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Capitol Broadcasting Withdraws Support of Art Project


carynative

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Dowtown Raleigh *could* have had its act together when the museum moved, but its departure, like the tear down of so many historical buildings, was as much a cause of downtown's demise as it was a symptom.

I haven't been in Raleigh for long. How many Historic Buildings have been razed? I know that some building ( I believe it was historic) was torn down for the unbuilt First Citizens Building.

Thanks!

Also, How many folks would typically be downtown in the 80s?

And, wasn't the original NCMA reduced in size due to budget constraints?

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I haven't been in Raleigh for long. How many Historic Buildings have been razed? I know that some building ( I believe it was historic) was torn down for the unbuilt First Citizens Building.

Thanks!

Also, How many folks would typically be downtown in the 80s?

And, wasn't the original NCMA reduced in size due to budget constraints?

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I haven't been in Raleigh for long. How many Historic Buildings have been razed? I know that some building ( I believe it was historic) was torn down for the unbuilt First Citizens Building.

Thanks!

Also, How many folks would typically be downtown in the 80s?

And, wasn't the original NCMA reduced in size due to budget constraints?

Depends on where you draw the line on historic. A painting by C.N. Drie. has something on the order of 100 is commercial and something around 500-600 residential sturctures not including dependencies. It is dated 1872. I count less than 30 structures still standing from that painting. Some perspective....Briggs Hardware, Raleighs showpiece historic commercial building, was not yet built (1874). If you place the cutoff at 1900 (which I like to do) I guestimate that less that 10% of our commercial inventory standing then is still around and about 50% of the residential inventory. More perspective, Times Bar (1906) does not make that cut. Others like to use the great depression, and hence 1930 as a cutoff, which gets all of Raleighs first skyscrapers. Off all buildings standing in the city in 1930, I guess about 50% of the commercial buildings are left and 2/3's of the residential, though I have no figures to back that up. For fun I think I can list every building from Dries map that is left (I included dates when I am sure of them):

Churches:

First Baptist Salisbury 1859

Christ Church 1854

Tupper Baptist 1866

State Capital 1840

St Marys (three buildings shown) 1833 and 1834

Peace College 1859 (partial)

Seaboard Building 1862

Prarie Building (half of it) 1871

Helig-Levine 1870

Old post office 1850ish (now stored at Mordecai house)

Old Hogg Law office 1810 (now stored at Mordecai houe)

Law office on New Bern 1820

Catholic Building on New Bern 1830 (Located now up near Wake Forest)

Lewis Smith house (now on Blount was on Wilmington) 1855

Daniels House (by Shaw) 1850

Haywood House on New Bern 1800

Haywood House on Edenton 1840

White Holman House on New Bern 1799

Mordecai House 1785-1826

Lane House 1763 (was at Hargett and Boylan, now at St marys and Boylan)

Credit Union on New Bern 1810

Boylan House (on Boylan by the bridge) 1858

Heck-Andews House (aka the Munster House on Blount) 1870

House behind Char-Grill (forgot the name...he was a Judge) 1810

4 (of 6) houses on the Oakwood block (includes Oakwood Manor) all 1870

Edit: two more...there is a two story house on east Hargett that has stairs walking up to the second floor as if it were the first floor....1850ish and a one story duplex with a hip roof that is also 1850ish according to an old architectural survey book I have....there are two more like the duplex on east Lenoir that appear to be ante bellum as well.

That is 30 I think counting all 3of St Marys buildings and no outliers like Dix. About 15 others from the 1870's still stand that will eventually show up on the map like the Merrimon house 1876, Whitaker House (old Domicile 1875) Briggs, 1874, Mahler Building 1876, Andews London 1874, Shaw Womens Dorm 1874, Second Empire 1879, three Briggs Houses in Oak wood all 1875, Stronach House on Oakwood 1876, Federal Building 1879 an perhaps all four buildings at the SE corner of Wilmington and Martin.....so you are still at less than 10% remaining of all buildings standing by 1880.......only four of which were brick, Seaboard, Mahler, Briggs and Credit Union.......not exactly a national heritage city.....

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Jones -> Many thanks.

If there is 10% left from 125+ years ago, I think thats pretty good.

At the close of WWII it was something over 50 % maybe upwards of 75%, Raleigh's institutions i.e. STate gov't, colleges, churches, plus white flight and the ensuing needs for commuters to park devastated our inventory.

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The most sensible thing Rick Martinez has ever wrote... http://www.newsobserver.com/559/story/488295.html

He says pretty much what I think. He also hinted at a goodpoint in regards to attracting conventions. The Plensa square would be a good selling point for attracting conventions. Honestly, there isn't much to do within walking distance of the CC compared to other cities. But if conventionneers were told they would be a block away from that famously weird sculpture...you catch my drift.

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We'd have been a lot better off if the city took the $200M from the convention center and put it into TTA instead, so it would actually be built. Throw in a few more mil for public art and the already planned Fayetteville St and other pedestrian amenities, and it would have been a much more positive effect on DT as a whole. Sure the RCC will be nice and impressive, but TTA rail by itself would have a HUGE sustaining impact on DT revitalization--an issue in which our leaders have been VERY shortsighted.

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It would be interesting to see a chart the percentage of pre-1875, pre-1900, and pre-1925 structures (25 year increments) still standing decade by decade (or every five years) from 1950 to the present. The pre-1875 would start at 50-75 percent and drop to the 10% of today. The pre-1925 line would start high in 1950, but would fall in the 70s and 80s as well. The rise of one and two Hannover, CP&L/Progress Energy I, and First Union/Wachovia (and the parking decks associated with them) probably did the most destruction, or was the damage done before those projects started? When did the blocks between Blount and Wilmington (pre-PE II) get turned into the asphalt desert?

As for nothing to do near the new CC, there is nothing to do *right now*. There is a lot more to do downtown *right now* than there was two years ago. There will be even more to do downtown two years from now with Site 1, RBC, etc. on line. Leaders behind the new CC, etc. are of the mindset that downtown needs residents in place and reasons for the other nearby 1 million pluse residents to come back time and again. Chandeliers and plazas are nice (and should have been installed), but they don't generate return visits. Unique restaurants, shops, cafes, etc. like Times Bar, Yancy's, Fins, etc. generate buzz/excitement and a critical mass that becomes self supportive.

If the old CC was still standing today, Plensa's piece would be built, no questions asked. The old CC and Fayetville Street mall were "art" when it was built, but did not stand the test of time when mainenance was an afterthought.

Plensa and the Arts Commission were willing to work to reach a common ground, but Larry Wheeler was not. Wheeler's stagnant thinking is why Raleigh lost out. "The Raleigh Arts Commission was left embarrassingly in the dark...." by Wheeler and Goodmon. Did the commission have anything to do with City Square before Jamue's first presentation? Wheeler is like Coach K, amassing best in class resources, getting middle of the road results, and then complaining to officials when they don't get their way all the time.

Mr. Martinez's logic that blames local officials for the federal goverment's TTA flip flopping is dishonest. He sees nothing wrong with slamming the RBC Center for not drawing people downtown while praising Wheeler and NCMA... which is right down Blue Ridge and not drawing people downtown. What in the NCMA's permanent collection qualifies as "inspirational, beautiful, even objectionable art" that he thinks adds to the culture of a city? He critisizes the area for embracing the Andy and Opie statue, yet the NCMA's biggest success (and future) is... you guessed it, statues (the Rodin exhibit and upcoming collection).

The hotels and meals tax was created to fund visitor-attracting amenities, not rail lines or schools or any other wants/needs the area has. Hopefully the taxes generated by the projects funded by occupancy and meals taxes will go on to fund other projects, and not be returned as a tax credit to the well off. A one percent gas tax, similar to the meals tax, would go a long way toward funding mass transit options. Mass transit would relieve congestion, which in turn leads to better fuel efficiency! If Durham county/city and Wake county/Raleigh would make that kind of commitment, the TTA line would be under construction.

Are local decisions due to short sightedness, or to an area that didn't know what was possible until the last five or so years?

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  • 1 month later...

There needs to be a landmark plaza in this location. Period.

I don't think Raleigh does a good job with public art, generally, and the process is usually agonizingly "small town." But let's be frank: the Plensa design for the plaza was awful. It was uninspiring techno-crap that would've become outdated in a year, and was completely uninformed by thousands of years of experience and principles for the design of public squares. I think one needs to recognize that great outdoor spaces are seldom designed by artists (see, e.g., anything by Martha Schwartz of Bagel Garden fame).

Let's commission Plensa -- unquestionably a gifted and visionary artist-- to give Raleigh a funky and fabulous public object someplace prominent where we can all look at it and admire it.

And let's have the public plazas -- spaces that need to be not just art, but functioning, useful places-- designed by landscape architects.

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