A sign appeared recently in the storefront window of 133 E. Hargett St. announcing the soon-to-open Remedy Diner. This addition to the street scene will join The Landmark, Adam Cave Fine Art and other new establishments in the resurgence this block of Hargett has been experiencing in recent months. The name “Remedy” intrigued me, and I wondered if it might be a nod to the locally noted physician who once occupied this building many years ago.

Read more »

Raleigh’s Richard B. Haywood House

About a month ago we published an article on this blog about Raleigh’s “nail buildings”. It cited two adjoining downtown businesses, Poole’s Diner and Doug Van de Zande’s photography studio, as examples. The term ‘nail house’ or ‘nail building’ is used to describe businesses or residences whose owners refuse to allow their buildings to be demolished, even in the face of development all around them. (The phrase refers to a nail in wood that is difficult to remove.) That description made me think of the historic Richard B. Haywood house, located at the corner of Edenton and Blount Streets.

However, the encroaching development in this case was not a high-rise building or construction site, but a four-acre expanse of state government parking lots.
Read more »

On the eastern fringe of downtown Raleigh an imposing Jacobean manor stands sentinel over the surrounding neighborhood. I am referring, of course, to the former Thompson School on East Hargett St. Although the school itself closed with the merger of the city and county public school systems in 1976, the building still bears a prominence in the community today as Wake County’s family services Thompson Center.
Read more »