It appears Raleigh soon will be losing yet another of its historic commercial buildings. I am speaking of the former Bing Lee Chinese Hand Laundry, located at the corner of West and Jones Streets, across from the 42nd Street Oyster Bar. The 2-story brick structure has stood on that corner at least since the early 1930s.

The structure is a typical small-scale industrial building of its era. Oversized, industrial glazed windows originally allowed natural light to stream into the interior space. At some point, though, these were bricked up, and replaced with the present-day scaled-down versions. Its solid red brick walls have been painted over many times through the years. A rampart of red terra cotta tile delineates the second floor roofline, in what looks to be a nod to modest Mission style ornamentation.

Read more »

Above is the Heck-Lee House in 1972. Below is a view taken last night.

Back in 1971-72 or so, before Oakwood became “Historic” Oakwood, I would often ride my bicycle through the neighborhood (with my Kodak Instamatic, of course) and take snapshots of the faded Victorian houses lining the streets. I remember being intrigued by three near-identical, flamboyantly-towered structures that comprised a corner of E. Jones and N. East Streets. They appeared to me as miniature versions of the opulent Heck-Andrews mansion on N. Blount St. Hmm, I wondered, could there be a connection?

Read more »

The marker above denoting the birthplace of President Andrew Johnson hasn’t recently returned, but I don’t think it has been here for that long either. According to Raleigh Boy, it was originally located in front of the Ambadassor Theater at the north end of the 100 block of Fayetteville Street and was removed in the mid-1970s during the conversion of that street into a pedestrian mall.
Read more »