CRANE: At times we need uncomfortable truths

By the late 1970s, the famed, nearly 50-foot tall Cyclorama painting of the Battle of Atlanta during the Civil War was moldy, wet and rotting in places, slowly making its way toward a landfill somewhere. After its debut in 1885, it had been donated to the city in 1898 and much of the novelty of the 360-foot moving circular portrait had worn off. And in the decades since, Atlanta, a city nearly…