Downtown – Charlotte, North Carolina (2018)
We visited Charlotte to participate in the Livable Communities national conference hosted by AARP. Arriving late in the day on November 11, 2018, we had a chance to see the city proper by night. Then we got out to visit a diner outside of downtown. With the events of the conference we hardly had time to explore the city proper. As such, these few snippets will have to suffice.
The downtown, and conference center especially, were the focus of our attention this visit. During the conference we worked with volunteers to activate a space immediately outside the conference center with movable seating and plantings. What I was most struck by upon arriving was the enormous scale of the buildings with major corporate actors and institutions clearly making their presence known. What was missing for me was some of the finer grain neighborhood feel that only comes from pedestrian scale buildings lined with small storefronts. Sometimes extra-large is too much and has the opposite intended effect of pushing people away rather than drawing them in.
Outside the convention center we encountered our first pedal-assisted LimeBike. This is a vast improvement over earlier models that were simply bikes. It increased the range that people can travel. The basket at the front further helps with basic errands.
We were also pleased to see an electric Lime scooter that we promptly took for a quick ride around Charlotte. What we were struck by more than anything else is how it shrunk the vastness and the spaces between buildings and made Charlotte more navigable. In a way an electric scooter which you can start at any location and drop off anywhere else helps to repair some of the damage from the extra-large buildings here.
The next morning we got out of the downtown and found Skyland Restaurant – a small business overflowing with heart. As the “Thanksgiving Month” press release showed, they gave away over 3,000 turkey dinner boxes with all the trimmings and iced tea on Thanksgiving Day. This conviction to feed the homeless, poor, travelers, stranded individuals, and everyone in need of a homemade meal is such a loving act.
Feelings of family and food were reinforced by this painting on one of the walls of the dinner. A grandmotherly figure holding a cloche, with a table overflowing with fruit, pasta, and cheese, evokes tradition, comfort, and family. This design and subject choice was no mistake.
Driving this message home, this article in The Charlotte Observer with the title “Giving thanks, giving to community,” and a photo with the owner and staff showing the restaurant being blessed by a priest – just goes to show when people and business lead with their faith and values – that good things are possible.
We had time to make one more quick stop before heading back downtown. While this establishment was quite difference from the one we had breakfast at, it had no less heart. This community orientation was just expressed in different ways by a different kind of business. Ed’s Tavern is a popular neighborhood bar and restaurant located at 2200 Park Road in Charlotte. The expansive elevated deck is instantly recognizable by its vibrant, geometric red shade sails stretched overhead. The structure incorporates robust, classical red brick pillars paired with sleek black metal safety railings, establishing a clear border from the parking lot. The perimeter is lined with tidy, low-maintenance landscaping, including rows of slender arborvitae evergreens and small golden-green shrubs nestled in river rock beds. String cafe lights loop between the support posts, providing a warm, inviting atmosphere for patrons enjoying open-air dining or drinks in the evening.
A community-style table with built in checker and chess boards is fairly brilliant. The $8.99 lunch menu is probably something that has not persisted much longer after this photo was taken in 2018.
The flapper inspired artwork and the silhouette of an arrow sign with hand-painted light bulbs tried to evoke a time of speakeasies. The drawing is a little too cartoonish and actual arrow sign would be much nicer. Still, it is art and an attempt to create a feeling as people enter. Another way to do that would be to remove the tube door handle and put a custom handle in that fits with the theme like a beer tap handle, or something like that.
Timeline, a bright yellow outdoor steel sculpture created by Asheville-based artist Robert Winkler. It stands on a small triangular patch of land at the southern tip of Latta Park, near the intersection of Dilworth Road West and Romany Road in Charlotte, North Carolina. [1, 2] The sculpture is constructed entirely out of 9,000 pounds of historic steel trolley tracks. These tracks were originally laid in the 1890s, buried and forgotten in the 1930s, and finally unearthed by construction crews in 2010 during roadwork on nearby East Boulevard. [1, 2, 3] Winkler fused the vintage rails into V-shapes and arranged them into a sweeping, serpentine twist that mimics a DNA double helix. [1] The sculpture is intentionally aligned so that one end points toward uptown Charlotte and the other points directly into Dilworth—the city’s very first streetcar suburb—symbolizing the physical connection the old trolley line used to make. [1, 2]