Warehouses in Seaboard Station under heavy renovation along Seaboard Avenue on June 16, 2012.
Musing About Downtown and Our State Capitol Building
My wife and I were recently traveling around New England and during one of the stops, I had a thought that I wanted to share. One of the things her and I do when traveling into new states in this country is to make a point to visit the capital city and see the capitol. The idea is to hopefully get to all 50 states one day. On our New England journey, we stopped in Augusta, Maine and something hit me as we walked around the building looking for good photo spots. Of the few capitols we’ve visited, there are some located within the city center and others that are not.
That thought doesn’t sound exciting at first so let’s compare a map view of the Maine Statehouse and our North Carolina Capitol.
The thought that hit me was that I very much like how the NC Capitol is part of the fabric of downtown Raleigh and I think it’s clear in the map view above. You can see it when on Fayetteville Street. The Capitol grounds are practically a park and events are hosted there. People walk through it all the time. Because of it’s proximity to the core downtown, the capitol is public space and it mixes very well into our downtown.
I almost had a counter thought though. If you are thinking, like I later did, how can one compare a city of 400,000+ like Raleigh with Augusta, Maine’s 20,000? It’s likely that a larger city will naturally grow up around its capitol right? Well, take a look at the Oklahoma State Capitol in the population 500,000+ city of Oklahoma City.
It could be worse.
Oak City Cycling
Oak City Cycling is promoting cycling as a viable commuting alternative. Here’s a great video of what these guys are up to in and around downtown Raleigh.
CityCamp Raleigh Sets Up For Year 2 This Weekend, $5000 Prize
Last year, CityCamp Raleigh raised the bar on the city’s adoption of open-sourced solutions and helped bring citizens to the problem solving table. This weekend, the gang behind the event are hosting it again with the same $5000 prize for the best idea and solution.
Within a year, CityCamp has been at the root of a few accomplishments in the city as the website states:
Here are some of the ways the first CityCamp Raleigh was an inspiration or catalyst in helping to advance open government and create next-generation solutions locally:
- The Raleigh City Council unanimously approved a resolution stating its intent to foster “open” government by encouraging the use of open-source systems and open access to data.
- City Councilors agreed to provide $50,000 annually to fund an open data catalog. Raleigh city data will be digitally published and made ready for use by city residents, software developers or news outlets.
- City of Raleigh website visitors can now sign up for a free service called MyRaleigh Subscriptions that delivers email and text alerts about topics such as street closings, public meetings, city projects, and events.
- Help spur the TriangleWiki project – a free, openly-editable, community-owned website that gathers first-hand information on local history, events, greenways, parks and everything interesting related to the Triangle region.
CityCamp now sets up Raleigh for even more throughout the next year and everyone is invited to the free event this weekend.
Register for all or just parts of the CityCamp weekend.
Friday, June 1
Where: Vintage 21 (117 S. West Street)
Time: Doors at 12pm, Panel discussion and lightning talk at 1pm.
Saturday/Sunday June 2 and 3
Where: AIA NC (14 E. Peace Street)
Time: Saturday 9-5, Sunday 10-3 with group presentations to follow.
See and hear more about CityCamp.
- CityCamp Raleigh Flickr Group
- CityCamp Raleigh Youtube channel
Spring 2012 Restaurant Roundup
Summer isn’t quite here yet so keep enjoying the fabulous weather we’re having before the heat arrives. While you’re out exploring, a few new eats are in the works as well as some upcoming ones that continue to test our patience. Ever since the winter update, there hasn’t been as much movement on the eats list as some of the past seasons.
You can still find new places to eat on the ever growing Eats list though. Here’s the latest tips and openings to look forward to:
- Oro has opened this past weekend and the tapas menu looks very tempting. They are located in the PNC Plaza building at the corner of Martin and Wilmington Street. (photo above)
- With the Nature Research Center opening in April, the Daily Planet Cafe on Jones Street is open with the museum’s hours. It may not be for a night out but with local ingredients and beer, it could make for a solid lunch.
- Blue Mango in Glenwood South has opened in the 222 building.
- The Raleigh Times is expanding, adding more seats and a rooftop area.
- A Laotian restaurant, Bida Manda, is planned to open at the former location of Fai Thai on Blount Street.
- Zinda, the Pan-Asian restaurant coming to the PNC building, is still covered up and waiting to open. According to their Twitter, they are now hiring:
https://twitter.com/#!/ZindaRaleigh/status/202048507710935040
Pic of the Week
The North Carolina State Bar building under construction at the corner of Blount and Edenton Streets. We’ve discussed the building before. (with a rendering)
The City of Raleigh Flag
About a week ago, Josh Shaffer at the N&O wrote a piece about what could be the new icon for Raleigh. He suggests that the now open Nature Research Center’s 70-foot globe needs consideration for that title. The bronze acorn and the shimmer wall were other landmarks mentioned but I’m going to throw the City of Raleigh flag into the mix. Yes, Raleigh has a flag and in case you haven’t seen it this post will take care of that. The flag should always be considered one of our core symbols and I don’t think we give it enough love.
In other cities, the flag is a sense of pride. Chicago and Washington DC have great flags and if you’re lucky, you may find citizens with tattoos of it. (anyone in Raleigh can claim having this?)
In 2004, the North American Vexillological Association did a survey against 150 US city flags. Respondents answered on a 0 to 10 scale on what they thought were a well designed flags. We ranked 56 on that list, highest North Carolina city by the way, so flag design may not be a huge feather in our cap.
Still, I want to ask this question; Why are there so few Raleigh flags around town?
The Raleigh flag design is over 100 years old but has an interesting history that may explain it’s rather nonexistent role in our city.
A Little History
The City of Raleigh flag has a nice, mysterious story to it as its original purpose was not made for the city at all. The most influential event on this would be during the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898 as part of the Spanish-American War.
The USS Raleigh (second US ship named after the city at the time) played a key role in the fighting in the Philippines and back at home, the local newspapers kept Raleighites enthralled with stories of victory at Manila Bay. Thomas R. Jernigan, a former Raleigh resident who was representing the United States in China at the time wrote home saying:
tell Mayor [William M.] Russ she was in the thickest of the fight and came out in excellent shape. The Raleigh is a splendid vessel, and may be counted on to do her share of the fighting in this war.”
The cruiser would stay in Asia for a bit longer returning back to the United States with a stop in New York in April of 1899. The city sent representatives there for the national welcoming reception for the ship.
At the same time that month, the Raleigh Board of Aldermen (what is now a version of our current city council) decided to give a city flag as a gift to the cruiser. A flag had not existed at the time and so began the process in creating one. A special committee was formed for this specific purpose.
First, color was needed. The colors of red and yellow were adopted for the city’s centennial (1892) however for the flag, these two colors were seen as “too Spanish” and not used. Sir Walter Raleigh’s colors of red and white were chosen instead and described as “the colors emblematic of Raleigh.”
The Board of Aldermen then contracted Miss Kate Denson to design the flag for a fee of $50. Her flag consisted of three colored, vertical stripes (red, white, red) with unique designs on each side. On one side, the flag contained a figure of an oak tree inside a gold circle with the words “City of Raleigh, North Carolina, 1792” all surrounded by a wreath of oak leaves and acorns. The other side contains the Sir Walter Raleigh coat of arms with the words, “Presented to the U.S. Cruiser Raleigh, the ‘First and Last at Manila.'”
While Miss Denson was contracted in April 1899, other events with the ship were ongoing.
News that the ship would next make a stop in Wilmington, North Carolina quickly spread and Raleigh made big plans for a welcome party in the port city. In addition, there was news that the ship’s officers and crew were going to present “a gun captured at Manila” as a gift to the city. The “Nordenfeldt 3-pounder” was given to the city on May 5, 1899 and then again the day after at a more formal ceremony.
Miss Denson’s flag was not ready in time and Attorney R. N. Simms, spokesman for the city, made an announcement at the ceremony that “a handsome flag of the new city colors” would be later delivered.
It’s not proven whether the flag ever made it to the ship because the USS Raleigh was decommissioned in June and Miss Denson would complete the flag in October. That month, the 43″ x 69″ flag with gilded fringes all around flew at the North Carolina State Fair. The flag was officially presented to the Board of Alderman on December 1, 1899. Satisfied with her work, they contracted with her for a second flag for the City of Raleigh. No records exist whether this flag still had the Manila Bay reference like the original did.
Here’s where the mystery starts to settle in.
The USS Raleigh was recommissioned during the periods of 1903-1907 and 1911-1919. No records exist proving the flag ever flew on the ship.
In 1938, one of these two flags was lent to the next USS Raleigh (third US ship named after Raleigh) in order to be copied. Upon return, then City Clerk J. E. Sawyer noted that it was “now nearly worn out.” This left Raleigh with one remaining flag.
The mystery is now in full effect as no mention or public record of the flag has been found after 1938.
In 1960, the flag resurfaced. William Carper, the City Manager at the time, found one of the flags in a storage area within City Hall. Talks of making the flag official for the city started and during that same year the city council adopted the design as the “authentic flag of the city.”
Restoring the uncovered flag was an eleven year process and it returned to Raleigh in 1980 where it was on display at City Hall.
On the flag’s 100th birthday, 1999, the flag was given to the Raleigh City Museum.
Back to the present
Today, the flag found in 1960 is still on display at the city museum with a recently updated exhibit. Along with much more information than provided here, the exhibit has a nice artist rendering of the second USS Raleigh.
So how does one get a copy of our city flag?
City of Raleigh flags outside of Joel Lane’s Public House
My research has fallen rather flat as the flag is a custom design and is pretty costly for someone to get through a flag shop. Where’s the local vexillographer at anyway?
The city does have a stash of custom made flags for sale in case someone is interested. For $98, you can get a 4′ x 6′ flag to show your pride. Talk to Barbara at the city Public Affairs office (919-996-3001) to make arrangements.
Who will be the first to step up and make the Raleigh flag available for the masses? If anyone is interested in city branding, this could be a topic to expand on.
Raleigh Musings, A New Banner, and Life
Another week, another disappointment. Am I disappointed with downtown Raleigh? Absolutely not. I hope everyone has had the opportunity to just be outside and to walk around these days. The trees are practically full now and the warm breezes are refreshing. Even with that going on, I’m disappointed with the amount of blogging I’ve done here on RalCon and I bet long time readers have noticed the slow down. I’m using this blog post to reflect a bit.
I’ve updated the banner image on the site and I’m a bit excited about it. For awhile I’ve had a version of this great skyline shot I took from down in the Boylan Wye. It has been almost three years since I took that photo and used it as the site’s banner image. Slowly, very slowly, I’ve started to realize that the skyline shouldn’t be what Raleigh is about at all.
Downtown Raleigh’s real life is on the sidewalks and the growth that this blog has been following for the past five years is all about the network of treasures within this small area. It’s not what you see from afar but what is happening between those buildings that make downtown Raleigh a place to be and experience. I’ve found myself becoming more and more interested in the human interactions that occur around all those structures within the five districts of downtown.
The banner image is a snapshot of humans interacting on what is clearly our main street, Fayetteville Street. This is how I want to showcase our city. I hope an image like this and ones similar to it make any new visitor to this blog see it and think, “Hey, I want to be there.”
Transit, public space, the sidewalks and the businesses that connect are just some of the topics I want to keep talking about. New buildings are a part of it and while the skyline looks great on TV in high-def it is not what is going to keep people coming back if there’s no life in downtown. I’ve realized that I’ve been taking this approach ever since day one of blogging for RalCon. All my material and photos come from walking the sidewalks and seeing things for myself.
My job is more demanding these days and life put me as the star (or the number 2 as most people tell me) of an upcoming wedding so times are tight. Along with some neighborhood projects to keep me busy I’m sometimes slammed and I can’t get to these great topics mentioned earlier.
But times may change and we’ll one day get to discuss those topics more in-depth. Get out and walk downtown Raleigh tonight or this weekend. It’s a great time to do it.