The controversial proposed school reassignment plan (.pdf) is intended to keep students closer to home and minimize long-distance student commutes. The plan looks logical for nearly every school in the system, however it certainly breaks down for Joyner. Under the proposed plan Daniels would be fed by Root, Stough, York, and Jeffrey’s Grove. Martin would be fed by Lacy and Olds. I don’t have access to the number of seats in those eight schools, but it seems strange that Daniels would be fed by four schools and Martin would be fed by only two. Perhaps Martin is smaller than Daniels, but from what I have heard they are roughly equivalent in size.

If the plan aims to keep students in the same part of the county as their residents, then sending people in the Five Points area to the shadows of Triangle Town Center, just inside of I-540, seems completely counterproductive. If the plan moves forward, the property values of houses along Anderson Drive will plummet while houses along Ridge Road in Raleigh will skyrocket. This is why there ought to be a very strong showing at this meeting tonight. There is much on the line for people who live in the Northeast quadrant inside of I-440.

There will also be meetings at Sanderson (Wed, 9/14), East Wake (Thu, 9/15), and Millbrook (Mon, 9/19). For more information see the WCPSS website.

It is hard to imagine that the Fosters space will be kept in its same configuration. Whatever is next is likely to be quite different, and an end to many memories. Along with the Brewery (which has already been torn down), the ITB crowd lost a a pair of fun spots this week.

Awards are offered in 11 different award categories, including new residential, commercial, or institutional construction, plus historic preservation, sustainable design, and tree and landscape conservation. The award for “Maintained Outstanding Appearance” honors appearance contributions by projects 5 years old or older. The “Individual” award is presented to a citizen who has consistently worked to preserve or improve city appearance.

The deadline for entries for the 2010 Sir Walter Raleigh Awards is Friday, July 9. Nominations for the can be made online at or by completing a printed form available at City government offices. In addition to project information, six or more digital photos of each nominated project or individual, submitted on CD or flash drive, are also required.

An independent jury will meet in July to review the nominations. Award winners will be selected based on specific criteria, including exhibition of a new standard of excellence, awareness of land stewardship, innovation, conservation of natural and/ or historic resources, and exceeding applicable ordinances. The Raleigh City Council will confirm the jury’s selections in August. Awards will be presented in October.

Beginning at 5pm today they will have two outdoor bands to celebrate this occasion, Indecision and Soul Posse. Admission is free until 8pm, and appetizers are just $5.

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TeaGschwendner began as a small tea shop in Trier, Germany, and features a selection of more than 250 varieties of tea, including black, green, oolong, white, rooibush, herbal and fruit.  Seasonal specials will be e-mailed or listed on the store’s Facebook site. They will also offer “Introduction to Tea” classes in 2009 which include teaching mixed with tea tasting. More classes will come early next year.

The store is located next to Globtrotter, facing the Village Draft House.

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Raleigh’s best restaurant, Bloomsbury Bistro, has reintroduced its popular three-course tasting menu (.pdf) for two. The menu is available from Monday thru Saturday nights and includes items such as Sautéed boneless Carolina mountain trout wrapped in Prosciutto di Parma over a big bowl of roasted acorn squash bisque with wild rice risotto, haricots-verts & jumbo lump blue crab as well as the delicious Chicken Normandie (Roasted breast of all natural chicken over blue cheese gnocchi & haricots-verts with green apples & smoked bacon in creamy cider-rosemary sauce.)

The price is $50 per couple which includes an appetizer, an entree, and a desert. (Tax, tip, and drinks not included).

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For additional information, contact Carter Pettibone with the Raleigh Department of City Planning at 807-8482. Participants are asked to RSVP to carter.pettibone@ci.raleigh.nc.us  by tomorrow (Thursday).

The restaurant’s space is open, with two sides wrapped by large, south and west-facing windows. So, the restaurant will get a generous dose of sunlight every day. The interior features a hard gray floor with red and yellow coloring on the walls and ceiling. One might expect noise to be an issue, however in a mostly full room, it didn’t seem any noisier than Moe’s at North Hills. The funkiest aspect of the decor is the artwork by local children. The restaurant is supplying local elementary school students with art supplies, and posting their work around the restaurant. Each piece can be purchased for $20, with the proceeds going to the artist’s school. They plan to cycle the collection every quarter, freshening the decor.

I settled on the chicken kabobs for lunch, and they did not disappoint. The pair of kabobs included onions, green peppers, and tomatoes, which is especially rare in a casual restaurant. The chicken was good quality, and the marinade, while a bit heavy on the oregano, was nevertheless excellent. The platter was generously heaped with rice, grilled pita, and a side Greek salad. The rice and pita were fine, but the salad really was the star here. The vinaigrette salad dressing was delicious, especially with bites containing feta cheese.

While a better kabob dinner does exist in Raleigh, Zoës offers an extremely good, large plate of food at the $9 price point. As with the addition of Noodles & Co. to the area, it is refreshing to find good food requiring a fork that doesn’t cost $15. It is entirely reasonable to imagine a family of 4 sitting down and having a good, non-greasy meal here below the ever-vanishing $30 price point.

An interesting offering from Zoës is the menu’s Dinners For Four section. Aimed at the To-Go crowd, the four hot dinners offered can be ordered ahead and picked up at around the $25 price point. They also offer some of their salads and hummus in pound and half-pound tubs, as well as a full catering menu.

The restaurant’s hours, if I recall correctly, are 10am-9pm, 7 days a week. They are located in Oberlin Court, the mixed-use development on Oberlin Road near Wade Avenue.

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In other news I just cancelled HBO, TWC’s HDSuite, and got a Netflix subscription yesterday.

While the streetscape plans look like a nice improvement, I have grave concerns about traffic flow. The concept behind one lane in each direction works in places where there are only traffic circles at the intersections (because the traffic only comes to a dead stop when there is congestion at the circles). I am not a fan of traffic signals clogging up major arteries, and unfortunately the new plan retains traffic signals at the intersections with Pogue and Horne. This will cause enormous backups and invite dangerous maneuvers by impatient drivers in a highly pedestrian-oriented zone. A better plan would be to close these streets to inbound Hillsborough Street traffic, allowing only right-in or right-out activity. Perhaps a Michigan turn (dedicated U-lane) could have been installed near the Pogue intersection where land is available. map it

The traffic circle at Pullen Drive will be a nice gateway to the area, and will afford the chance to showcase a piece of public art later, as well as invite some interesting redevelopment on the north border (where Steve’s and Zack’s were).

A second, unnecessary circle will be implemented at Oberlin and Groveland Streets (access to Groveland, a one-way street, should be closed and the remaining portion of Oberlin, in front of the Player’s Retreat, should be treated as a parking lot.) Without the roundabout and Groveland access, Oberlin would be a straighter, simpler, and safer street. map it

The project is slated to begin next week (on May 20).

The bell tower has recently been in the news because of a movement aiming to install real bells. The tower was finished in 1937, but funding has never been in place for the final bell installation.

For the first time since its original construction in 1972, Hillsborough Street will be closed for an all day eco-friendly arts & music festival on Saturday, March 14th. The Hillsborough Street Renaissance Festival has been created to showcase the construction changes occurring on the street over the next two years, and to revitalize Raleigh’s famed Hillsborough Street. Proceeds from the festival will go to support student and community non-profit organizations focused on renewable energy research, sustainable development, and community improvement projects.  The event will feature a wide variety of activities as well as live music and ton of vendors. Check out live bands, an Eco-Fashion Show, a Fraternity, Sorority & Business BBQ Taste Testing Competition, an Iron Chef Cookoff styled after March Madness Basketball Brackets, and more!

In Cameron Village the Flying Biscuit Cafe, the newest offering by Raving Brands will officially open on Monday.

The site plan’s most interesting aspects involve traffic flow. In order to accommodate a snaking drive-thru queue around the building’s southeast corner, a miniature traffic circle will be formed around the stairway that once went down into Nowell’s. The queue proper can handle 16 cars, none of which cross pedestrians’ paths and parking spaces. The real question remains…how are they going to handle 100 cars? (because this place is going to be so popular it will cause traffic snarls well into Oberlin Road once it is open!)

The finest representation of Raleigh’s upper class domestic architecture is found in Hayes-Barton, a ca. 1920 suburb named for Sir Walter Raleigh’s birthplace in Devon, England.  Hayes-Barton is bordered by Glenwood Avenue, Fairview Road, Williamson Drive and St. Mary’s Street and is abundant with Pecan and Willow Oaks as well as faithful reproductions of Georgian and Colonial Revival homes that date back to the mid 1920s. Hayes-Barton remains an area of impeccably manicured landscapes and well-maintained facades, and still houses many of the capital city’s most politically and socially influential citizens.

Before the Raleigh city limits extension of 1920, the Five Points intersection consisted of dirt crossroads between adjacent farmlands owned by B. Grimes Cowper and Mrs. B.P. Williamson. In 1912 electricity provided by Carolina Power and Light Company powered a trolley line from Peace Street northward up the center of Glenwood Avenue to the newly created Bloomsbury Amusement Park, behind what is now the Carolina Country Club. Brilliantly lit on weekend evenings, Bloomsbury Park housed a roller coaster, a boathouse overlooking the lake, and a carousel. Within several years the picnic and amusement facility dissolved and later the carousel was moved to Pullen Park.

As is usually the case, development followed the transportation system, bringing scattered homes and a store or two to the Hayes Barton area between 1912 and WW I. With much foresight, The Allen Brothers realty firm struck an agreement with the two farmland owners to develop their combined 175-acre property. The former’s land was situated on the west side of Glenwood while the latter’s holdings were located to the east of Glenwood. Landscape architect Earle Sumner Draper was commissioned to create a design based upon principles seen earlier in Charlotte’s Myers Park. All lots have 40 feet of frontage and the natural contours of the land were preserved. Hayes-Barton appealed to the well-to-do with its promise of private large wooded lots and close proximity to downtown Raleigh. The Fairview Company, which sold the lots, saw a slow start in the post World War I economy. By the end of 1921, however, nearly two-thirds of the lots were purchased.

Hayes-Barton continues to grow, still offering the convenience of downtown Raleigh and the beauty of Draper’s well-preserved plan.  The area remains known as one of Raleigh’s most historical, cultural and influential addresses.

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