I took this photo of Hugh Morson High School with my Kodak Instamatic in late February, 1966 -- the beginning of the end.

As we move into a new year, many of us can’t help but to think about old acquaintances and reflect on things past. A beloved friend I’ll never forget was Hugh Morson High School.

In 1923 the Raleigh school board hired Atlanta architect C. Gadsen Sayre to design four modern school buildings. These were  Hugh Morson High School near Moore Square, Washington High School for African-Americans on the southern extension of Fayetteville St., Wiley Elementary School on Saint Mary’s St. and Thompson Elementary School on Hargett St. The high school was named after long-time Raleigh educator Hugh Morson. He had run the Raleigh Male Academy during the late 19th century, and became the first principal of Raleigh High School when it opened on W. Morgan St. in 1908.

(Photo courtesy the N.C. Office of Archives and History, State Archives)

Beautifully designed in the Jacobethan style of architecture (aka Collegiate Gothic) popular for school buildings of the time, Hugh Morson Hign School sat impressively in the center of the block bounded by Hargett, Person, Morgan, and Bloodworth streets. It was delightfully embellished with limestone and terra cotta ornamentation, and was a proud showcase for the city of Raleigh.

This is how Hugh Morson appeared in 1934; from a yearbook of that same year. (Photo courtesy Vicky Vernon)

I attended Hugh Morson in its final years, 1963-1965. It had been demoted to junior high school status in 1955. I was a student there when Kennedy was assassinated and during the time school segregation ended in Raleigh (we had a single African-American in the entire student body in 1965).  And Morson was where I got into my first teenage fistfight, and, sadly, lost a good friend because of it.

Over Christmas break in 1965 we 9th graders were transferred to the new Aycock Junior High, and old Hugh Morson closed forever. The building was subsequently demolished during the spring and summer of 1966.  Within a couple years the Terry Sanford Federal Building was built on the site.

Although I was only 14 at the time, I had fallen in love with the old building during my two and a half year tenure there. After I learned of its imminent demise, I felt compelled to chronicle its destruction. Over the course of the next few months I visited the site on weekends whenever I could get downtown, and took these photos with my trusty Kodak Instamatic camera. Ultimately, I took 32 photos, most of which I have published here. I remember the building’s demolition as if it were yesterday.

To our Goodnight Raleigh readers, then, I present my photo narrative of the last days of Hugh Morson High School.

Another shot from February 1966.

Exterior stairwells were located at each of the four corners of the building. When it rained, the water would pour through the open portals. There were two lion’s head gargoyles built into each stairwell that drained the water out. Herr Howard taught us 9th grade German in the classroom seen to the right of the ground floor portal.

This photo of Hugh Morson High School was taken in early March, 1966, just after demolition began. The six large humanoid gargoyles that graced the facade can be clearly seen above the third floor. I distinctly remember their ominous faces staring down at me as I would enter the massive front door archway.

The same viewpoint a few weeks later.

This is another view of the front of Hugh Morson, taken in early March, 1966.

By mid-March the imposing main facade had been heavily battered.

Mrs. Oswald taught us 7th grade math in the classroom seen on the far right first floor in this view.

This is how it looked a few weeks later. After I took this shot, I began to feel brave enough to enter the building itself. I explored wherever demolition debris did not hinder my path. I tried taking photos inside, but without adequate light and no flash, sadly, nothing came of the attempt other than woefully underexposed negatives.

An enormous crane was brought in to do the dirty work of demolition. A giant weight hung from a cable  attached to end of it. The photo below, taken probably in late June, 1966, shows that crane.

My heart was broken to see my beloved school in this condition. Even after all this time, it still breaks my heart today.

On the fourth floor was the band room, as we called it. Music and art were also taught here. The photo above was probably taken in late March or early April, 1966. By now, at this stage of demo, only three gargoyles remained in position– the others lay strewn about the debris on the ground below.

I was in Miss Perkins’ 7th period music class in this room on November 22, 1963 when our principal, Mr. Proctor announced over the PA system that President Kennedy had been shot.

Demo progresses on the southwest stairwell. You can see the lion’s heads water drains above the first and second floor portals.

There was no fence surrounding the demolition site (nor at any other demo site I explored in Raleigh back then), so access was unencumbered. I remember one Saturday in the later stages of demo as I was rummaging around, I saw several battered gargoyles lying about the grounds. Hmm, I thought– why not!

I managed to snag one of the lion’s heads. I have not seen it since I left home for college, and, sadly, I have no idea what ever became of this artifact. I wish I’d had the forethought back then to collect more.

By mid-April, the southwest stairwell was barely recognizable.

This is the northeast corner about mid-May. Around this time I began to refer to the hulking ruin as ‘Berlin — 1945.’

More of ‘Berlin’ — this shows the west side of the building.

This is a view of the rear of the building, probably in mid-April. Behind the enormous arched windows was the yellow-tiled gymnasium.

Inside the gym.

After the gym was cleared, demolition began on the auditorium. This view shows the job almost complete.

The large cleared area seen here was the cafeteria.

By mid-June, or so, the back of the school was gone.

Only the imposing furnace room chimney stack remained for a little while longer.

Nearing the final days of Hugh Morson High School — The imposing battering crane can be seen at the right, amid the rubble.

 This is how the the main facade appeared in early summer, 1966.

This is the last photo I ever took of Hugh Morson with my trusty Kodak Instamatic camera. By the time I was able to revisit the site a couple weeks later, every trace of the building was gone.

Now, flash forward 45 years –

Nothing remains of Hugh Morson High School today except memories — and photographs. I had always thought nothing had been salvaged from the wreckage, except maybe my now long-lost lion’s head water spout. I’m certain even all that brick was hauled unceremoniously to the dump. Happily, though, years later, two of the humanoid gargoyles resurfaced, and were enshrined in 1978 in a monument to the fabled school at the Morgan-Person St., New Bern Ave.  intersection, across from the federal building.

These mournful creatures are now forever reflecting on times past.

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Side Street Cafe in Oakwood

The painted advertisement on the side of a building is a rapidly fading artifact of urban life, much in the same way that entryway mosaic is a disappearing commercial art form. There seem to be fewer remaining examples in Raleigh than in other similarly-sized cities, probably due to the historical propensity to demolish rather than renovate and recycle the buildings in the city’s core.

[skip to the 6/14 update]

The Hargett Street Treasure Chest

Hargett Street is home to the largest concentration of fading painted ads. My favorite remaining example is the Raleigh Furniture Store mural above.

Aerial view of the same mural.

A puzzling ad is above Holly Aiken’s store on the corner of Hargett and Wilmington Streets. Most is unintelligible, except for the top letters which spell out Cyclone. I am unaware of what product this represented, or if it has any ties to the old G&S Department Store that was once at that location.

The Heilig-Levine Furniture Building in 2008

Chances are you’ve seen the most prominent example, the painted advert on the Heilig-Levine Building. Its location at the near center of downtown’s hot spots could make it the most memorable.

S.H. Kress & Co

Barely visible Kress mural visible from Salisbury Street

I recently spent a small amount of time wandering around downtown in tourist mode–looking up rather than straight ahead. In the process I discovered something new: Raleigh once had a Kress department store.

Kress Department Store in Asheville. Image credit: Jesse Dotson

I was familiar with the store as there is beautiful neoclassical Kress building in my hometown of Asheville. The Kress department stores were known for their unique appearance. The founder  viewed the buildings for his five-and-dime stores as works of art that beautified the urban landscape. Compared to other examples across the country, Raleigh’s Kress store seems rather plain. It is located next to the State Supreme Court Building on the corner of Morgan and Fayetteville Streets.

The Industrial Remnants

A couple of the Dillon buildings in the Warehouse District have green and yellow painted signs. The company has since relocated out of downtown.

The Melrose Knitting Mill is one of Raleigh’s few remaining former textiles buildings. Barely visible in the image above is “Melrose Knitting Mill Co.”. On the right appears to be the word “underwear”. The space is currently being transformed into a nightclub and office space.

Painting Over the Past

Image credit: Ian F.G. Dunn

As businesses relocate, go under, or simply change tastes, these artifacts get painted over. Just recently one such example was painted over on Peace Street (above).

North Carolina Equipment Building in 2007

The North Carolina Equipment Building on Hillsborough Street once had a painted rooftop sign and facade advertising the business once at the location. City ordinances once had the rooftop tractor in jeopardy when ownership of the building changed, but in the end it got to stay. Unfortunately, the original typography and colors of the business name have since been painted over.

No Longer Around

Lawyer's Building Mural, barely visible in top part of the left building

The Lawyer’s Building (former State Theater) was painted as well. It was destroyed last year to make way for the new Wake County Justice Center.

Bringing It Back

Despite the move toward vinyl or other forms of advertisement (heavily restricted by city zoning laws), there are a few who still use paint as the medium of choice. 518 West on Glenwood Avenue has a beautiful modern painted sign.

A bit more minimalist, the Oakwood Cafe sign announces it presence to motorists going down Person Street.

Lincoln Theater during an outdoor Disco Biscuits show a few years ago

The grandest example may the Lincoln Theatre, with a mural of President Lincoln driving a Lincoln automobile.

Side Street Cafe before the Coca-Cola ad was restored

Side Street Cafe after restoration

Side Street is a cozy yet spacious cafe in Oakwood, about a block away from the Governor’s Mansion. A little over a year ago the exterior got a makeover, breathing new life in to one of Raleigh’s oldest restaurants. It occupies a rather unique spot – both a historic advertisement, and in great condition.

I’m fairly certain that there are more examples of these fading ads in Raleigh. What have I missed?

June 14th Update

I missed quite a few. Below are a few historic and several contemporary examples of hand painted commercial art.

An ad for the Carolina Cafe and Coca-Cola

One particularly dated example is the Carolina Cafe above the Berkeley Cafe.

The Village Subway

Above are the painted commercial advertisements for the businesses in the Village Subway. It was an underground series of stores, music venues, and night clubs in Cameron Village that hosted national acts in the mid 70s to early 80s. Some of these included R.E.M., the Police, Pat Benetar, Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag among many others.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, you should check out a fantastic flickr set of a series of hidden subway posters recently discovered in the London Underground.

After Sanders Ford dealership left downtown for the suburbs in the late 60s, the building sat empty  until Artspace took over in the 80s. They incorporated their logo into the historical painted one.

Clearscapes occupies a building in the warehouse district, with “Water Works Supplies” over their main entrance. Their business name was incorporated to the facade in the same style.

The image above was taken through the prototype for Thomas Sayre’s rings that are currently on the grounds of the NCMA.

Another one of the Dillon Buildings in the Warehouse District

Center Line, in the Warehouse District

Legends Night Club

42nd Street Oyster Bar

The Dive Bar

William Cozart in the Warehouse District

Related Articles

• The Lost Art of Entryway Mosaic
• Echoes of an Era Past

Further Reading

• Late 19th Century Graphic Design in Raleigh (New Raleigh)
• Up There, a documentary about hand-painted advertisements
• Fading Ad Blog

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About two weeks ago, there was a ceremony celebrating the installation of some 120 LEDs on the pedestrian bridge that goes over the 440 beltline. Upon reading this from a remote location over the holidays, I was initially excited at this development. I was under the assumption that two things had happened:

1) The pedestrian bridge had a different appearance under the cover of darkness

2) There was no longer a locked fence barring entry to the Museum of Art side from the Meredith College side

As it turns out, both assumptions were incorrect.

Back in October, we published photos of the Reedy Creek Pedestrian Bridge at night. I’m hard pressed to find exactly what has changed since then. Perhaps the previous lights were incandescent as opposed to LED, but the outward appearance remains the same.

Unfortunately for those who enjoy riding a bike or jogging in the evening hours, the pedestrian bridge is still locked from the Meredith College side as soon as the sun goes down.

Although the greenway is fenced off as soon as darkness arrives at the entrance at the intersection of Hillsborough, Faircloth, and Gorman Streets, the entrance at the intersection of Hillsborough and Meredith College Streets remains wide open. What’s the point in blocking off only certain sections?

You can still gain access to the bridge, from the NCMA side (above).

If you want to visit Thomas Sayre’s illuminated rings near the NC Museum of Art at night via bicycle (from downtown), you’re forced to take the long route, going via Hillsborough St. and then merging on to Blue Ridge Road.

So my question is, why the celebration? What’s the point of having a ceremony to mark the lighting of a pedestrian bridge that is really only noticed by the vehicular traffic below? Those commuting to or from Morrisville/RDU and downtown Raleigh via bicycle must still plan their trips to cross the bridge before nightfall.

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On the eastern fringe of downtown Raleigh an imposing Jacobean manor stands sentinel over the surrounding neighborhood. I am referring, of course, to the former Thompson School on East Hargett St. Although the school itself closed with the merger of the city and county public school systems in 1976, the building still bears a prominence in the community today as Wake County’s family services Thompson Center.

In 1907 the Raleigh school board opened the Thompson School in the antebellum mansion then standing on the site. That building itself had long served as Miss Sophia Partridge’s “Select School for Young Ladies” from the mid-1840s through the end of the Civil War. Two other residences in the neighborhood also served as private schools during the ante bellum years. One of these was located in the Jordan Womble house, which still stands nearby. Miss Partridge was a prominent Raleigh citizen of the period. Following the war she was instrumental in the establishment of the Confederate Cemetery in Oakwood. She continued to reside in her Hargett St. home for many years after she closed her school. (A portion of the mansion grounds’s cut granite block retaining wall demarcating the edge of the property can still be seen today.)

In 1923 the Raleigh school board hired Atlanta architect C. Gadsen Sayre to design four modern school buildings. These were Wiley Elementary School on Saint Mary’s St., Washington High School for African-Americans on the southern extension of Fayetteville St., Hugh Morson High School near Moore Square, and Thompson Elementary School on Hargett St. All four buildings were designed in the then popular Jacobean style. Wiley and Washington still function as public schools; Thompson is now the county’s Thompson Center, which offers services to socially disadvantaged clients. Hugh Morson, by far the largest of the four, was demolished in 1966 and replaced by the Federal Building.

After many years of benign neglect, the county rehabilitated Thompson in 1986 for use as the community services center. The surrounding neighborhood is now part of the city’s Downtown East redevelopment plan and is currently in the early stages of a residential resurgence and renewal. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wake/story/562298.html Although only a fragment of the original ante bellum Hargett St. neighborhood exists today, Thompson School still regally reigns over the its neighbors.

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At 8:45 Thursday night, a crowd gathered to see the most beautiful building in Raleigh have one side illuminated by thirteen hundred LEDs funded by Cree to create the most awe inspiring piece of public art to grace an urban area.

Fireworks kicked off the ceremony to create bursts of light from the ground to the sky.

A gaggle of pedacabs from the Raleigh Rickshaw Company were lined up to give onlookers a complimentary ride back to their vehicle or residence.

This was perhaps the largest gathering of journalists, photographers, bloggers, local elected officials, developers, real estate moguls, architects, and artists Raleigh has ever seen.

Pictured above is the most covered police officer on this blog, Officer Keen and fellow equestrian patrol agent, Officer Foster.

Two thumbs up go to Jedidiah Gant, Thomas Sayre, Steven Schuster, and everyone else at Clearscapes for creating something that Raleigh residents can truly be proud of. The Shimmer Wall is the cornerstone of Raleigh’s renaissance.

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From left to right: Julia Demarre, and Allyn Stewart, Avi Wenger (author of the performance), Katherine Myers, Ronnie Ruedrich, and David Sedaris

The cast of  “Openings Windows and Passages” peering up from the floor of Lot 13 in this promo shot by Mark Herdter in 1979.

Just as Raleigh’s Fayetteville Street is currently undergoing a Renaissance, likewise is the city’s old industrial warehouse district located between downtown and the railroad tracks. New housing units intermingle with nightclubs; lofts are filling long empty warehouse spaces; and it is emerging as a focus of downtown nightlife. The warehouse district is awaking from the long slumber it had fallen into after the hustle and bustle of its industrial glory days had faded.

The freight depot between Cabarrus and Davie in 1971.

The freight depot today.

For more than half a century, and well into the 1950s, the warehouse district bustled with activity. It was the home of many rail-dependent industries such as machine shops, foundries, ice plants, coal yards, oil and feed mills, and bottling plants. And of course, there were the warehouses — dozens of them!

This is the old Capital City Ice and Coal plant at the corner of W. Hargett and the train tracks.

This is a view of the warehouses behind the ice plant being torn down in 1972.

When I was a freshman at N.C. State in 1970, I moved into my first apartment in the old Page House in Boylan Heights. If I needed to go downtown for anything, I made my way along the Martin Street viaduct. The bridge spanned the tracks and rail yards from Boylan Avenue to West Street, and deposited you right into the middle of the warehouse district. By that time, however, Dillon Supply and Peden Steel dominated the area. Their massive brick buildings exuded a lonely drabness, which in my young mind I associated with the Soviet Union. It wasn’t a place you wanted to linger, and certainly not to pass through at night. Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before I was beguiled by the rail yards, empty buildings and architectural curiosities. With my trusty Kodak in tow, I set out to explore the area. I explored a long-closed ice plant and the adjoining frame and brick warehouses, and investigated the underground chambers of a burned out Civil War era warehouse. I discovered a “secret” entrance to the catacombs beneath the old Coca Cola bottling plant and, accompanied by a friend, explored that dark and scary place. For just plain fun we would sometimes hop a slow-moving string of railcars for a short trip through the switching yard.

This is how the Martin Street viaduct looked in 1971. It was originally built in 1913.

This is the 2008 view. The viaduct is no more, but notice how much the skyline has changed!

Part of the train switching yard with some of the warehouses surrounding Lot 13 on the left.

Raleigh’s Contemporary Art Museum at night– CAM

Long before CAM came onto the scene, the warehouse district was a magnet for many of Raleigh’s artists and designers. At least by the late ‘70s, the area was attracting the avant garde art crowd and artistic endeavors such as performances and installations were experimented with. One of the sites used was the Civil War warehouse lot. Only two walls were then standing above ground level and the exposed concrete floor. This site was reborn as Lot 13. Beginning in 1978 a friend created a series of installations there. One of these involved fabricating a mock steel truss modeled after that of the old Boylan Ave. bridge, which was within sight of Lot 13. It was constructed of black-painted 2×4s mounted high up on the wall, and was visible from the bridge itself. The truss remained there for many years afterward. In 1979 in an empty warehouse adjacent to Lot 13, another artist friend staged a performance piece he called “Openings Windows and Passages.” Among the cast of that troupe was a young David Sedaris, now author extraordinaire.

This is a night time view of the only remaining portion of the Civil War era warehouse, aka lot 13.

The early 1980s saw the William-Cozart woodshop and sales gallery on S. Harrington Street, and Anthony Ulinski’s Dovetail fine woodwork on Commerce Street enter the scene. Both are still in their original locations.

John Dancy-Jones relocated his Paper Plant bookstore to W. Martin Street in 1985. It was a popular venue among the Raleigh art crowd of the time and featured Thursday night poetry readings, among other events. John invited artists to show their work in the Paper Plant gallery and the associated Sunday afternoon receptions became a mainstay. I remember two events at the Paper Plant that stand out in particular: One was an installation by artist Ron Ridgeway called The Buddah Wall and the other was a pefrormance piece by Clyde Smith and Ginny Webb. Way in the back of the Paper Plant was a dark and windowless room, on the walls of which Ron painted hundreds of small Buddah figures. Lit by candlelight, the effect was rather eerie. I wonder if it is still there today. The performance piece was acted out in the front window of the shop. I don’t remember too many details of the piece itself, but I’ll never forget the look on John’s face as he contemplated the real possibility of the two performers crashing through the plate glass window! Photographer Doug Van de Zande opened his studio next door to the Paper Plant about 1987. He was renowned not only for his artistic photographs but for his annual Halloween bashes, as well. His studio is still in the warehouse district, having moved over to S. McDowell Street 10 or so years ago. Thomas Sayre established his sculpture studio above the Paper Plant by the late 1980s, joined by architect Steve Schuster.

Bill Hickman ran his metal sculpture studio out of a warehouse on S. West Street for a number of years in the early ’90s. Fine artist Nancy Baker operated the Tire Shop Gallery and studio on S. Dawson from the mid to late ’90s. And architect Kurt Eichenberger opened his business in a remaining section of the old Allen Foundry complex about this time, too.

These days the warehouse district is becoming known as a burgeoning urban nightclub scene. Ever since a low-end live music venue, the Embers Club on W. Davie Street burned down in 1970, the area had been devoid of any nightlife at all. Then the The Berkeley opened on W. Martin in the mid ‘80s. To quote a friend: The Berkeley “absolutely pioneered alternative culture in 1980s downtown Raleigh.” Around this time, too, the granddaddy of Raleigh’s gay clubs, The Capital Corral (aka C.C.s) opened its doors. On the fringe of the warehouse district were the short-lived Culture Club on W. Morgan and the raucous Fallout Shelter (aka the Fall Down Shelter) on S. West.

So, what goes around comes around, I guess. And although its glory days as a zone of industrial activity are no more, the warehouse district is certainly rising from those ashes as a center of downtown Raleigh’s arts and club scene — not without thanks to those early visionary urban pioneers who were willing to take a chance.

300 block of W. Martin St. in 1973. The Paper Plant later occupied the storefront in the left center of this view.

Same view a few nights ago. Not much has changed, has it?

Raleigh’s skyline as seen from the rail yards in 1971.

Raleigh’s skyline as seen from the rail yards in 2008.

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Gyre is a simple yet impressive and surreal set of rings created by Thomas Sayre of Clearscapes. Back in April I photographed the prototype of these rings, although I didn’t know it at the time. During the day, the rings are something to behold. At night, it is almost magical.

Although I didn’t know who Mr. Sayre was until somewhat recently, I’ve been fond of his work for some time now. The prototype for the World Wall at the Marbles Kids Museum was the very first thing I photographed in Raleigh after relocating from the mountains years ago.

Cast horizontally in the earth, each piece is then stood vertically with a large crane. Gyre derives its name from the Irish poet, W. B. Yates, who conceived of history as the complex movement of a spiral.

– Thomas Sayre

If you haven’t seen Gyre in person yet, I highly recommend it. It straddles the Capital Greenway at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Going there at night is a real treat, as the sounds of crickets and wind blowing is all that is heard as Gyre lights up the night sky like three burning rings of fire.

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Even in an incomplete state without the lighting, it is something truly fascinating. Currently without backlighting, colors still roll and move across the surface like the reflection of a bird flying over water. Once the illumination switch is flipped, Raleigh will have one of the most awe inspiring pieces of public art that is part of an urban landscape.

If you have not been keeping up with new developments in the area, this is the Shimmer Wall, an enormous piece of art on one side of the Convention Center covering an entire city block. It was designed and is being assembled by Clearscapes, an architectural and design firm located downtown.

“We wanted a wall that would be dynamic, that would move, that would shine,” said Thomas Sayre, principal with the Raleigh architectural firm Clearscapes.”So all afternoon, every afternoon, this surface gets bathed in light.”

The idea is to take thousands of steel strips, maybe more than a million, each about the size of a shirt pocket. Half would be buffed shiny, the others would be dull, dimpled metal. They would hang on rods along an entire side of the convention center, covering a city block.

When the wind blows, they would swing, creating a wavy, glimmering image, reflecting sunshine during the day, and letting light show between their cracks at night.

Sayre said the shimmery strips would be spaced to form a larger picture. Light and dark tiles would function like the ones and zeroes of binary code — a nod to the region’s tech sector.

“Part of our job is to think, ‘How can this be an interesting wall?’ ” Sayre said. “I hope when you go home and your kids say, ‘How was the convention, Mom?’ you can say, ‘There’s this really cool thing out front.’ ”

News & Obsever, 2005

To see convention center construction at various stages of progress, check out the façade in Janurary, the entire convention center (from a viewpoint now blocked by construction), and at a distance from the Boylan Avenue bridge (second photo).

Note: These images were taken the day before completion. Head over to New Raleigh to see images of it now that it is complete as well as a time lapse video of construction.

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Clearscapes is a multi-disciplinary design firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina that was formed in 1981 when architect, Steven D. Schuster, and sculptor, Thomas H. Sayre, combined their creative talents and energies to design environments for some of North Carolina’s neediest citizens, the severely and profoundly retarded residents of Murdoch Center in Butner, North Carolina. Twenty four years later, the firm has matured to a broad-based, full service design firm comprised of twenty architects, artists, and support personnel with diverse educational, geographic and experiential backgrounds.

In addition to the design studio, the firm maintains a 4,000 square foot shop where material research, mock-up fabrications, and experimentation is done. The firm’s public art is built in the shop as well as components for many of its architectural projects. This facility is unique and extends the firm’s creativity beyond the confines of a traditional architectural firm.

There are several small sculptures and other art pieces around this building that make it one of the most interesting and attractive commercial spaces in all of Raleigh.

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