“Rewind the clock and put the needle on the record, it’s time for a rave!” I was a bit incredulous of the flyer (a rave, in Raleigh, in 2009?), but after nearly a month of failed attempts to find a good Friday night party I figured anything would be better than one more night of bar hopping on Glenwood. Three words to describe the evening I found: Too Much Fun!

Read more »

This view is looking down on Fayetteville Street toward the area where City Plaza is now under construction. The City of Raleigh web site has more information, including a recent aerial shot.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas stand in front of their grocery store, The Thrifty Food Market, in 1972.

A few weeks ago I attended a First Friday event at Rebus Works, a small art gallery in Boylan Heights. As I walked through the crowded room inspecting the artwork, glass of wine in hand, my footsteps across the creaky, worn wood floors started to echo in my ears. The chit-chat of the crowd seemed to fade away, and my mind began to drift back to a time that existed more than 35 years ago when the gallery space was occupied by a neighborhood grocery called The Thrifty Food Market. It was a simpler, different sort of time.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas had owned and operated the little grocery store at the western terminus of the Martin St. viaduct since 1937. I lived in Boylan Heights for several years in the early 1970s and got to know the Thomases well. They were a kindly older couple whom I always thought of back then as the grandparents of Boylan Heights. In those days I lived with a group of friends in a house that many of our neighbors regarded with disdain as a “hippie house.” But not the Thomases. They took a liking to us, — well, actually, there was no one they didn’t like — and we certainly liked them.
Read more »