| travel & culture |

CITY PORTRAIT Raleigh To understand our capital city, get to know it at sidewalk level: The story of Raleigh unfolds on its streets. WRITTEN BY SCOTT HULER

You can see the State Capitol’s Christmas spirit from Fayetteville Street. This year’s Capitol tree lighting will take place on December 10 at 5:30 p.m. PHOTOGRAPH BY MATT ROBINSON MATT BY PHOTOGRAPH

58 OUR STATE | December 2015 | travel & culture | PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC WATERS ERIC BY PHOTOGRAPH

The historic Briggs Hardware building, completed in 1874, now houses the .

On First Night Raleigh some years ago, we escaped the early New Year’s Eve revelry by strolling our howling 2-year-old up was for decades the no-traffic zone the day, and at night, its restaurants and the grassy hill over the State Capitol whose empty cobblestone pedestrian bars are busy enough that after years of grounds. We tried to toss the remains mall and lonely iron benches, running pushing to inject life into downtown, of his dinner, uneaten for hours; no dice. between faceless office towers and park- civic leaders now pass regulations to “I want my icy hot dog!” he wailed. Fine ing decks, told the story of Raleigh’s lost, calm things down. Every parade runs then, kid, eat it, but let’s at least get purposeless downtown. down Fayetteville Street, every down- rid of this awful crumbly bun. “I want Not anymore. Now lined with small, town festival closes off Fayetteville my crumbly bun!” He ate them both leafy trees, sidewalk restaurant tables, Street — and Raleigh is always hav- between shrieks in the cold December and iron lampposts, the street celebrates ing a downtown festival. Protests like Onight, as we escaped the crowds teeming the three- and four-story historic build- the annual Moral March progress up on Fayetteville Street. ings — like the former Briggs Hardware Fayetteville Street to the Capitol or past I’ll give you a moment to digest store, with its concrete cornice and it to the legislature. Fayetteville Street that phrase: the crowds teeming on pressed-metal trim — that it used to is once again the running stream of Fayetteville Street. Fayetteville Street ignore. Fayetteville Street bustles during humanity that courses through Raleigh.

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OUR STATE of Raleigh’s streets. flows down Fayetteville —andall Street ofRaleigh downtown. In thestory fact, ofRaleigh’s1970s finishedwhat wasleft mall in the turn lateit into a pedestrian decisionto than howapoorbuthopeful ter of Raleigh, has to more tell stories Capitol that sits on a rise at the cen- south andaway fromthegray Doric that stretch acrosswideavenuesthat stretch to charms areitstrees—downtown oaks RALEIGH IS A STREET-LEVEL CITY. ITS But Fayetteville running Street, |

December 2015 | angles, withfive parksarranged like crossing at rightis agridofstreets the middle old city of the road. The statehouse where it remains today: in designfrom 1792Christmas —hasthe planforthecityearliest —theWilliam then.The its futurewasobviouseven it was anythingpaper before else — and on yourscale,passestimeat yourpace. uses. Raleigh livesslowly finding new brickwarehouses,whicharestory neighbors —anditstwo- andthree- clasp handswiththeiracross-the-street Raleigh was streets ona piece ofRaleigh wasstreets ring in the new year. new the in ring to acrane from lowered acorn1,250-pound is First Night Raleigh, the of year, part as Every Oaks.” of “City the as Square celebrates Raleigh Moore in Acorn” “Big The perch. raleightimesbar.com patio, asidewalk table, or awindow watch the city goby from the rooftop storefront. Enjoy upscalepubfood and occupied itscirca-1906 Hargett Street — honors the newspaper that once The Raleigh Times’s name—anddecor Avenue. therockfordrestaurant.com comes withaplumview of Glenwood no secret that amealat The Rockford bacon, andcheddar). These days, it’s with asandwichlike the ABC(apple, floor restaurant meant being rewarded second- stairs tothe climbing the that had littlesignage—you justhad to know When itopenedin1994, The Rockford action. capitalclub16.com sidewalk,evenon the closer tothe the weather’s nice, dinersviefor aseat European-inspired Americanfare. When of downtown Raleigh whileservingup Capital Club16captures the energy both Martin andSalisbury streets, With widewindows that lookoutonto try thistrioof restaurants. with asideof city sights, If you like your food tocome view a with meal A THE RALEIGH TIMES THE THE ROCKFORD CAPITALCLUB 16 burgers and its beer selection. beer its and burgers its both for lists of” “best makes Times More than a great view: The Raleigh

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERIC WATERS | travel & culture |

Raleigh on foot Raleigh 101: Start in the Capital District (State Capitol, museums of history and natural science). Then try one of these walking tours.

TASTE CAROLINA The best kind of walking tour is one with snacks along the way. Taste Carolina tour guides talk local history as they walk culinary adventurers to several restaurants and cocktail bars around Raleigh. tastecarolina.net/raleigh

WAREHOUSE DISTRICT To see Raleigh’s revitalization in action, take a self-guided tour of the Warehouse District, six blocks of shops, restaurants, breweries, and Mecca restaurant art galleries, plus CAM Raleigh, the has been a Raleigh contemporary art museum. If you’re staple since 1930 looking to do a little holiday shopping (it moved once, in for someone with a sweet tooth (or 1937, but the cozy yourself), try Videri Chocolate Factory. booths are original). raleighwarehousedistrict.com

HISTORIC OAKWOOD A stroll around Raleigh’s 19th-century It’s on the street, not in one of the new Oakwood neighborhood is pleasant at any time of year, but a Christmas skyscrapers, museums, or apartment Candlelight Tour on December 12 and 13 offers an opportunity to cross the buildings, that you find Raleigh’s heart. threshold and walk inside a dozen of the historic homes. historicoakwood.org

the five-spot on a die, like Philadelphia, and Wilmington. Others bear the names or Savannah. (Two of those parks have — Person, Jones, McDowell, Dawson, been absorbed by state government, Blount — of the commissioners who though one does hold the lovely gover- chose the spot for the city. Surrounding nor’s mansion.) At the center of the city’s them all are streets with the simplest of main intersection, where Hillsborough names: North, South, East, and West — and Fayetteville streets end, is Union the boundaries of that first city. Square, with the beautiful gray Greek And it’s on the street, not in one of temple of the Capitol building at its the new skyscrapers, museums, or apart- center, right in the middle of the street, ment buildings, that you find Raleigh’s clogging up traffic. Raleigh, that is, has heart. Turn off Fayetteville onto Martin, Sleepy Southern Capital Where Nothing and sit down in The Mecca Restaurant, Much Gets Done in its DNA. founded in 1930. With its hexagonal tile That grid of streets tells the story of floor, long, varnished bar, and cramped not just Raleigh, but of North Carolina maze of upstairs rooms, you feel you at the moment of the nation’s found- might be sitting not only in a booth from ing. Eight of the streets bear the names the Hoover administration, but next to of the state’s eight judicial districts: one of the very legislators from that era, WATERS ERIC BY PHOTOGRAPHY The 1875 Heck-Pool House is one of Fayetteville, Morgan, Hillsborough, still doing business from that dim booth. three Second Empire-style houses built Edenton, Halifax, New Bern, Salisbury, Or walk to Nash Square, and you’ll sit in Oakwood by Col. Jonathan M. Heck.

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beneath an oak whose roots wrestle the stone sepulchres crumbling beyond the you still haven’t had to crane your neck. the leafy Hayes Barton neighborhood Raleigh has the empty space to support the street, and someone on the top could concrete to a draw, and whose branches obligatory cast-iron rail fence; just west You’re on the streets. still bristles with enormous period- its sudden growth now. But above all, it hear you. Most of what’s lovely about have probably been spreading since Joel of West Street is the Boylan Avenue revival manses from the ’20s. Oakwood’s means that that growth mostly follows Raleigh still happens at that scale. Lane served Cherry Bounce and sold his bridge, the best place to see the skyline, FOR ITS FIRST HUNDRED YEARS, Victorian painted ladies still delight the the same street-level scale. Raleigh is property to hungover commissioners across a railyard that’s been around for Raleigh just kind of was. Legislators eye on Person and Bloodworth streets. still a place that feels like it was built for Scott Huler is the author of six books of the next morning to create the city in more than a century. (You can get a beer came around once in a while, but other- Neighborhoods rise and descend in people. When they completed the Briggs nonfiction, most recently On the Grid, the first place. Just east of East Street is from the Boylan Bridge Brewpub now.) wise, planted by legislative compromise attractiveness, of course, but even the building in 1874 and called it Raleigh’s and was the 2011 Laureate in Raleigh’s first cemetery, two-century-old You’re absorbing Raleigh’s history and where even the Tuscarora didn’t have flight to the suburbs didn’t much harm first skyscraper, you could yell up from Creative Nonfiction. a settlement, Raleigh had nothing else Raleigh because, Raleigh being so to offer. Union soldiers didn’t bother to small, they were so close — and closer- burn it. Funny thing, though: Just leav- in Old Raleigh residents were loath to ing a place alone can turn out to be a leave their stately homes to the Yankees good thing. pouring in. So though neighborhoods Raleigh started growing a bit in the struggled, none died, and all have since late 19th and early 20th centuries, so it profited from the growth of a downtown began adding streets. The timing was that now mixes skyscrapers with its old good, because that was the first era of brick restaurants and businesses. To American progressive city planning. So be sure, there’s plenty of sprawly, tree- the close-in, quasi-suburban additions deprived, clear-cut ticky-tacky as you were parklike — gently curving streets get far from downtown, but if you stay connected to that rectilinear grid, with close, Raleigh remains the “park with a tiny creekside parks included in the mix. city in it,” as one urban planning docu- Along some new streets, trolleys ran, ment called it, that it’s been since the though they’ve been gone long enough first Raleighites carved it out of the park now that the resulting median strips primeval in 1792. — of Glenwood Avenue, for example — tower with yet more oaks. Cobblestone WHAT DOES RALEIGH HAVE? IT HAS, alleys between neighborhood blocks simply, blind endurance. It has history feel like people’s backyards, but they’re by virtue of doing nothing more than actually public streets — relics of the lasting. Raleigh has adopted the most days when servants and people of traditional Southern strategy: I will color could not possibly enter the front stubbornly, simply remain here. doors. They’re places where you can still And that turned out to be what walk freely. saved it. From the brick sidewalks and As the decades idly passed, Raleigh granite curbs on Person Street to the occasionally spread another bit — sev- Pigeon House Branch creek running eral neighborhoods, for example, were down the median between streets in built around those trolleys, and filled Hayes Barton, an awful lot of Raleigh with tidy bungalow wood and stately is how it is because people have just colonial brick. As midcentury came, never bothered to make it any different. Raleigh developed a few ugly highways, A state government (mostly) looking and its downtown struggled, but it had the other way, and locals letting a small fewer than 100,000 residents as recently town stay small, kept a sleepy Southern as 1960. When wrongheaded urban town from turning into anything else. renewal projects destroyed downtowns And the fact that warehouses and nationwide, Raleigh dodged a bullet manufacturing spaces sat idle for years, because it simply didn’t have enough simply because nobody had the energy urban to renew. That is, every neighbor- to demand any different, means that hood Raleigh added remains where it was — and largely as it was. The prim Queen Anne homes overlooking down- Raleigh town from the curving streets of still surround the antebellum brick Montfort Hall; Cowper Drive in

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