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GORDON GRUBB, CLASS WARRIOR

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad March 24th, 2008 in WTF, Raleigh, Urban Planning and Chapel Hill. 5 Comments

To follow on to Leebowitz’s post … one of the good things about the pre-boom ITB was how the rich, the middle class homeowners, and the renters were mingled. While the racial dividing lines are still easy to see, subdivision by economic class is much more difficult. Developers like Gordon Grubb are working on this non-problem, though, with the goal of homogenizing Raleigh’s old neighborhoods into zones of housing stock for the wealthy.

Point for future research: when was the phrase “inside the beltline” first used?

Witness the bulldozing and the bland-to-hideous structures going up in Whitaker Park. This teardown and infill probably won’t even increase density, given reasonable extrapolations on the before/after numbers detailed in this Triangle Biz Journal article from 2006. Isn’t the increased density what all the armchair urban planners call for with these teardowns, when they trot out the tired and false dichotomy of infill versus sprawl? A similar fate is foretold for the venerable Country Club Apartments, home to schoolteachers and retirees, waiters and budding artists, folks in their first jobs out of college. The “Now Leasing” sign is still up at the office there, but one wonders how lengthy or binding a lease could be signed at this point. Is the density going to be higher there? Doubtful. Are those old growth trees going to survive when the existing structures are demolished? Doubtful.

It’s not just happening in Raleigh. Now word comes that the Glen Lennox neighborhood in Chapel Hill, also owned by Grubb, is headed for the chopping block. Say goodbye to another big chunk of friendly, affordable housing, within cycling distance of UNC.

Where are these folks supposed to go? Is Raleigh going to end up like Aspen, where the hired help has to be trucked in?

New antique replacing old modern, again

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad February 27th, 2008 in WTF, Architecture and Raleigh. 1 Comment

Go to the John Holloway page on uber-compiler George Smart’s Web site. Scroll to the end of that page. Learn that another unique modernist house has been demolished by proppity rahts greedheads. Mourn.
Judging by Ron and Brenda Gibson’s current house on Alleghany Drive, whatever they build here is going to be your standard phony Colonial on steroids.

Rabid dogs. Eating flesh. Rabid dogs. Rabid dogs.

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad December 13th, 2007 in Raleigh and Music. 0 Comments

In a series of blog posts, drummer and cartoonist Brian Walsby spiels about the Raleigh hardcore punk scene of the 1980s. Fodder from a book project destined never to become an actual book, these posts include relatively recent interviews with some of the folks involved, as well as quaint interviews from that hoary age before Nirvana, iTunes, and Myspace. It’s interesting reading, although we would have preferred more in-depth reportage on the era of Robert Stewart as COC vocalist. If you weren’t there, well, you missed it. What’s next? The digitization of complete runs of Death Skate and Southern Lifestyle?

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 3.5
Part 4
Part 5

Liquidity or the Lack Thereof

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad December 10th, 2007 in Architecture, Raleigh and Urban Planning. 0 Comments

A recent N&O article featuring design prof emeritus Wayne Taylor should be required reading for the “Mah proppity val-yews” crowd. For many folks who own only one house, crazed property values are not desirable. Nor are they desirable for folks who own zero houses, but have rented *I*T*B* their entire lives. Everybody, owner and renter alike, needs four walls and a roof.

Not Broke, Don’t Fix

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad November 30th, 2007 in WTF, Urban Planning, Architecture and RDU. 6 Comments

5-points condos

Plans to demolish three historic houses at Five Points, floated years ago, now seem closer to happening. The fine folks over at newraleigh.com have posted on this and hinted at a question that we’d like to make considerably more explicit here. See below.

The Cinderella House, once a beauty shop, now occupied by a used/vintage clothing store, is a perfect example of the Old Weird Raleigh that we love, and that we will miss. Sprawl-versus-infill is an argument that won’t be solved by a blog post, or by a hundred blog posts. But is knocking down three venerable houses in one of Raleigh’s early 20th
century neighborhoods going to have a significant impact on sprawl?
Answer: no.

And even if it did, there’s a question we’d like to hear more often: Why does it have to be so fucking ugly? Why do we, good little urbanists, have to say “yes” to every bland half-assed po-mo four story building that comes down the pike, with slightly different colors of beige or brick exterior?

Why does it have to be so fucking ugly?

Red star on a green field

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad October 4th, 2007 in Uncategorized and Chapel Hill. 5 Comments

Apropos of nothing, does anyone out there remember the Club Morocco, in Chapel Hill years ago? That might not even be the right name. This was a place above the Cat’s Cradle, back when the Cat’s Cradle was located where The Bookshop is now. It might’ve been called the Morocco Club, or even the Casbah or something similar. It seemed pretty much like a speakeasy operated for the benefit of Cradle insiders and touring musicians.

Hipster elitism (usually) sucks, but we need more places that like that in the Triangle, and fewer like, for instance, the Depot Complex.

Y-M-C-A

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad September 16th, 2007 in Architecture and Raleigh. 5 Comments

Interesting to note the apologetic tone of the mailers and radio commercials for the new YMCA on Hillsborough Street. “We kept the best parts, down to the letters!” says the brochure, which makes no mention of Barney Fife’s corner room. In fact it mentions all of the new amenities but carefully leaves out anything about the fact that they got rid of the dormitory rooms when they demolished the simple, stylish building. How Christian of them, indeed. But hey, they kept the letters! Gym turnover in the core Raleigh neighborhoods has been interesting and will continue to be so. Capital Fitness went from uber-hip to gross in less than two years. Seaboard Fitness is now trying for the metrosexual workout crowd, while the new YMCA is going for the ITB families.

The Memory Hole

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad August 31st, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Click on the image above to view the youtube video

We were happy to discover this 1987 video of John Swain. Swain was a character, and his shop The Record Hole is a prime example of what was great about Old, Weird Raleigh. He used to share space with a used book and magazine store in the building that is now Blue Flame Tattoos. Later he moved across the street to the College Beverage building. In both spaces he sold records and talked music with everyone from beach music DJs to punk kids. He passed away in the early 1990s, and we miss him.

Gone Underground

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad August 27th, 2007 in Durham and RDU. 3 Comments

Leebowitz’s recent post mentioning the Frog & Nightgown made me think of other local places that were once wildly important but are now mostly forgotten and not Google-able. In Durham there was the Hofbrau, underneath the parking lot of what’s now the Whole Foods Market on Broad Street. What’s the story on this space? It was a German-themed bar, underground, right next to Duke campus. I know this because I went there a couple of times to see bands play, but that is extent of this poor toad’s memory. When did it begin, and why did it end? Google says nothing on this. The Internet coughs up a bit more information on Raleigh’s own Cameron Village Subway, which lurked beneath what’s now the public library. A warren of nightclubs, with a video arcade and a stereo store thrown in the mix, it was the white hot entertainment center not just of Raleigh but of the entire Triangle in those heady years of the late 70s and early 80s when 18 year-olds could drink legally. We miss it.

Smart Man

Published by A Loud Arcane Toad August 14th, 2007 in Architecture, Raleigh, RDU and Chapel Hill. 1 Comment

Enthusiast George Smart, Jr. has uploaded his research on modernist houses built in the Triangle. Some less well known houses appear here, along with publicly available information on the owners and some of the sale data, and photos jacked from sonic matrix. Let’s hope this site spurs further enthusiasm, and doesn’t give errant developers ideas for more teardowns.

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