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2010

Randomly Sunday

There’s a bit of a Charlotte emphasis today for some reason.

  • Why Eastland Mall went from bustling to bust
    Wednesday is the last day for what used to be “my mall” in Charlotte. I worked across the street from it for three years, it was the place where I did much of my shopping when I lived in Charlotte in the 1980s, an it was even the site of a few moments I’m not going to discuss at length here (user your imagination). But now it’s closing. And that’s sad because like it or not, it’s a part of Charlotte history and a part of my history. And no matter what the new owner does with it, I have a feeling the neighborhood is not likely to recover soon.
  • City Critic: No Smoking, Please. Or More. We Can’t Decide
    This is precisely why I have so much problem with the idea of punishing smokers through exorbitant taxes. While I’m no fan of the demon weed, having been an addict for more than two decades before giving it up in 2003, I’m a bit skeptical of states that use a tax to discourage people from using a product while simultaneously depending on revenue from people who do use it. I’m sorry, but that’s just plain madness.
  • ‘Jesus Saves’ sign saved by demo team
    You don’t often read about Charlotte being at the forefront of historic preservation. That’s all I’m sayin’.
  • Beloved owner of Gus’ Sir Beef restaurant has died
    Who will mind the farm now?
  • USB Typewriter Will Make Your iPad Feel Ancient
    Me want, even though I just got an iPad this week too.

The Spirit of Posts Yet to Come

When I feel more motivated:

  • The fun of perhaps my longest bout of sustained insomnia ever. It’s so bad I’ve sort of gotten used to it, which is a bit disturbing.
  • Reflections on the five year anniversary of my escape from San Francisco, which passed with little fanfare last month.
  • The iPad I didn’t really know I wanted until they gave me one at work a few weeks ago.

For now, though, because I have no energy and no better ideas, here’s the most entertaining condom machine ad I’ve seen recently:

Wow. The Mystic of Black, huh? Is that something like the Wizard of Oz or the Magician of Darkness? I think they probably meant “the mystique of black”, but what do I know, anyway?

On the Street Where I Lived

Update from 2015.

High Point Road at Merritt Drive, 1979 (Peaches Records and Tapes and Kroger at left)

I didn’t really grow up on High Point Road, but my childhood home was about three blocks removed, so I spent a lot of my life there shopping, eating, hanging out, and cruising (of both the high school and homo varieties).I had my first kiss, my first real sexual experience, my first job, and my first car wreck along High Point Road. I bought records at Peaches, hamburgers at Hardee’s, and beer at The Family Mart when I was in high school. Later in life, I even worked in two different queer bars there, as a DJ at Busby’s in 1985 and as a barback and door keeper at XTC in 1989. And I still occasionally get breakfast at the Biscuitville by I-40 on the way to work.

Contrary to what this article in today’s Greensboro News & Record suggests, High Point Road was never a particularly “upscale” boulevard. Through its history, it was always thoroughly middle class, at best. The higher end retail was on Battleground and at Friendly Shopping Center. Prior to the opening of Four Seasons Mall in 1974 (and even after) High Point Road was primarily home to fast food restaurants, discount department stores such as Zayre and Cook’s, and supermarkets. In fact, the mall itself always seemed just a little out of place, a bit above the neighborhood that surrounded it. Even twenty years ago, the strip was a little gritty in stretches.

Like I said, there were supermarkets. Lots of them. in the mid 1970s, High Point Road between Florida Street and Hilltop Road boasted six chain supermarkets: Colonial, Big Star, Winn-Dixie, Kroger, Food World, and Bi-Rite. They’re all gone now; the last one, a Lowes Foods that took over the former Zayre store, closed about ten years ago. The only semblance of a supermarket along that stretch today belongs to Aldi, that noteworthy bottom feeder which–apparently just by bothering to stay in the area at all–has managed to capture my mom’s loyalty.

World Market and Bed Bath and Beyond (formerly The Family Mart and later Kroger), High Point and Holden Roads.

The lack of supermarkets is, I admit, a symbol that all is not entirely well in the area. However, High Point Road is anything but bleak, despite the tone of the News & Record’s piece. There are few empty storefronts, and none of the low level of abandonment that can be seen even in some other areas of Greensboro, much less anything approaching the condition of Detroit or west Baltimore. As a somewhat experienced urbanite, I would say that High Point Road is relatively healthy. Yes, even the discount stores are gone, but the mall is still there and by no means dead (although it may be starting to slip). There’s even some significant chain retail including Borders, Bed Bath and Beyond, and World Market stores which admittedly seem a little out of place, just like the mall.

La Familia (formerly Bi-Rite supermarket, later Western Auto), High Point and Groometown Roads.

More importantly, though, High Point Road is home to dozens of new businesses, many of which were started by recent immigrants and range from small grocery stores to ethnic restaurants and more. Like South Boulevard in Charlotte and many other strips in many other cities, High Point Road is something of an incubator, which the N&R article actually mentions, to its credit. Again, there are very few vacant storefronts here. Unfortunately, too many of the “powers that be” view this as a liability rather than an asset. Apparently, only upscale chains aimed at upper middle class white folks are welcome, even in areas like southwest Greensboro, where the residents tend to be more working class and tend to come in more shades and hues than in the northwestern quadrant.

I’m not suggesting that High Point Road doesn’t need some attention. It does. The problem is the kind of attention usually given to areas like this, which tends to focus on cosmetic changes designed to attract a population that probably isn’t coming back rather than promoting the kind of development that is already starting to revive the area and that (gasp) actually serves the people who are already living there. The idea of promoting housing on High Point Road, for example, is a good one as long as it’s the sort of housing that families in the area actually need and as long as it doesn’t ignore the fact that there is already well-built and well-kept housing in the area. Ditto for retail: how about incentives for small start-ups rather than subsidies for big chains that can survive quite well on their own, thanks.

South Drive-In Theatre, High Point Road and Merritt Drive, 1978, shortly before demolition.

I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for High Point Road, and maybe that’s what makes me feel safe there. And I do feel pretty safe. We’re just not talking about some hardcore ghetto here. but I’m really worried that plans that might try to turn it into something it isn’t might instead create a hardcore ghetto.

Updating the record

I’m a little bit overwhelmed by life in general these days and this condition really doesn’t lend itself to frequent updates. Maybe that first sentence is a little extreme; I am sort of generally stressed of late, a good part of which has to do with new job syndrome and all, but it’s not as if it’s really all that debilitating. The insomnia seems to be calming down, at least.

Anyway, this seemed like a good time for a general update, anyway, even though there’s nothing all that exciting going on at the moment. So…

The new job is going well, if it is perhaps a little stressful. It’s kind of a nice change of pace having a job I actually care about. It’s also a little hard to get used to it. And that whole tenure chase (the tenure treadmill?) is a little intimidating.

No luck getting rid of the house, so I’m still doing the hardcore daily commute from Winston to Greensboro. Lest anyone have any doubt, this is not the rime to be selling a house. You probably already knew that.

Not much travel other than the recent trip to Philadelphia. There will be a Chsritmas trip to California to see the in-laws. Maybe a quick trip to Piitsburgh soon just to check on the house.

Mark recently got the itch to start work on a second master’s, so he’s doing the UNCG thing now, putting us well on the way to being a matched set of hopeless academics.

No other real excitement afoot, and this is starting to sound like a boring letter to someone I haven’t talked to in six months–and don’t really intend to speak to for another six. Sorry. I’ll try to be more interesting (or at least to have something good to talk about) next time.