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.
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About eight months ago, three young women met over lunch with the idea of planning an environmentally conscious fashion show. One of the three, Beth Stewart, had met some of the organizers of EGB – NY Chapter’s Annual Project Earth Day and was inspired to bring the concept to Raleigh. After the first meeting, all realized that they shared the same vision for what the show would be. Planning began that day.

image credit: John Morris

The Redress Raleigh event was part of the Hillsborough Street Renaissance Festival, an arts & music gathering that was created to highlight and celebrate the change to a more pedestrian and vehicle friendly thoroughfare, beginning this summer. The show was initially scheduled to be outdoors, but was forced inside (to Aurora Nightclub) by rain. Despite the miserable weather, attendees waited in a long line in the cold to see local designers and models showcasing cutting edge and eco-friendly fashion. Not long before the show began, the top floor club was filled to capacity.
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[UPDATE]

The Wilmont declared ‘Unfit for human habitation’. Read more here.