Walking Charlotte, North Carolina: 3.8 Miles to Whole Foods
Out the apartment side door, up the street, and carefully walk the sidewalk that turns to rubble when crossing the railroad tracks. Quickly skirt the puddles of water that cars love to drive through. Past the shoeless man sleeping on a ledge and along Rosie's, a quaint little garden and wine place that somehow exists by industrial railroad tracks and the public transportation parking station.
After Rosie's it's into no man's land where drivers take notice that someone is on the sidewalk. Because who the hell would walk here? It's best to get across the interstate overpass before the homeless set up on the intersection corners. They're harmless, but they're quick to offer an untrusting glance and ask for a dollar. Sorry Mr. Homeless, cash isn't carried these days. Got Venmo?
Walking over the interstate is the weirdest portion. Only the people that need to walk over the interstate do so; the carless or the homeless. The city who made these overpasses must've also thought that no one would walk them because the pedestrian only gets 5' of concrete to straddle between a 30' drop to the interstate below or an active overpass where drivers also seem to realize they shouldn't be driving over this.
Waiting for the traffic light to give the pedestrian walk sign gives some time to look into vehicles waiting to move. The trucks and SUVs all have a phone in one hand and the steering wheel in the other. More fingers are on the phone than the steering wheel, interestingly. Meanwhile, the sedans grip the steering wheel with both hands as if preparing to fight for a share of the road from their bigger cousins.
Once past no-man-has-ever-walked-here-land we're into a neighborhood that feels like it should be nicer than it seems. Maybe because North Davidson's impatient traffic runs directly through it feels run down, but the brick veneer on the colonial style homes looks well-kept. No one's out on the white balconies this morning, despite the relatively cool weather. Most balconies have curtains covering them or pushed to the side giving some kind of nod that they are in fact used. Good.
After the neighborhood it's into Charlotte's office outskirts. Many empty parking lots and old buildings. The transition from residential to commercial is abrupt and sudden.
After the first parking block is the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Main Headquarters. Like a guard, the Police HQ marks the start of Government Land. Two pale, stone clad buildings square off with each other. Looking closer the first building is a dressed up parking garage while the latter is the actual office area.
Moving past HQ, is Old City Hall tucked in the center of a green lawn. They spent some time on this building and one wishes that all government buildings still looked this way. Properly proportioned, nicely detailed, and a lawn to walk through.
Adjacent to the sidewalk facing the police headquarters is a fenced-in statue. From the far sidewalk it looks like a figure beating another figure. Walking over to it, it's actually two police officers, one in dire straits the other screaming for help. Not only is the statue relatively small and kept behind a fence, but it's also set below the sidewalk 2 feet or so, as if they wanted to hide it while on display? Weird.
Government Land is empty this Sunday and its front lawns are more appealing to walk through than sidewalks along N. Davidson. Moving along Trade St. Old City Hall has an arching sidewalk to its front door. Hedges guard the pedestrian from walking on the cut grass. Before arriving at the Townhall another walkway intersects the arching walk and it cuts down to the District Attorney's Building.
The Attorney's Building side face is more beautiful than its main entrance with lovely arching windows and a polite stair to the side door. The front face loses the beautiful windows for simple rectangular windows and a column-marked entrance. Trying to get back down to the street a lower level appears that lives beneath the front lawn? Seems interesting, but not enough to go down the steps.
Back at street level is a quick jaunt across to the courthouse area. Multi-generation courthouses sit in different geometric orientations on the rectangular plot. Each of the architects apparently liked to break up plazas with geometric in-ground planters.
The flat face of the Government Center rudely announces itself and the sidewalk brings people to its unappealing face. It's shocking that a Wells Fargo logo isn't on the entrance door. Trying to get away from the large building is difficult and its polished stone wall leads to diagonal stairsteps down to 3rd St.
From the steps to the right is a church that tried to be pretty, but gave up. To the left is a park with statues and walking paths.
Marshall Park is a nice relief from Government Land. It feels like a park built in the days before internet when smoking cigarettes and conversation got stuff done. Some unmoving green water remains in its ponds. The park's paths do several long loops towards the next southern street and are followed for a bit before coming onto an abutting parking lot and building. The building looks private with no name and plenty of chainlink fence set around it.
A school area is next and moving back towards N. Davidson the sounds of the interstate are heard. The interstate cuts a boundary that signals it's time to cut into Charlotte's Uptown. The expensive apartment buildings lining the interstate bring the first pedestrians seen since starting. Uptown Charlotte rises once across Caldwell St's nine lanes.
Whole Foods is near the Uptown's border and it's quick to drop off Amazon return packages and buy a Vitamin Water (Zero calorie, obviously) before being back on the street. The impervious surfaces of the city are starting to radiate heat. The time for meandering is over. Back home it is.
This time Caldwell Street will be the route home. The Nascar hall of fame sits along the busy road, but nobody would ever know by looking at it. For some reason, the Nascar Hall of Fame is the only time the sport has ever shown restraint. No gaudy colors or patterns. No beer and M&M advertisements. No American muscle dripping with Saudi gasoline. Instead it's a round, brown metal panel facade with faux openings. The only hint that this building is dedicated to American race cars is the checkerboard pedestrian walkways across nearby streets. The 50 Shades of Grey Embassy Suites hotel across the street has more gumption than Nascar. The heck?
The direct approach on Caldwell isn't fun. To the right is more parking lots, somewhat filled at least, to the left are towering hotels clad in awful EIFS. Waiting at an intersection is a building with fancy columns and Greek lettering that reads Charlotte National Building on a worn plaque. No clue what that is.
The Federal Reserve building looks like a bunker as expected. The Spectrum Center peeks its head out behind the condos it hides behind. The Spectrum Center looks to be a better place to host banking conferences than it does NBA teams. Which the Hornets' record reflects.
New construction for a health and rehabilitation building puts the sidewalk under a plywood cover. A brick building sits on the next sidewalk, its louvered "windows" blowing cold exhaust air onto the passerby. A brief smile shared by the only other pedestrian walking this patch of concrete.
A pack of electric scooters creates obstacles near Tattooz & Booz where workers in black sweep up trash into receptacles smelling of weed. The trees along here give a nice break from the sun.
In the distance UNCC's glass stacked boxes rise out of gravel parking lots and to the right are the brick townhouses. The all brick townhouses give way to more and more Hardie board siding the closer to the interstate one gets.
Again, checking inside waiting cars to make sure the drivers realize someone is about to walk in front of them. A homeless man with a lot of empty bottles sits in the trees lining the interstate. Across East 12th St. is the wrought iron fence of the public transportation depot. Walking along its backside shows rows and rows of blue and grey wrapped buses of all sizes.
A woman is marching back and forth on a median in between four lanes of traffic, like an auctioneer trying to dredge up more bids. Apparently there wasn't much business as she gives up the march to go talk to a man in a wheelchair beating a blanket laid on green hedges.
Following the sidewalk as it tops over a hill shows Optimist Park food hall below, but a slanted sidewalk behind an apartment is a quicker route home. Two loading trucks and a police car with a cop on her phone park in the dead end street and after looking both ways it's across N. Davidson to the apartment's side door.
Distance: 3.8 miles