buckhead without recognizing them as tributes to the 130 lives that ended on an airport runway near Paris in 1962.

They attend plays, concerts, and art exhibits at the Woodruff Arts Center without hearing the echoes of voices happily planning the arts tour of a lifetime.

But for those who knew the victims of the Orly crash, their legacy is profound.

- The Orly crash, although it would never have been planned that way, it certainly brought together the interests in the city that could build a cultural front here and gave it a boost and moved everything forward at a rate and under conditions, favorable conditions, that we'd never had before to the same extent.

(soft piano music) - But I think also that it's the lives of these people who died at Orly, rather than their death, that served Atlanta more.

- Looking at David's paintings now, it makes me realize how much we've lost, how much he could've really accomplished if he could've just lived.

And I guess the other families, they feel the same way I do.

We just had a great loss.

The family has, the city of Atlanta has, and that's real sad.

- It'd be very interesting to be in control of history and figure out what would've happened if history hadn't eliminated all of these people?

What would this city be like?

Would we be much more excited about art and much more passionate about art?

Did we lose the best people?

Or did we (pausing) crack open the nut and allow the seed to grow?

(soft piano music) - [Narrator] "The Shade" looms over the grounds between the memorial arts building and the High Museum, a serene distance above the noisy din of traffic on Peachtree Street.

It has been there since September of 1995, when the Woodruff Arts Center invited the families of those who perished at Orly to a rededication.

Surrounding the sculpture is a low wall bearing the names of their lost relatives, a cheerful group of friends who for three weeks marveled at the art treasures of Europe and delighted in each other's company until the terrible instant when Atlanta stood still.

- [Announcer] Major funding for "The Day Atlanta Stood Still" was provided by the Katherine John Murphy Foundation.

Additional funding was provided by the Sartain Lanier Foundation and the Thomas H. Lanier Foundation.

(soft piano music)