Page 48 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 4 #3

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Charlotte was the home of the Bank
of North Carolina, later to become the
Bank of America. Belk’s and Efird’s
Department stores gave the downtown
two “big city” department stores. How-
ever, we also had Tanner’s Restaurant,
an orange juice, hot-shelled peanuts,
and hot dog place near the Square (in-
tersection of Trade and Tryon), and the
Charlotte Theater, a run-down movie
theater where tickets were 10 cents. Of
course, we also had a Woolworth’s and
Kress Five and Dime Store. My best
friend Joe and I used to walk or take the
bus downtown and hang out for hours.

As a junior and senior at Harding
High School, I worked as a “copy boy”
writing obituaries and the weather at
The Charlotte Observer, which is still
located downtown. I left Charlotte in
1968 when I got married, and Joyce and
I moved to Chapel Hill so I could enter
graduate school and she could finish at
UNCG.
Although we still had family and
friends in Charlotte and visited there
several times a year, our visits over the
years became less frequent and I paid
less attention to Charlotte’s growth.

Today, Charlotte is the 17th largest
city at 775,000, and the actual city of Atlanta is smaller at 420,000, although its metropolitan
area population is much larger Charlotte’s.

Because I felt I had lost touch with the city, especially the downtown area, I thought it would
be interesting to spend some time exploring the area and taking some photos. I asked my friend,
Ernie, who still lives in Charlotte, if he would like to “shoot” downtown. So, this past May, I

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48 | Reflections | Reflections