We heard Dick Cheney would be visiting Raleigh to attend a fundraiser at an undisclosed private residence and we assumed that residence would be in Hayes Barton, or Country Club Hills. Apparently the fundraiser was held at Tom Fetzer’s (the ex-mayor we love to not love) office just across the street from the Hillsborough Street Char-Grill. That’s unconfirmed but we’re still waiting for Dana Perino to return our calls. If true, it’s just another lie from this administration: “undisclosed private residence”, what a crock! How are we supposed to protest the nation’s greatest liar when they lie about his location?
Archive for the 'WTF' Category
Danny Hooley, the former Ugly American guitarist, and current entertainment reporter for the N&O, has been covering the latest racial slurs by Bob Dumas of G-105. Dumas is a shock jock, whose schtick mostly involves pretending to be a surly redneck, when he looks more like an obese toddler with a beard. I never listen to commercial radio and don’t much care what goes on the air, but as a cyclist, I was offended by Dumas’ previous desperate attention grab in which he encouraged motorist aggression against cyclists. Mr. Toad once explained that he turned down the opportunity to review local music because he enjoyed eating at restaurants like The Rockford, where half the employees were in bands. You want to enjoy your food without worrying what an offended party might have done to your food in the kitchen. I imagine Mr. Dumas doesn’t eat out much. He shouldn’t. Now, Mr. Dumas might argue that this is all comedy and should not be judged seriously. I see it as a very low form of comedy, like the pie-in-the-face, or being bombarded by water balloons, or everyone spilling their drinks on the same person at an event (like a St. Patrick’s Dy parade). I welcome everyone to subject Mr. Dumas to more comedy of that level. He apparently has a great sense of humor and should be a wonderful sport about it all.
We knew this was coming but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach. Today, Jack Hagel’s N&O business column updated the status of Bobby Lewis’ charm removal system for Raleigh’s 5-Points neighborhood. It brings to mind the NY times article this Sunday about people who live in New York City (even though they aren’t rich) and their hopes that the crashing economy might make New York City affordable again. Maybe they’re on to something: Maybe recession is preservation’s best friend? Let’s hope demolition doesn’t begin until they’ve pre-sold half of those 42 condos.
From the N&O:
Plans are shaping up for a mixed-use development in Raleigh’s Five Points neighborhood.Developer Bobby Lewis last week filed preliminary site plans for The Fairview on 1.1 acres next to the post office on Fairview Road.
The four-story, 55,500-square-foot project would take the place of three houses-turned-shops that sit on the property.
The project would belly up to Fairview with parking in the back and would include up to 42 residences over ground-floor shops.
Okay, let’s play The Price is Right. The Magnolia Fountains at 5-Points: Distinctive residences starting at $__________________.
GORDON GRUBB, CLASS WARRIOR
Published by March 24th, 2008 in WTF, Raleigh, Urban Planning and Chapel Hill. 5 CommentsTo 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?
Lord of the slums
Published by March 21st, 2008 in WTF, Raleigh, Urban Planning and RDU. 10 CommentsDid you happen to see this article about City Space Investment Group’s plans to add 42 houses in the area where South Saunders Street meets Lenoir St? The block pictured here always looked more Southern to me than any other block of Raleigh.
This project has been discussed here and here and it surprises me how many people think this project is a great idea. Bobby Lewis’ Metropolitan condo project failed to launch because the public seemed smart enough to realize they’d have city views on one side and housing project views on the other. It’s clear from the discussions of this development that the barriers to entry are too high, even for many in the middle class.
“In the middle of the neighborhood, the houses presented a surreal facade of cheer. They might have been intended to inspire, but the impossibility of acquiring something so close somehow had the opposite effect. The proximity made the failure pointed and personal.” from Random Family, by Adrian Nicole Leblanc
Continued from Part One.
Rodney Marsh, of Marsh Woodwinds, does recall a nightclub in the Capital Floor Care and Vacum building. “I played there in 1972, with terrible band called Gene Barbour & The Cavaliers. Gene was an early Beach Music figure who was trying to cash-in on the revival of the Beach Music thing. The club was “The Embers Club”, a Beach Music club operated by the band, The Embers. It wasn’t a black club, it was a white Beach Music club, but I think there would have been black people dancing with white people there.” The history of Beach Music is really more interesting than most of the music itself. In the Jim Crow south of the 1940’s and 1950’s, young white people in conservative cities and backwater towns could be exposed to R&B through late night radio shows, as well as live music, and jukeboxes at the beach. The drinking age was 18, and kids visiting the beach were exposed to a heady world of alcohol, dancing and R&B music, for the first time in their lives and those good times sometimes broadened people’s minds about race and culture. The Beach Music variety of R&B never ventured far from the “Swing” sound of the 40’s and early 50’s and now the phrase “Beach Music” usually means the whitest aspects of black music. Similar conditions created Rock Music but whereas Rock mutated and evolved, Beach Music became a “Golden Oldies” format. John Swain at the Record Hole, used to love answering phone calls asking him the difference between R&B and Beach Music. “Buy the record, give me the god damn money, and I’ll call it whatever the hell you want.”
Speaking of “The whitest of white”: Metro Magazine had this blurb a few years ago:
BBC producer Andy Kershaw interviewed Reeves at the legendary Mecca Restaurant in downtown Raleigh to ascertain what the city was like in 1964. Reeves discussed the musical scene of the era, remembering the many nightclub and concert appearances of the leading black musicians who, as the song says, “rolled into Raleigh.”
The Metro publisher explained that racism was not a visible problem in Raleigh due to its gentility, its lack of industry and unions, and the large population of college-age students attending area universities and colleges.
Said Reeves: “Of course I remember the black and white water fountains, the separate entrances to movie theaters, but back then we didn’t know it was wrong. But now we know it wasn’t right.”
Reeves also remembered “young, white music lovers going to black nightclubs and going to see black entertainers at the many clubs that existed in Raleigh—including the Cat’s Eye, the Embers Club, the Frog and Nightgown—and attending concerts at Memorial Auditorium and Dorton Arena, where as many as 15 acts would appear on the same bill.”
WTF? You may already think that Bernie Reeves is a facist blowhard but it’s nice to learn that segregation and racism didn’t greatly inconvenience him. God knows, labor unions might have agitated and made racism seem like a problem to old Bernie!
Continue reading ‘Jim Crow Was Here. Part two’
New antique replacing old modern, again
Published by February 27th, 2008 in WTF, Architecture and Raleigh. 1 CommentGo 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.
Replacing Old Modern with New Antique
Published by February 13th, 2008 in WTF, Urban Planning and RDU. 4 Comments
Reader JZ pointed us to this discussion at Urban Planet, about the new Wake County Justice Center. We love the Garland Jones Building and really don’t understand why this project can’t wrap around the existing building. We’ve made jokes about tearing down buildings that have the distinct appearance of the past era in which they were built and replacing them with postmodern buildings that look like the past. Sadly, that seems to be the case with this project: a bland postmodern building that could have been built in any city, in any year since 1990. Similar arguments have been made about the Garland Jones building; it is an unoriginal example of modernism, designed by an out-of-state architect and similar to bank buildings across the USA at the time of construction. But it currently presents a nice stylistic element in the fabric of Raleigh’s downtown and the quality of the construction materials is beyond what would be specified in a similar building today. There is an effort in the design of modern urbanist buildings to make a large building seem like a collection multiple buildings, to break-up the monumental feeling of a building that occupies an entire block. Why can’t they DO THAT instead of simulating it?
Thanks for the tip JZ!
The N&O has this interesting tidbit about Tom Fetzer, former Mayor of Raleigh. Fetzer was the suspiciously homophobic mayor who hated downtown, loved his suburban developer cronies and fought mightily to outlaw cross-dressing at gay bars (drag shows, or drag pageants, to be specific). He apparently thought gay men should look like sexy men and not like ugly women. He always struck me as someone who hadn’t done much more than curry the favor of some powerful political interests. Apparently those favors don’t go unpaid. And will you look at the photo of that man? You can just tell he’s wearing tasseled loafers and pleated khakis with that cotton sweater and mock turtleneck, or more appropriately: a dickey. There’s the rare black guy that can get away with this look but it makes a milquetoast like Fetzer appear ofay in the worst way. Sadly, that photo is from an article about a lawsuit against Fetzer and his cabal of jerky conservative councilmen as they conspired to locate the RBC Center away from downtown. One of their many accomplishments that slowed Raleigh’s progress by a decade.
Still doing business
Tom Fetzer may not work for Bill Graham anymore, but they’re still in real estate together.
The Republican political consultant and his former client, who is running for the GOP nomination for governor, co-own a building in downtown Raleigh.
Fetzer and Graham bought the two-story brick building at 709 Hillsborough St. on March 31, 2006, for $1.2 million, according to Wake County property records. At the time, Fetzer was advising Graham’s campaign to cap the state gas tax.
The Fetzer-Stephens consulting firm is now located in the building, which was built in 1875.
The building was bought with two loans: $1 million to Fetzer and Graham from SunTrust in Cary, and $250,000 to Fetzer by the Community Bank of Rowan, where Graham serves on the board of directors.
Graham spokesman Aaron Lay said Graham does not own the building, however. He said Graham co-signed the loan in the same way that parents of a teenager might co-sign for a car loan.
Other than that, he declined to add details.
“I won’t get into a business or personal matter,” he said. “That’s aside from the campaign.”
Guv’s Mansion Tour
Published by January 28th, 2008 in WTF, Architecture, Raleigh and RDU. 2 Comments
One of my resolutions for the new year is to call up and take the garden tour of the Governor’s Mansion next spring. I do believe North Carolina’s first family could make a stand in that compound after the Apocalypse, it has turned into such a productive and self-sufficient looking site. The garden isn’t just the masterful sprays of annuals and diverse showy plants at the fences - they have big trays of asparagus plants
and lots of fresh veggies in season, and the trusty prison staff who maintain the grounds have built up quite a landscaping and gardening operation. I remember well the controversy when they built the brick wall around it - which was originally going to be solid brick. The uproar, promoted by good old NandO, dictated the dominating modification of the wrought iron fences, which didn’t really do their mollifying job very well - it is indeed a fortress with magazine quality plantings on the edges, and a general sense of protected and mostly private outdoor space which I personally do not begrudge them one iota. But living nearby and experiencing the wonderful architecture daily, I am struck by the amazing range of references one can think of while enjoying the walk around the perimeter. Privilege, influence, security, public outreach - oh! if you haven’t been to Halloween there, you’ve got to - it’s loads more fun than the history tour. And now the site has been blessed with that lodestone of Raleigh cultural consciousness - an inscrutable piece of public sculpture. I must say I like my thorny picture of it, but for the sculpture itself, in the context of that garden and that architecture, I could only say, when noticed it this week for the first time, … WTF?
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