"Veranda Rights"
Raleigh, NC - May 2009 (Click to embiggen)
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Showing posts with label historic places. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historic places. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
The World in Black & White: 1.22.2010
"Millrace"
Raleigh, NC - December, 2008 (Click to embiggen)
To see more from the WBW Community of Bloggers, visit The World in Black & White
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Saturday, January 09, 2010
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Thursday Challenge #54: Light
"Christmas Tree at the State Capitol"
Raleigh, NC - December 2008 (Click to embiggen)
Next Week's Challenge: "Open Theme (2 weeks)"
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The World in Black & White: 12.23.2009
"Yates Mill Dam"
Raleigh, NC - December 2008 (Click to embiggen)
To see more from the WBW Community of Bloggers, visit The World in Black & White
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Watery Wednesday #59: Holiday Waterfall
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Whatever-You-Celebrate"
Raleigh, NC - December 2008 (Click to embiggen)
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Monday, December 21, 2009
My World Tuesday #62: Staying Power
"Family Owned and Operated Since 1874"
Raleigh, NC - November 2009 (Click to embiggen)
This image and many others are featured in my book Distant Echoes, available from Amazon.com
Another shot from the same night as my last two MWT's (The R Line, and The Disco District). The four story red brick building at center frame is now the Raleigh City Museum, a cooperative effort among several non-profit groups. But back in 1874 it was new shiny new Briggs Hardware Co. building, and the tallest building in town. Briggs would retain the title of Raleigh's tallest building until 1907, (though I couldn't tell you what building finally knocked it off that pedestal).Legend has it that sometime prior to the Union occupation of Raleigh in 1865 Thomas Briggs (the company's already successful founder), saw the writing on the wall and converted all his Confederate bearer notes to gold and silver "hard money". He then selected a distinctive grove of trees and buried the coins there to keep them from falling into the hands of Union soldiers. Then during the occupation, the Union troops set up camp near the grove and cut down all the trees removing the "markers" and making recovering the buried loot ...well... challenging. The legend goes on to say that it took several years before Briggs was able to locate and recover all of the money, by which time the value of gold and silver had presumably risen enabling him to construct his legacy building.The building continued to house the company until 1995 when the family moved into a new location near the intersection of Six Forks Road and Atlantic Avenue. (Briggs Hardware is still in business, and still wholly owned by the family. How's that for staying power?) The lower floors housed the hardware business, but the upper levels were rented out to a variety of concerns over the years. In the 1890's the Oak City Guard used some of the space for drill practice (that must have made for some interesting shopping experiences) and Raleigh's first YMCA was also housed there at one time (I'm guessing this was before the "Y" had an indoor pool). The building looks pretty much the same today as it did in 1874 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Fittingly, it is now a museum chronicling the history of the city.
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Sunday, December 20, 2009
Welcome To Machines #9
"Cog-nition"
Raleigh, NC - December 2008 (Click to embiggen)
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Thursday, December 03, 2009
The World in Black & White: 12.3.2009
"In Through the Out Door"
Raleigh, NC - December 2008 (Click to embiggen)
To see more from the WBW Community of Bloggers, visit The World in Black & White
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Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Edifice Rex #6
"Yates Mill"
Raleigh, NC - December 2008 (Click to embiggen)
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Monday, November 16, 2009
My World Tuesday #57: Sir Walter Hotel
"To Grandmother's House We Go"
Raleigh, NC - October 2009 (Click to embiggen)
One of the cooler aspects of My World is that it gives me a chance to learn things I never knew about places right under my nose. Such is the case with the Sir Walter Hotel on Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh. Until I was researching this post what I knew about the place could have been summed up as "It's an old hotel that was converted to more or less affordable apartments for elderly citizens still able to live independently." Period. Paragraph. End of story.Who knew the place had so much history behind it? Who knew that it's the oldest hotel building in town still standing? Who knew that at one time it was effectively both the "unofficial headquarters" of the state's Democratic Party and was (justifiably) nicknamed North Carolina's "third house of government"? I did not know these things. I knew it was old, I knew that I'd helped move my paternal grandmother in there back in 1979 or 1980, I knew ... well that was about it.Turns out there's a lot more to know about the place. If I'd thought about it (I hadn't) I'd probably have guessed that the Sir Walter had historic status form the state. I might have guessed that it was in the National Register of Historic Places. But honestly, I just never gave it that much thought. I think sometimes we see something so often that we don't see it anymore. Which probably explains why I can go to Greensboro or Durham and come home with a hundred new photos without breaking a sweat, but can't do this in the city where I live.The National Register has done a great job of thumbnailing the history of the Sir Walter, so rather than regurgitating what they've already written, I'll let them tell you about it. Maybe I should check their site for some of the other places I've stopped seeing, eh?
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