I love all that glass!

I’ve long loved this building – ever since I was kid. My Dad frequented the original 42nd Street Oyster Bar at the corner of West and Jones streets in the mid 1960s, and I was often in tow.  The modestly styled Art Deco structure is across the street from the famed oyster bar and a Progress Energy power substation. The now long gone Bing Lee Chinese Laundry  was on the fourth corner of the intersection. The neighborhood back then was industrial; it was gritty– it was where guys went to drink PBR after work. This glass-walled building  was once the Carolina Power and Light Co.  truck garage.

Read more »

Just a bit down the road from Raleigh’s new transit facility in East Raleigh is Oak View Park. This public county park features an antebellum farm house, an older house (later kitchen) that dates to at least as far back as the 1820s, a cotton gin house, and goats, among many other artifacts pertaining to cotton farming in the south.

Read more »

Above: What we're getting. Below: What we're losing

Tomorrow (02/15), City Council will take up the final vote on granting a variance to Charlotte investment company Crescent Resources, LLC. This variance will allow the company to bypass the 50 ft. height restriction on new construction in Cameron Village.  The public opposition to the project was short-lived and even the most picky members of City Council (including one who lives nearby) are heaping praise on it. The vote is only a formality at this point.

I can see Cameron Village from my house, and was utterly let down upon seeing the finalized plans for “The Residences at Cameron Village.” There are many condo projects in Raleigh that fit their environment and are visually attractive, but this is not one of them.

Read more »