Candler Building

Candler Building is a historic high-rise in downtown Atlanta, located at 127 Peachtree Street NE near Woodruff Park. Completed in 1906 for Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler, the building was one of the city’s early skyscrapers and remains a striking piece of Atlanta’s early 20th-century commercial architecture. Its stone façade, arched entrances and prominent corner position give it the kind of old financial-district character that works well on screen.

The building is best known from Baby Driver (2017), where it is used as the First Bank of Atlanta in the film’s opening robbery sequence. The scene begins with Baby waiting in the getaway car while the robbery takes place inside the bank. When the robbers return, Baby launches into a precisely timed escape through downtown Atlanta, using the city’s streets almost like part of the film’s soundtrack. The Candler Building gives the sequence an immediate sense of place, grounding the stylised action in a real Atlanta landmark before the chase moves through the surrounding streets.

Although the address is on Peachtree Street, the entrance seen in the film is around the corner, facing John Wesley Dobbs Avenue. This makes the building especially recognisable when comparing the film to the real location: the old bank-like façade, the downtown street corner and the tight urban geography all match the way the opening chase is staged.

The Candler Building can also be seen in the downtown Atlanta material from The Walking Dead, where the area around Woodruff Park, Georgia State University and nearby historic buildings helps establish the abandoned city Rick Grimes enters in the first season. In that context the building is not used as a main action location in the same way as in Baby Driver, but it forms part of the real Atlanta backdrop that gives the early episodes their empty, post-apocalyptic city atmosphere.

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