Seem Familiar II?
One of the tallest buildings in Manhattan’s Lower East Side is the 687-foot-tall 55 Water Street. It was built in 1974. Featuring an almost identical facade, Raleigh’s One Progress Plaza was completed in 1977 and has 21 floors (~280 feet).
Midtown 115 Reopens
The former 115 Midtowne in The Lassiter reopened tonight as Midtown Restaurant & Bar 115…or is it Midtown & Bar 115…or is it Midtown Metropolitan Cuisine 115??? The restaurant shut down on New Year’s Day and has spent four weeks enshrouded in plywood. Voila!
The restaurant now sports a more open bistro look. It’s facade is largely glass and allows two large red light fixtures to accent the inviting new look. The themes of brown/mocha have been replaced with a somewhat grayer look with accent colors, yet the restaurant still has a warm feel. Upon entering one’s eyes are easily drawn the restaurant’s new stone-draped rear wall featuring various wines. The wall comes alive due to a new all-glass enclosure for the restaurant’s rear room. The room has a projector screen and seats around 24 people comfortably and can be reserved for special events.
While there have been no staff or ownership changes, the menu has been overhauled. The contemporary menu features 10 entrees including 4 seafood and 1 vegetarian entree. Chef Scott James has been with the restaurant since its inception, acting as sous chef for Scott Cole in 115’s first year.
Midtown is open for lunch but dinner, but also features box lunch and late plate menus (.pdf files).
Center Ice Free Preview on TWC
Time Warner Cable subscribers have a real treat this week. The NHL Center Ice package is available for free (to digital subscribers) through Sunday night. This gives us a chance to see some of the teams Versus won’t typically show. It also is a rare chance to follow some former Canes such as: Kevyn and Craig Adams (Blackhawks), Sandis Ozolinsh (Sharks), Kevin Weekes (Devils), Jack Johnson (Kings), Martin Gelinas (Predators), Sean Hill (IR – Wild), Josef Vasicek (Islanders), and Byron Ritchie (Canucks). The schedule of games is available on the TWC site.
Seem Familiar?
Check out the Dominion Tower in Norfolk, VA completed in 1987. Standing at 340 feet tall, there are 26 floors. Raleigh’s Wachovia Capitol Center was completed in 1991 and is 400 feet tall with 30 floors.
Harmon’s Floating House Featured in Architectural Record
Raleigh’s Strickland-Ferris house, perched above Crabtree Creek, is featured in the January 2008 issue of Architectural Record. Designed by architect Frank Harmon, the 1,800 square foot "floating" house" sits on nine wood trusses sitting on concrete columns among a dense forest of trees.
The street side appears to be almost windowless, but the northern, forest facade is a wall of steel and glass giving the residents a feeling that they are floating among the trees.
Bob The Blade Returns
The N&O has a feature in the Life section today about long time classic-rock fixture Bob The Blade’s return to Raleigh. The Blade was a staple in the drive time hours at WRDU, but when the station turned country, Bob couldn’t take it and went to WSFL near New Bern.
Bob’s maintained a fun website so he could be enjoyed from afar, but finally, the Madison, WI native will return to his true home, the Triangle. Check him out on 96 Rock from 2-6pm beginning Monday.
Solving RBC Center Ingress (Part II)
Part one of this series introduced a simple plan to solve the RBC Center’s West side ingress problems. Each lot on the arena’s West side would have a dedicated lane and would, therefore, have uninterrupted traffic flow.
The RBC Center’s East parking lots are accessed by the three-lane Westchase Blvd. Because one of those lanes has to be designated for egress during ingress events, the traffic flow on the East side of the RBC Center has major inefficiencies. While there would not be a bottleneck, it would be impossible to dedicate a lane for each East side lot, Lots 1, 2 and 3, using the existing lane configurations. With a simple redesign of about 500 feet of curb on the arena’s West side, all lots could have a dedicated ingress road.
Part I advised dedicating a lane for Lots 4, 5, and 6. Lot 3 traffic must use the East side. By expanding capacity on the West side, however, Lot 3 traffic could use Edwards Mill Road and leave Westchase Blvd’s two ingress lanes for Lots 1 and 2.
In this plan, read more…
Walnut Creek Announces Events
Walnut Creek Amphitheater announced a slew of concerts today including many country acts, R.E.M., and two nights of Widespread Panic:
- April 25 and 26: Widespread Panic
- May 17: Tim McGraw w/ Jason Aldean and Halfway To Hazard
- June 10: R.E.M. w/ Modest Mouse and The National
- June 21: Toby Keith w/ Montgomery Gentry
- July 19: Brad Paisley
- August 2: Rascal Flatts w/ Taylor Swift
- August 22: Kenny Chesney w/ LeAnn Rimes
- September 6: Brooks & Dunn w/ Rodney Atkins
- October 4: Martina McBride
Cary Chipotle Open
The Cary location of the Chipotle chain is now open in the former Blockbuster location (map it). For those who haven’t been to Chipotle, it is a fast-mexican restaurant which features "fresh" food (ie. stuff hasn’t been sitting there long, salsas are made daily, etc). Pick from one of four meats arranged in one of four styles…you know the deal. Most of what I’ve had there was very comparable to Q’doba.
Now that the lazy people are out of the way, here is the secret: Chipotle’s Carnitas on 4 crunchy tacos. This is one of the most delicious lunches you can have, anywhere. My personal favorite is to get each of the four with a different one of their four salsas. That way the lunch keeps evolving as I eat it. Probably the corn salsa is the best with the Carnitas.
I kid you not, though. This is a seriously awesome meal (many people have heard/read my previous diatribes, gone to Chipotle and deviated from my suggestion, and been disappointed and won’t go back. Don’t be another one!) I’ve also had a crunchy taco with Barbacoa, and it is excellent as well, but not dream-worthy. Additionally, Chipotle’s guacamole is excellent, though some of the chips have tough, not crunchy regions. The guacamole isn’t overloaded with citrus juices; an ingredient that doesn’t appear in real guacamole (Rosa Mexicano’s recipe).
This is Chipotle’s fifth area location.
UNC Tops Kiplinger List of Values
Kiplinger magazine’s February 2008 issue features a story on the best values in public colleges and UNC Chapel Hill tops the list. They credit the $2.3 billion fund-raising campaign as a key to reducing the tuition burden on students. Other state schools making the list are NCSU at #13, Appalachian State at #27, UNC-Wilmington at #36, UNC-Asheville at #40, and UNC-Greensboro at #68
984 Overlay Brews Again
Remember the days back in 2001 when the utilities commission was planning 10-digit dialing and an overlay area code for the Triangle? Well, it’s back. The growth of cell phones, OnStar, security systems, and other objects demanding more cell network numbers is gobbling up all of the available 919 numbers. TBJ has a good story covering this and explains why the issued died for a period.
Staal Named All-Star MVP
With 2 goals and 1 assist, the Carolina Hurricanes’ Eric Staal was named the MVP of the NHL All-Star Game tonight. Staal is in his 4th season with Canes and currently ranks 9th in goals and 25th in points in the NHL. Congrats to Staal!
Staal was the only All Star from the Canes squad, however. We saw Rod Brind’Amour in Milton’s Pizza & Pasta tonight during the game and it almost made me sick thinking of what little respect he gets around the league.
Bring WPS Women’s Soccer To Cary
A new professional women’s soccer league, the WPS, will begin play in 2009. Cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, St. Louis, Washington, Boston, New York, and Chicago have been named, but the league wants to add one more team. So far Cary leads in voting with 18%, and your vote can take the area one step toward joining this league. (The poll is halfway down the page in a cell). Thanks so Trisoccerfan for the heads up.
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