Raleigh

Community-focused posts

There are 776 posts filed in Raleigh (this is page 2 of 78).

Letter to the editor on assault weapons

I sent this letter to the editor to the N&O today. I hope it gets printed.

I served four years in the U.S. Navy never having heard an AK-47. Then a week ago, hotheads brought their gun battle to my neighborhood. It became crystal clear hearing that cannon-like booming that these assault rifles are nothing less than weapons of war.

There is no justification for anyone outside of the military or law enforcement to posses assault weapons. Can we get to the well-regulated part of our “well-regulated militia” now?

Man who brought gun to NCGA expressed far-right views

Update 2019-08-14: I have been pondering Friday’s arrest of Abe Zeiger for bringing a gun into the North Carolina General Assembly and it’s possible that I was wrong about his intentions. Yes, I certainly did find a number of gun-themed and seemingly anti-government posts on his Facebook page but to be fair, these were all forwarded and not authored by Zeiger himself. Other photos portray Zeiger as a family man and I found no evidence that things weren’t going well with his life. I am sorry if I misinterpreted the digital breadcrumbs I was able to piece together.

On the other hand, I hope he sees how someone could draw this conclusion. The Bundy item was especially disturbing – celebrating the pointing weapons at law enforcement officers is no joke – and what’s more it wasn’t even remotely truthful. To repost this on Facebook a week before showing up at the state legislature with a pistol and 30 rounds is enough to put a community on edge.

Any why was the gun in his bag when he didn’t have a concealed carry permit (CCP)? Why didn’t he declare the gun when asked by officers at

While his intentions could have been completely innocent when he showed up with a gun, the truth is that no one could know that for certain. It only takes seconds for a mass shooting to occur and officers don’t have the luxury of trust.

Zeiger could very well be a stand-up guy, just trying to do the right thing. If so, I applaud his intentions though I’d rather he left the “good guy with the gun” role to law enforcement. At the same time, he made a big mistake by not removing his weapon before entering a secured building, and for carrying a weapon around in his bag without possessing a CCP. While I am not as concerned as I once was that he may be a threat to society, there is no getting around the fact that he was not being responsible with his gun.

Abe Zeiger

On Friday afternoon, a man was arrested at the North Carolina General Assembly for trying to sneak in a 9mm pistol and two magazines of 15 rounds apiece. The man, Abraham James Zeiger, age 36, was charged with unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon and violating legislative building rules. The story by Lauren Horsch in the N&O quoted the N.C. State Capitol Police as expressing surprise at their catching Zeiger as he was not on their radar, so to speak. The General Assembly implemented stricter security measures at the General Assembly in April of last year.

“I can’t be more pleased with the (screening) process,” General Assembly Police Chief Martin Brock said of the security measures that caught the gun. “It could have easily been missed.”

Since this story took place on a Friday afternoon – a time when news stories tend to get lost in the lull of the weekend – there didn’t seem to be many in the media who were asking just who is Zeiger? Also since I happen to know several people who work in the General Assembly, I wanted to know what might have motivated Zeiger and what he may have been planning to do with that gun. It didn’t take me long to find the answers.
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New York Times story focused on Raleigh gentrification | Raleigh News & Observer

Ned Barnett’s opinion piece last week, downplaying the damaging effects of gentrification, was incredibly tone-deaf.

Indeed the Times story called attention to the implication that there is something wrong with downtown neighborhoods gaining new homes and more value as white flight reverses.

Well, yes, yes there is. There is something wrong with it, Ned. Surging property values are great for owners, unless those owners are unable to pay the soaring property taxes. Surging property values aren’t too fun for the renters who get pushed out by skyrocketing rents or by the flipping of homes.

We can improve neighborhoods without pushing out the long-time residents – the people who actually contribute to the character of any neighborhood. The question we should be asking is: how can everyone benefit from prosperity?

Raleigh is now almost blase about being cited in the national media as a city on the rise, but a New York Times report last week cast that growth in a less flattering light. It used Raleigh as exhibit No. 1 of how well-off whites are moving into traditionally black neighborhoods near urban centers and converting longtime nonwhite areas into white enclaves.

The story stressed that Raleigh’s pattern is part of a national trend, but its focus in photos, videos and quotes was on North Carolina’s capital. The theme was that poorer blacks are being pushed out and those who remain feel their neighborhood is being usurped.

The coverage put a spotlight on an issue Raleigh’s leaders know about but have not directly addressed: How much should growth be allowed to displace residents and transform neighborhoods?

Source: New York Times story focused on Raleigh gentrification | Raleigh News & Observer

The Neighborhood Is Mostly Black. The Home Buyers Are Mostly White. – The New York Times

A sobering read on gentrification of downtown Raleigh from the New York Times.

RALEIGH, N.C. — In the African-American neighborhoods near downtown Raleigh, the playfully painted doors signal what’s coming. Colored in crimson, in coral, in seafoam, the doors accent newly renovated craftsman cottages and boxy modern homes that have replaced vacant lots.

To longtime residents, the doors mean higher home prices ahead, more investors knocking, more white neighbors.

Here, and in the center of cities across the United States, a kind of demographic change most often associated with gentrifying parts of New York and Washington has been accelerating. White residents are increasingly moving into nonwhite neighborhoods, largely African-American ones.

Source: The Neighborhood Is Mostly Black. The Home Buyers Are Mostly White. – The New York Times

Isaac Hunter’s Tavern: A new future for the forgotten history of a place critical to Raleigh’s past | abc11.com


My friend Heather Leah writes again about Isaac Hunter’s Tavern, this time for ABC11. I get a nice shout-out about halfway down. Thanks again, Heather!

When you walk into the lobby of the North Raleigh Hilton, you are walking on the very footprints of our city’s founders. Beneath those very floors rests the original foundation of Isaac Hunter’s Tavern, a modest wooden cabin with a tin roof built in the 1700s that was so well-loved by North Carolina’s most important and influential men that they decided the state capital should be built no more than ten miles away.

Many locals believed the tavern itself was destroyed, either by entropy or construction for new developments. Despite its critical importance to the history of Raleigh — and really, our entire state — there are no relics or remains on display at any of our history museums. Even people who remember seeing the tavern, dilapidated and disguised as an old horse stable on Wake Forest Road in the 1970s, mostly reported the tavern to have been destroyed.

However, the foundation and wooden planks belonging to Isaac Hunter’s Tavern still stand, hidden by years of misinformation, new developments, and overgrowth. Soon, for the first time in history, the public may finally be able to visit artifacts and pieces of the tavern itself.

Source: Isaac Hunter’s Tavern: A new future for the forgotten history of a place critical to Raleigh’s past | abc11.com

My daughter, Laura Riddick, is in prison. There’s nothing ‘light’ about her punishment. | News & Observer

Cue the tiny violins. I understand the desire for Riddick’s father to defend his daughter but sometimes by doing so one does more harm than good.

In October, a News & Observer editorial endorsing Democratic Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman asserted that Freeman had agreed to “a relatively light sentence” in the embezzlement case of my daughter, former Wake County Register of Deeds Laura M. Riddick.

The newspaper was hardly alone in that assessment, but the common assumption is wrong. The truth is the opposite — and it’s time to respond to mistaken claims of “a relatively light sentence.”

Relative to what, exactly? Not compared to other embezzlers. Not as to other public officials across North Carolina, either. Not even other public-figure embezzlers in Wake County.

Source: My daughter, Laura Riddick, is in prison. There’s nothing ‘light’ about her punishment. | News & Observer

Raleigh’s Civil War Breastworks – the original “Beltline”

Raleigh’s original “Beltline” – the Civil War breastworks

Hours of toiling with Google Earth (GE) has allowed me to get a good feel for how the 1865 map of Raleigh’s breastworks matches up to local landmarks. I created an image overlay in GE, then marked with a pushpin landmarks that are still around today. A bit (okay, hours) of stretching and rotating the overlay image got me a close match of where things were as compared to today.

Enjoy!

Behold Camp Holmes

The Google Earth mashup of Camp Holmes

After messing with Google Earth for hours tonight I finally got a rough idea of the location of one of Raleigh’s Civil War “camps of instruction,” Camp Holmes. It seems to have been west of the modern-day intersection of Capital Boulevard and Wake Forest Road, where the Raleigh Bonded warehouses and Norfolk Southern’s Raleigh Yard are today. Being that most of the camp is now a railyard, poking around there is not feasible. Still, there might be interesting finds on the periphery, perhaps the treeline south of Georgetown Road.

Who knew that those dingy warehouses and railyard was once the site where 9,000 Confederate conscripts trained to become soldiers?

Camp Holmes – Raleigh’s Civil War “Camp of Instruction”

Camp Holmes (including “officers quaters”)


A friend shared a historical map this morning that caught my eye. It is a map of the old breastworks built by the city of Raleigh to impede approaching Union troops near the end of the Civil War. I’d seen the historical marker (H-30) a mile away from my home, mentioning that breastworks were nearby but I’d never seen them and didn’t think much about them until now. So, one of my upcoming projects is to trace the path of the old earthen walls so that I can visit these sites to see if there’s anything left (update: found them!). After 153 years, it’s unlikely I’ll find any remnants of the five-foot-tall earthen walls and gravel but you never know.

Another detail of the map caught my eye, however: Camp Holmes. Curious about what this is, I did a few Google searches and was surprised to learn that nobody really knows where it was. It’s plainly on this old map, however, so a bit of Google Earth magic should show me roughly where I can physically search for it (update: found it!)

My Camp Holmes searches brought up a few lonely hits, one of which is a letter detailing an inspection made of Camp Holmes by Confederate assistant adjutant-general LtC Archer Anderson in June 1864. It provides an interesting look at the camp. There are others online, too, in the form of handwritten letters which will take some deciphering before being posted online.

As the letter appeared in a US Congressional publication in 1900 it is now in the public domain. Here it is in its entirety. I’ll post more stories as I learn more about the camp.

June 16, 1864.

Report of inspection of Camp Holmes, a camp of instruction near Raleigh, commanded by Major Hahr, with the following: staff: One first lieutenant, adjutant; one first lieutenant, receiving officer; one assistant quartermaster; one assistant commissary of subsistence; one surgeon and one assistant surgeon; one chaplain; one first lieutenant, commanding guard; four second lieutenants, drill-masters.
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Alan Frederick Swanstrom Obituary – Cary, NC


I learned last night that my friend Al Swanstrom died last week. I originally knew Al through my working with his wife, Pam, back at HAHT Software over twenty years ago. Al was so sharp, friendly, and funny. It was always fun trading quips with him. When he campaigned for a state senate seat a few years ago I did not think twice about standing for hours outside a polling place in “unfriendly territory” to help support him. It was sad to learn he was ill.

My thoughts are with Pam and her family in this difficult time.

Having been born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Al was an avid Packers fan. He was also very proud of his father’s Swedish heritage and recently connected with his Swedish relatives.

Al was an IBMer for over 30 years and traveled worldwide in various roles. During his career, Al was granted several patents. After retirement, Al dedicated his time to public service, including serving on the Town of Cary Planning Board, Wake County Planning Board (Chair), and North Carolina Turnpike Authority. Throughout, Al was a tireless volunteer for Triangle Wine Experience and Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.

Al was the architect of his life and many things of beauty. He was happiest sailing and diving with his family, woodworking, working on his cars, designing a new technical solution and spending time with the “Coffee Gang.”

He was an officer of the Triangle Bailliage de North Carolina of the Chaîne de Rotisseurs and a past Maître of the Triangle NC Chapter of the Commanderie de Bordeaux. Al shared his knowledge of wine and passion for culinary arts with friends in both organizations. He was a great host and welcomed friends into his home.

Source: Alan Frederick Swanstrom Obituary – Cary, NC