Tonight’s Raleigh East CAC meeting focused mainly on gangs and introducing my neighbors and I to Raleigh Police’s gang efforts. There was a middle presentation regarding new townhomes being built in our area by Wake Habitat for Humanity but I was more interested in the police information.

There were a few things that surprised me about the presentation, one of them being the geographical spread of gang activity around the city. I’m used to reporting graffiti around town but the idea that it isn’t really concentrated in one area was new to me. Also I was intrigued by the differing mindsets of the two groups presenting. A volunteer with the county stressed prevention and rescuing the gang “wannabes” before they sign up, while the police say there is no such thing as a “wannabe” and that even the young kids pretending to be members are almost surely on their way to being members. I assume that division is natural by the concentration the volunteer has “before the problem,” i.e. a crime gets committed, whereas police usually only get involved “after the problem.”
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I’ve always thought the gray building at the corner of Dawson Street and West Martin Street is somehow compelling. It just seems a bit out of place.

It turns out the building has a hidden history: it was once a train station, Raleigh’s Union Station, in fact. I never would’ve guessed it as the tracks are now nowhere near it. The station once served the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad, the second railroad in the state.

Check out this railroad fan’s page to see how the building looked in its train station heyday and how it looks today. I may stop by the state archives sometime and see if I can find more historic pictures of the building.