Fayetteville Street a mall no more

Raleigh leaders are hoping that four blocks of asphalt and a $9.33 million investment will spark a downtown revitalization. If Saturday was any indication, they just might get their wish. Thousands of people converged upon downtown Raleigh to celebrate the reopening of Fayetteville Street to vehicular traffic after 30 years as a pedestrian mall. I had an internship at the Raleigh City Museum while I was a student at Peace College. I remember walking to the museum everyday and seeing all of the hustle and bustle of city life around Fayetteville Street Mall. The mall was a melting pot of people from every walk of life. I remember seeing a homeless man with a bike sitting at CVS most mornings or afternoons. I remember seeing women in business suits wearing tennis shoes. Business men waited in the same sausage dog line as I did. The smell of those sausage dogs is one of the things that is synonomous with Fayetteville Street Mall to me. That cart, Chick-Fil-A and a Subway around the corner were my lunch time hangouts. Other things like the sound of the man playing the saxophone also remind me of the old days at the mall. But for all those nostalgic memories, there are the memories of the vacant buildings, and all the signs of a downtown area that had lost its charm. I was one of the estimated 20,000 people who welcomed the return of Fayetteville Street to its former glory. Not because I necessarily prefer it that way (I don’t really have a preference), but because it signals something new, something exciting. The News and Observer had an interesting series about the reopening of Fayetteville Street and the revitalization of downtown last week. The Independent Weekly also had a good story about the downtown projects back in March (http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A29165). Raleigh Wide Open was a success, but only time will tell if the efforts to resuscitate the heart of the Capital City is also a success. View morie flickr photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/waynesutton/tags/raleighwideopen/  to see pictures from the celebration.

Posted by LaToya M. Sutton on Writing is what I do.

BarCampRDU Summary – The good, the bad and the wish I did

I attended the BarcampRDU event this weekend and here is my personal summary.

http://barcamp.org/BarCampRDU

The good

1. I met a lot of cool people, Fred (http://claimid.com/), Tara Hunt (http://horsepigcow.com/) , Chris Messina (http://factorycity.net/) (http://citizenagency.com/blog/) and some other great lulu.com employees such as Jackson Fred.

2. I had the opportunity to help out and volunteer, which made me feel if as I had something to do with the event.

3. FREE STUFF – I left with a two free barcamp shirts (one for the wife), a hat and t-shirt from rpath, a and Ruby on Rrails book.

4. Networking – I exchanged business cards with a lot of people; hopefully a job or new business will come out of out.

The bad

The only bad thing I would say about the conference is that there were a lot of application developers there, so some sessions were over my head. Although I think all the sessions were great, even the Dancing with Girls. I wished there was more on computers, Web 2.0 and other technology. I learned something in each session I attended.
I even led a session titled “Online Bsiness Model” where the best advice was you still need a business plan no matter what business you are starting.

The wish I did

I wish I had taken a few pictures with some of the attendees there. I missed a great opportunity to take one with Chris, Tara and Fred.

Summary

I give the first BarcampRDU an A+.

Stay on the look out for – BarCamp Earth – http://barcamp.org/BarCampEarth

Posted by Wayne E. Sutton on a long way from 113