Dear Charlotte

A unicorn's love letter to the Queen City

Unicorn:

1. a mythical creature resembling a horse, with a single horn in the center of its forehead

2. a relatively new company that is valued at $1 billion or more by investors

3. a native Charlottean

In 1967, rumored to be the last year Mercy Hospital delivered babies, I arrived on the scene of a North Carolina town (pop. 258k) called Charlotte. Today, as one of the top 15 most populous cities in the country, the Charlotte metropolitan area (which now includes ten counties) is bursting with 2.8 million people. But Charlotte still feels like a big small town to me.

I grew up in the house my parents still own. Unlike my own children, my first time leaving Charlotte was when I went off to college. I’ve moved away and back a handful of times in my adult life. After college in Chapel Hill, back to Charlotte. After grad school for my husband in Ann Arbor, back to Charlotte. After twice living in New York City, back to Charlotte both times.

Unicorns of a certain age will recall relics like Myers Park Hardware that smelled of birdseed and housed a tiny post office in the back. And the Town House Restaurant, where my parents met in the late ‘50s and I later worked as a hostess when it went white-tablecloth chic in the ‘80s. Those institutions plus the A&P were razed, eventually bringing us the mammoth Harris Teeter grocery store with two stories and a wine bar. Cheers?

Across from the old A&P, I can still see, as if looking through the backseat window of my mom’s Country Squire: Hugh McManaway directing traffic with his signature white towel. This was before anyone could have imagined a gold statue in his honor at the corner of Queens and Providence roads. A well-known eccentric, he was the self-appointed traffic director of the intersection and his directions often conflicted with the lights, but no matter. He waved his towel almost every day for more than twenty years until he “retired” in 1976. The sculpture “Old Man Traffic” was erected in his honor at the intersection in 2000.

Photo credit: David Aaron Moore

I wonder what Hugh would make of his intersection now. And his fame. The statue is often decorated with white tulle and homemade signs announcing the latest bride and groom to be wed at Myers Park Methodist Church or Myers Park Presbyterian Church. (With Myers Park Baptist Church another block down it’s no wonder some locals refer to that intersection as “Jesus Junction.”) And sometimes Hugh is outfitted in a Carolina Panthers or Charlotte Hornets jersey on game day.

Some newcomers to Charlotte are frustrated by the multiple use of the same name for different roads, like the Queens series for example. It doesn’t bother me one bit that there is a Queens Road not to be confused with Queens Road West not to be confused with Queens Road East, and that Queens University is not situated on any of them but very close to all of them. It makes sense to me that the Queen City would have some Queens Roads. (And you’d be forgiven if you wonder where that apostrophe is.)

The stately oaks and grand homes along these streets pay perfect homage to our city’s namesake, Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Queen of Great Britain and Ireland she was the mother of fifteen (!) children with her husband King George III. According to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (a branch of which sits at Jesus Junction), settlers wanted to honor the king by naming their city after the king’s wife. And to curry favor. It paid off when they were able to persuade the colonial N.C. General Assembly to build the county’s courthouse in Charlotte to serve as a hub for visitors.

As for the part of town that houses the courthouse and the Charlotte Hornets, Charlotte Ballet, the recently refurbished Carolina Theatre of 1920’s silent picture fame, I am in the proud camp of natives who patently refuses to call downtown Charlotte “Uptown.” When my children try to use the u-word, I correct them as readily as those who require their kids to answer with “yes ma’am” over “yeah.” Show a little respect, please.

Who of my fellow unicorns remember things like the Charlotte Symphony playing concerts in the bandshell at Freedom Park, playing on the train there (before they built the safety fence), or ice skating at Eastland Mall (demolished), where I got my ears pierced when I was ten? Who else saw Purple Rain or Back to the Future or Top Gun with your high school buddies at SouthPark Cinemas (razed)?

Did any of you work for the “green team” (First Union) after college as I did when there were only two banks in town? Or maybe you were on the red team (NationsBank). Any of your kids going to school where you once did? My daughters walked the same elementary school halls I did at Myers Park Traditional School, which still smells the same. And one finished at Myers Park High School. (Go Mustangs!)

The sprawling metro Charlotte area now includes places like Matthews, Moorseville, and Monroe. Waxhaw, Weddington, and Wingate. And boy how we love those double names: Indian Trail, Kings Mountain, Wesley Chapel, Mint Hill, Fort Mill, and Rock Hill (the latter two of which are in South Carolina).

Speaking of South Cackalackie, when the drinking age was still 18 there we’d hop on I-77 and hit The Money for a night out, or at least pop into a Circle K for some Miller Lites or Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers to sneak back across the boarder. Anyone?

Ah, the mems. Thank you, dear Charlotte, for welcoming me home with generous arms each time I left you for greener pastures that were never as warm in any sense of the word. There is no better balm, especially after two stints in Manhattan, than to land gently back in bough of the Queen City. But this unicorn will never call it Uptown.