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.