If you’re in Central North Carolina, aka the Piedmont, this Thanksgiving you might consider visiting the charming, post-Revolutionary town of Pittsboro. It’s a little less than twenty miles south of Chapel Hill on US 501. I went with friends in October. As I look out the window today on this holiday weekend, I see the […]
Trendy Charlotte, NC. I continue my quest to chronicle mid-sized American cities undergoing a Renaissance or, rather, a full-blown explosion. The title image is of downtown Charlotte, with the pointy-top Duke Energy building in the middle-ground center left and the spiky-top Bank of the America building in the background off-center right. Since I’m far from […]
This week I got a preview tour of One City Center, 110 Corcoran Street, downtown Durham. Outside there’s more Bull City imagery, with the Durham Bull in front of Bulldega, which you can see on the ground floor corner (still under construction). Four flights up is the wework sign. The entrance: The lobby: Here is […]
Bull City = Durham, North Carolina. If you’re curious, read how Durham got its nickname. Me, I’m more interested in what’s happening here now. Look at the title image again. I can hardly imagine a more ordinary building. Let’s call it ‘unpreposessing.’ The address is 1107 West Main Street, and it sits right across from the […]
When I land in a new country I like to ask the locals who their famous sons and daughters are. Well, I just returned home to North Carolina after being abroad for 4 months, and it occurred to me to make a list of famous North Carolinians. Famous North Carolinians: Off the Top of My […]
Title image: The speedway display at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Charlotte, North Carolina. NASCAR stands for: National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. This past weekend I went to Charlotte to visit my older son and his family. We’ve all lived in North Carolina a long time, and he has lived in Charlotte already […]
Title image: Old Orange County Courthouse c. 1844, Hillsborough, NC. Over Memorial Day weekend I was invited to a garden party in Hillsborough, NC. Before showing up at the party I decided to do a walking tour of the main part of town. My idea was that you don’t have to go half-way around the […]
Title image: Durham NC: Partial sykline from the south. Any image of downtown Durham has to include railroad tracks. The glass-and-steel building on the left is One City Center. In the center of the title image you’ll see Durham’s current slogan painted on the red brick building in the middle: Find Your Cool. It replaced […]
Tenor Charles Castronovo as Prince Tamino with Julie Taymor‘s bear puppets in the 2017 Metropolitan Opera production of The Magic Flute – A Live in HD Met Performance I’m not much of an opera person. Give me an American musical with its snappy song and dance. It’s hard to outdo Nancy Kwan in the 1961 movie […]
West Campus, Abele Quad, sets up for the inauguration. Image Credit: Duke Chronicle Yesterday – Thursday, October 5 – the new president of Duke University, Vincent Price, was inaugurated in a ceremony on Abele Quad in front of Duke Chapel. Vincent Price, Duke’s 10th President President Price came to Duke from the University of Pennsylvania […]