Raleigh

Community-focused posts

There are 773 posts filed in Raleigh (this is page 63 of 78).

Scavenger hunt in Raleigh August 23rd

A local group called Triangulator is planning to hold a scavenger hunt here in downtown Raleigh on Saturday, August 23rd. Looks like fun to me! Their announcement is below.

(By way of the Historic Oakwood email list)

Triangulator Part Deux: City of Oaks

People of the Triangle,

Back in May we held our inaugural Triangulator scavenger hunt in Durham. Over thirty people participated in the six hour multi-media, multi-modal (sub)urban (mis)adventure.

In the Bull City we climbed, we rhymed, and we memorialized, discovering coal chutes and hidden swimming pools and secret passageways in the process. We learned about why Durham was the city of medicine long before Duke Hospitals, unearthed the ghosts of the city’s industrial past and experimented with new uses for Fufu flour and Waxy Corn. But most importantly, we were able to see Durham in new ways: finding new intrigue and beauty in the places and people we pass by every day and discovering parts of the city (sometimes right around the corner) that we never knew existed. Check out some of the photos from the event on our interactive map (circa 1923).
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N.C. State Archives – now on Flickr!

I found out Tuesday from the excellent New Raleigh blog that the North Carolina State Archives has posted a number of its historical photographs to Flickr. This is without a doubt totally awesome.

For me the juiciest photos are the ones of early Raleigh, most of which are from the Carolina Power and Light Photograph Collection. I’ve always wanted to know where Raleigh’s trolley tracks used to be, and here’s a mess of photos that shows just that.

Kudos to the State Archives for making these historical photographs so easily available!

More mall musings

I was reading this article about other cities’ battles with teens loitering around malls and it got me thinking: do we want to discourage teens from going to malls – a place where they can be better supervised? Do we really want to disperse them elsewhere? That sounds like a bad idea.

I mean, while the mall melee was scary, no one was seriously hurt (a credit to our police agencies). And as far as I know, before the fight broke out these kids weren’t committing any serious crimes. Perhaps an occasional shoplifting, but not drug-dealing or shootings.

At the mall, the ways kids can get into trouble are limited. Perhaps the answer is simply to beef up mall security.

Might minimizing multiple Mountain Dews mitigate mall melees?

A friend suggests the easiest way to keep teens from loitering in mall food courts is to eliminate the food court’s free drink refills. While it wouldn’t be the only solution I think it would be a step in the right direction.

There’s also the “mosquito” method as well. It would need to be used where teens are and not kids, however, so that rules out a food court. Might be good for the open-air drug markets around town, though.

The Sir Walter

Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel

Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel


I took another lunchtime walk down F-street today. This time as I took in the sights of a changing Raleigh downtown, I began to really appreciate one building which has stayed the same: the Sir Walter Raleigh hotel. It is truly a beautiful, grand old building, one that still shows the ritz it was known for when it was still a hotel.

If I ever won the lottery I’d buy it and reopen it as one of downtown Raleigh’s most elegant hotels.

Gang fight at Triangle Town Center?

So, uh, North Raleigh needs to deal with its gang problem. Three hundred gang members fighting at the normally-quiet (and sometimes dull) Triangle Town Center mall? Whodathunkit?

On the way back from our balloon adventure we passed two police cars screaming north up Capital Boulevard. The fact that multiple agencies were responding made me guess the call was a big one. Still, I never would’ve guessed it was a gang fight at that mall.

I think this incident might open people’s eyes to the fact that no one is immune to the problem of gangs.

Fourth Friday Downtown Jams in Raleigh

I was trying to finish up work here when I noticed the near-constant stream of traffic outside my office window had come to a halt. In its place are a number of tents, tables, and chairs.

Off to New Raleigh for the answer: today is the first of a downtown music event called the Fourth Friday Downtown Jams.

Sez New Raleigh:

If you’re trying to have a post-work week beverage in the street while checking out some early evening music–then definitely step over to Hargett Street on Friday, July 25th. This blues jam block party will be the first in a new monthly Fourth Friday event featuring Jazz, Blues, Reggae, and Afrobeat jams in downtown Raleigh

If I wasn’t playing Barney Fife tonight I might want to go. There doesn’t seem to be any website showing who’s organizing this (Raleigh Times is my guess) and the New Raleigh site is borked at the moment (note to New Raleigh: check out Apache), but take my word for it: this looks like it’ll be fun.

Downtown vistas

I took a lunchtime walk down Fayetteville Street to see how ol’ F-street is shaping up. At the south end (the plaza end), workers have removed the 7-foot fencing that blocked the view of Memorial Hall while work on the Marriott was being completed.

I stood there marveling at the view. For the first time ever, I could stand right in the middle of Fayetteville Street and enjoy views of both Memorial Auditorium and the State Capitol.

What a great idea it was to rip out that dilapidated, view-blocking cement monster of a civic center!

Kelli Woolard found

The human remains found near the car of missing Johnston County woman Kelli Woolard were identified as Woolard, police say. Police say there were “no indications of foul play.”

If you’ll recall, Woolard’s car was in the parking lot of a day care center and her remains were found in the nearby woods. This was four miles away from her job at Duke Raleigh Hospital. I’ve seen nothing in the news to indicate she was a mother and I assume Woolard wasn’t into geocaching and so would not ordinarily be wandering through the woods. How is this not foul play? Or does “no indications” mean the Johnston County Sheriff is still gathering evidence?

I wonder if the autopsy revealed how she died. Heart attack, maybe? As a nurse, wouldn’t she know how to get to the nearest hospital?

Questions, questions.

Update: Apparently Woolard had a drug problem and killed herself. Sorry to hear that.