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Noisette Project

Infinite1

By Infinite1
in Charleston

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groovetube66 Unincorporated Area

groovetube66

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Thanks. I've been a lurker for a while here. Noisette is not without faults. I think they at times have gotten mired in the planning processes and their PR is very poor and not proactive. But I am rooting for them, not coincidentally because my wife and I moved to the "Old Village" section of North Charleston from W. Ashley.

One thing that Noisette has been trying to do help recover the lost history of the North area. Believe it or not, North Charleston was planned by famed planner William Bell Marquis (worked for Berckmanns and Olmstead) and is the only existing example in America of planning using the Garden City concept of Sir Ebenezer Howard see: Garden City movement and Ebenezer Howard. Due to bad economics of the times, wars, etc. the concept never fully came to fruition but there are many elements remaining of the original plan. I took a half day from work a while back to do some research at the Register Meyne Conveyance in Charleston and made copies of the original plats and designs. Interesting stuff.

Dr. Dean Sinclair, a professor at Northwest Louisiana State University, wrote his doctoral dissertation on this very subject, see Dr. Dean Sinclair.

You can find a little more on William Bell Marquis here at my neighborhood website ONCNC Website.

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groovetube66 Unincorporated Area

groovetube66

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Interesting. I had no idea that N Charleston was planned as a garden city. Is the Old Village centered around the Park Circle?

The Old Village part is off of E. Montague, the old downtown commercial section and residential that was owned by Garco for supervisors and managers - a box formed by Virginia Avenue, Buist Avenue, Jenkins Avenue, and E. Montague. Back in the old days it was apparently called Silk Stocking Row. The area around the turning circle is considered to be part of the Old Village too by most folks.

Park Circle

There are quite a few nice Arts and Crafts style homes in the area. My wife and I are fixing up this one built in 1915.

Old Village Home

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Charleston native Burg

Charleston native

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Your house in Old Village is looking good. Some very good friends of mine who got married a few months after I did recently purchased a completed home within the Noisette area. The house looks great, and it is a new look for residential living in the north area. They are a good example of how the population of "Northtowne" is growing and changing for the better. Here's a pic of the house below. I believe it is near Virginia Ave and North Rhett Blvd.

P1080006.jpg

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groovetube66 Unincorporated Area

groovetube66

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Your house in Old Village is looking good. Some very good friends of mine who got married a few months after I did recently purchased a completed home within the Noisette area. The house looks great, and it is a new look for residential living in the north area. They are a good example of how the population of "Northtowne" is growing and changing for the better. Here's a pic of the house below. I believe it is near Virginia Ave and North Rhett Blvd.

P1080006.jpg

Hmmm... North Rhett and Virginia Avenue are roughly parallel. Maybe this is in the general area off of Braddock Avenue? I have seen some new construction like this in that area.

Our house is actually the original look of the North area. It was built in 1915, one of the first built in the Old North Charleston development. It along with four other homes was financed by Carroll of Carroll's Seafood (at the time a large business) in Charleston in 1915. He built them with the expectation that Garco would purchase them for management (which they did). Our home was owned by Garco, then Raybestos-Manhattan, until 1970.

If you have a couple of minutes, go to Olde North Charleston Neighborhood Council and click on the "House of the Moment" on the left side to see a gallery of older homes in the neighborhood. I am working on the groundwork for a historic overlay district for our little area to protect the architectural integrity and, I hope, get some sort of historic designation.

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lsgchas Whistle-Stop

lsgchas

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Our house is actually the original look of the North area. It was built in 1915, one of the first built in the Old North Charleston development.

Grovetube66, you seem to know quite a bit about the history of your neighborhood. I'm curious why many of the signs in your neighborhood refer to it as "Olde North Charleston." It's the spelling of "Olde" I'm refering to. Has it always been spelled this way, or is it a modern marketing ploy? Personally, it always causes me to cringe a little when I'm up there and I see "old" spelled archaically. Perhaps it's because it sounds a little pretentious when the neighborhood is barely 100 years old. Or perhaps it's because so many brand-new strip malls use archaic or British spellings like "olde," "centre," or "shoppes."

All quibbles aside, I like the neighborhood a lot. In fact, my wife and I are planning to look for a house there later this year, so my annoyance at the spelling of the neighborhood is obviously not meant to suggest there is something wrong with the neighborhood itself.

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groovetube66 Unincorporated Area

groovetube66

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I'm curious why many of the signs in your neighborhood refer to it as "Olde North Charleston." It's the spelling of "Olde" I'm refering to. Has it always been spelled this way, or is it a modern marketing ploy? Personally, it always causes me to cringe a little when I'm up there and I see "old" spelled archaically. Perhaps it's because it sounds a little pretentious when the neighborhood is barely 100 years old. Or perhaps it's because so many brand-new strip malls use archaic or British spellings like "olde," "centre," or "shoppes."

I think it is a leftover non-so-modern marketing ploy. The idea of dropping the "e" in old was brought up fairly recently in a neighborhood association meeting and several of the more senior members of the neighborhood were about to have a cow. It is anachronistic no doubt.

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groovetube66 Unincorporated Area

groovetube66

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The streetscape project for E. Montague in the Old North Charleston is nearing completion and what a huge difference it will make. Herringbone pavers instead of concrete sidewalk, lots of trees and planters (with built-in irrigation systems), a large pedestal electric clock (the type you typically see in a historic downtown setting), utility lines placed underground. Things are supposed to be completed by March 1 so that the street can finally be repaved. :)

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Charleston native Burg

Charleston native

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It is part of a plan to create a main corridor. The streetscaping is working backwards from the old downtown. As of March from the circle to Virginia Avenue will be complete. Montague will be completely redone all the way to Dorchester.

When that happens, this will truly start other changes that terribly need to be done, such as street beautification of lower Rivers Avenue around Montague. Have there been any plans to renovate and modernize the Danny Jones Recreation Center and Pool? I used to swim there for practice with Charleston's Junior Olympic swim team. I remember it was terribly rundown at the time.

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krazeeboi Gigalopolis

krazeeboi

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North Charleston and the Noisette Co. have agreed to sever their financial ties in a multi-part agreement. The once-cozy relationship that soured after questions on the company's finances and less-than-perfect construction of the city's centerpiece Riverfront Park last year will end the first week of August if the deal is closed.

I wonder how far this project will be set back in light of this?

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Charles Pearson City

Charles Pearson

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After reading this in City Paper this morning, I am beginning to like the New"historic" North Charleston...You have to give this surburb/CITY credit for its citizen's support, drive and good efforts in creating a real 'urban' giant in SC, similar to the way CHARLESTON was in the 18th Century or the before the REVOLUTION when Charleston was supreme and the richest city in Britian's American colonies south of Philadelphia, if not all of the colonies because of so many wealth planters whose properties included hundreds of slaves...

Most intriguing (for me) are Park Circle, Riverfront Park & Storehouse Row. And with all the opposition Clemson's Architecture Center's design and planning studios has met with hostile downtown preservationists, I don't understand why they don't just drop Charleston & build the Center on their "planned" North Charleston campus...I love Charleston dearly but sometimes I cannot understand its City leader goals...Seems Charleston wants to retain its 'top-dog' image but at same time when something 'different' & 'good' (IMO) comes in, it gets shot to hell...There's nothing wrong with mixing a little 'modern' with what is considered historic in some parts of the City...I rather liked CAC innovative design & would rather not see another 'double- or single-house' concept somehow incorporated into what woud simply downplay the Center's purpose...Does Charleston want to be a real major 'PORT' city & the county seat of Charleston county or just a pretty little tourist town catering only to the needs & desires of the tourists like Carmel-by-the-Sea, California?

My only concern in upChuck's developments is Olde North Charleston Neighborhood Council, a small growth, similar to the ones downtown...who could end up being a hinderance when everything becomes is labeled historic and 'we' will never see those clustered skyscrapers for the lowcountry in UpChuck (to represent Charleston/Port of Charleston) like in La Defense, the business district of Paris just outside of city borders...

Then again, I am dreaming...

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groovetube66 Unincorporated Area

groovetube66

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My only concern in upChuck's developments is Olde North Charleston Neighborhood Council, a small growth, similar to the ones downtown...who could end up being a hinderance when everything becomes is labeled historic and 'we' will never see those clustered skyscrapers for the lowcountry in UpChuck (to represent Charleston/Port of Charleston) like in La Defense, the business district of Paris just outside of city borders...

Then again, I am dreaming...

Olde North Charleston and the Park Circle itself is *the only* example of Ebenezer Howard's Garden City concept ever built, or even partially built, in the United States. Worthy of preservation. Similar neighborhoods of Arts and Crafts architecture in other locales are on the Historic Registry such as Carolina Place in Wilmington, NC.

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Spartan Gigalopolis

Spartan

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The Noisette Co. now has a new deal with the City of North Charleston. Also, Sen Pro Tem Glenn McConnell wants a world class museum for the Hunley. So there won't be condos on top of it. Now, I know the Hunley is important, but come on... its not THAT important.

The article highlights a mumber of other items in the deal. http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/...ubDate=8/1/2006

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krazeeboi Gigalopolis

krazeeboi

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I don't think the Hunley warrants getting its own museum and this is a waste of taxpayer money. Build a new wing at Patriots Point or something; I would think that would be sufficient.

The new deal with Noisette and N. Charleston seems a bit on the complicated side.

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