When Wilson-based BB&T moved to Raleigh, it needed an architectural statement to underscore its ambition. Emery Roth & Sons, New York architects famous for the Pan Am Building in New York City, delivered a Manhattan-caliber skyscraper perfectly scaled to Raleigh's skyline. The International Style building owes a debt to Mies van der Rohe's influential 1958 Seagram Building in New York, incorporating into the facade vertical mullions shaped like I-beams, a nod to the structural frame. Polished black granite and glass curtain walls at the first and second floors contribute a luxe feel. The lobby and banking floor, designed by G. Milton Small, were removed in 1998.
Date: 1963-1965
]]>The Carolina Power and Light Company erected this simple but elegant one-story common-bond brick building to house electric streetcars and buses. The building later became an automobile garage. It is a rare example of an Art Deco transportation-related facility erected in then architecturally conservative Raleigh. In 1998 the structure was adapted for commercial use and now houses offices and restaurant space.
Date: 1925
]]>The State College Agricultural Extension Service encouraged the establishment of the Pine State Creamery as a dairy farmers' cooperative at the end of World War I. The dairy products plant is a two-story Art Moderne design in cream-colored brick. The building fronts Tucker Street and Glenwood Avenue, where a three-story tower accents the corner. A 1940s addition at the south end nearly doubled the building's size; a second addition and two wings date from the 1960s. The company closed in 1996 and the buildings have been renovated for commercial use.
Date: 1928, 1940s, 1960s
]]>The Raleigh Electric Company built this building and its coal-fired steam-driven turbines to power Raleigh's electric street car system and to augment power supplies for the city. The structure's tripartite arrangement, featuring a gable-front roof and structural-steel framing system faced with common bond brick, reflects typical industrial design of the era. Its life as a steam plant likely ended in 1930 when the boiler house became a storage area. In 1998, the building was rehabilitated for commercial use.
Date: ca. 1910, 1930
]]>Conceived by W.E. Long Company of Chicago, specialists in bakery design, and built by the Raleigh construction firm of James A. Davidson, the Royal Baking Company is a utilitarian one-story brick building with simple International style detail. Built in 1941 and expanded 1946-1947, this bakery illustrates the period of industrial expansion in Raleigh following the stagnation of the Great Depression. The building is also evidence of a shift in industrial construction away from the urban core toward major transportation arteries like Hillsborough Street.
Date: 1941; 1946-47
]]>The Catholic Diocese of Raleigh built St. Monica's for African American students in 1930, when all city schools were still segregated. This small building with spare Gothic detailing housed eight elementary grades in four classrooms. The school thrived: Many saw St. Monica's as a better educational option than the public schools for African Americans. In the 1950s, the Diocese integrated its facilities and African American students could attend Sacred Heart Cathedral, the white Catholic elementary school. St. Monica's closed in 1967. The building has been incorporated into Tarboro Road Park and is operated as a teen center by the City of Raleigh.
Date: 1930
]]>In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Raleigh native Dallas Adams (1843-1912) worked as a pharmacist at Dix Hill Asylum, the precursor to Dorothea Dix Hospital. He also invested in real estate. Around 1880, he bought land outside Raleigh and near the asylum. He built this house and six others, the latter to generate rental income. The county road those dwellings lined came to be known as Adams Row. Adams’s house is a vernacular form enriched with a few Queen Anne details: trefoil vents in the gable ends, elaborate porch and eave brackets, and a half-glazed front door.
Around 1940, Adams Row was renamed Daladams Street to honor Dallas Adams. Of the seven houses Adams had built, three remain. Two have been heavily altered. Adams’s own home has recently been rehabilitated, another tribute to this very early Raleigh developer.
Date ca. 1880
]]>Berry O'Kelly School is in the Method community, a freedman’s village established by former slave Jesse Mason and his family. The Agriculture Building is the oldest of only two surviving buildings from the multi-building school complex founded by O'Kelly, a revered merchant, wholesaler, civic leader, philanthropist and proponent of practical education for African American youth. The original portion of the rectangular brick building was constructed using grants from the Julius Rosenwald Fund (established by the CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Company), matched with donated land and local funds raised in the community. Also known as the Pioneers Building, it now serves as a community center at Method Park, a City of Raleigh facility.
Date: 1926
]]>Designed by the Raleigh architects G. Murray Nelson and Thomas W. Cooper, this Neoclassical Revival building imparts a feeling of governmental strength with its Ionic colonnade on raised, striated basement. Both the south and east sides serve as formal facades in recognition of the building's corner location. It still houses programs of the Department of Agriculture.
Date: 1923
]]>This stately but unpretentious frame house was built in the Greek Revival style on 680 acres given to Alpheus Jones by his father Seth Jones, who served in the House of Commons from 1814 to 1819. The two-story hip-roofed house features a two-story Doric portico centered on the facade. After a mid-1970s rehabilitation, the dwelling housed a restaurant for a time. Private residence.
Date: ca. 1847
]]>Dr. Andrew Watson Goodwin ran medical clinics, taught at Shaw University's Leonard Medical School, and served as chief physician at Saint Agnes Hospital. His grand, Neoclassical dwelling is significant as a vestige of what Hillsborough Street once was: a fashionable, tree-lined residential boulevard. It is now home to the state's Democratic Party headquarters.
Date: 1903
]]>Andrew Johnson, seventeenth president of the United States, was born in this tiny gambrel-roofed building with a loft. The building was the detached kitchen for Peter Casso's Inn as well as home to the four members of the Johnson family. Originally sited near E. Morgan and Fayetteville streets, the building was relocated three times before its 1975 move to Mordecai Historic Park. Open to public.
Date: Before 1808
]]>G. S. H. Appleget designed this symmetrical Italianate home for Confederate Captain Alexander B. Andrews. Although much different than the Heck-Andrews House in its overall effect, there are similarities in the window surrounds, finely ornamented brackets, and decorative porch posts. The original stable stands behind the house and retains its steep hip roof with cupola. The house is owned by the state and is used as offices.
Date: 1874
]]>The Andrews-London House is a fine example of the Georgian Revival style. Designed by James A. Salter, this two-and-one-half story brick house features extensive wainscot paneling as well as round-arched and pedimented molding at interior doorways. The dwelling now houses offices.
Date: 1918
]]>The Anna Riddick House is a distinctive mid-twentieth-century Georgian Revival-style residence designed for a single woman. New York architect William Dewey Foster worked closely with Anna Riddick to design the dwelling, constructed of bricks salvaged from the Oddfellows orphanage in Goldsboro and bricks and heart pine boards from the central section of Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Hospital, items collected by Miss Riddick. She described the house plan as “a one-person dwelling and as a place for large-scale entertaining.” Brick privacy walls enclose the outdoor living space of the front terrace and a former terrace (now sunroom) in the rear yard. A guest house, built by Miss Riddick about 1960, is set behind the main block. Anna Riddick was one of Raleigh’s earliest interior decorators. Her career spanned forty years from the 1920s to the 1960s. Private residence.
Dates: 1952 (house); 1960 (attached guest house)
]]>The candy factory that Arkansas Delaware Royster and his brother Vermont Connecticut Royster established in this building became a Raleigh phenomenon. The business began as a general store inherited by the third-generation Raleigh brothers after the Civil War. Arkansas, known as Ark, ran the store while his eighteen-year-old brother V.C. went to New York City to learn candymaking. V.C. returned and the Roysters switched from groceries to confections in 1872. By 1883, Royster’s churned out a ton of candy daily. Early specialties included coconut, cream, and peanut candies. Later, the company shipped its sweets around the world as Raleigh youngsters grew into nostalgic candy-loving adults who wanted their Royster’s no matter where they lived. The factory closed in 1960 and the building now houses offices.
Date: ca. 1865 with alterations ca. 1892 and 2000
]]>About the artwork:
“The 746 East Raleigh South Park District was a place that provided black people with a strong community and incredible opportunities that they were largely being denied elsewhere. I wanted to highlight some of those wonderful things in my piece, Fun Times at the Top of the World.
Through this project, I have gained a new respect and understanding for parts of the city that I had only happened to drive through, and their strong significance for the African American community. I represented this by attempting to join the idea of the present with foundations of the past. The image features a little girl sitting atop a foundation of sorts. It is made up of the pieces of the foundation that existed in East Raleigh. The buildings included are Tupper Memorial Church, the Leonard building at Shaw University, and the Governor Morehead School.”
About the artist:
Dare Coulter was born in 1993 and raised in Lorton, Virginia, where she claims her entire life’s perspective was shaped. She is the second of three girls and started drawing because of the first. She is currently pursuing an Art + Design degree at NC State University. She is an artist, muralist and sculptor.
]]>About the artwork:
“Coming from a small town myself—Oxford, North Carolina, where there were few cultural events, museums, etc.—the public library was the place that fed my soul. A good library is an extremely important resource for any community and the Harrison Library was no exception. Mollie Huston Lee was the first African American librarian in Wake County, the library’s founder, and a UNESCO library delegate who helped build the library’s large collection of fiction, serials and files, and a special collection chronicling the African American experience both locally and nationally. The library was named for Richard Berry Harrison, the son of fugitive slaves who was born in Ontario, Canada in 1864. I created the banner using historical photographs of these two important people and stitched them together with images of colorful borders of books on a shelf.”
About the artist:
Born and raised in Oxford, North Carolina, Joyce Watkins King made Raleigh her home in 1975 when she accepted a full scholarship to the College of Design at NC State University. She has devoted most of her professional life to work in marketing, graphic design, the arts, and development for nonprofit organizations. Since 1993 her designs have been recognized with 12 regional and 36 national design awards. She holds degrees in environmental design, visual design/product design, a minor in textiles, an MS in management, and CFRE licensing. Joyce is a fellow of the Vermont Studio Center, the Hambidge Center in Georgia and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has also taken courses at Penland School in metalsmithing, photojournalism, printmaking, mixed media painting, encaustic, and public art.
]]>About the artwork: “As a young girl growing up in Apex and Raleigh, the Shaw area was a place of prestige within my community, from the university to Dr. Debman’s office, who delivered me and my siblings. My approach to honoring the historic Leonard Hall is to showcase an image of the graduating class of 1889. My design concept is to build a story by collaging the graduates with an image of the school. The graduate image shows the pride, dignity and prestige that the Shaw community evoked in that time period. My hope is to inspire viewers and to entice questions. Who were they?
I will combine my original painting in the foreground along with a screened image of writing paper. The blueprint represents changes to come to the area. The quote summarizes the historical mission and contribution of Shaw University’s Leonard Hall: “Education=Freedom.”
About the artist:
Debbie Crawford discovered a love of creating at an early age, when she was either making art from discarded items, making clothes by hand or rearranging the family's living room on a weekly basis. As a mixed media artist, Debbie uses acrylics, recycled paper, original illustrations, fabric and found objects to create. She began creating a line of original notecards and gifts using her original verses, favorite quotes, word collages and more. Currently, she is also creating a mixed media series focusing on the Black Migration, entitled Comin & Goin.
]]>About the artwork:
“One Way Home is a way of talking about and understanding people without depicting people. I am interested in what historic buildings can tell us about old ways of life melding with or giving way to present-day needs. In the case of these buildings, their original functions as factories and neighborhood stores have been altered or obscured by a century of other incarnations, each of which has left a trace of the people who have used them. The techniques used in my work echo the sedimentation and erosion seen in the buildings I paint. Most pieces are painted on vintage grain, seed and tobacco fertilizer sacks from North Carolina-based companies. The corner of Blount & Bragg is set to become the western edge of SPERNA’s Heritage Walk route, celebrating the community and encouraging the public to take notice of buildings like these as markers of a long and
interesting history.”
About the artist:
Rachel Herrick is a multimedia artist best known for her detailed traveling (MOCS) installations. This work has been the subject of activist and academic writing in the US, Canada, England and Australia. Herrick grew up on a subsistence farm in the hills of central Maine and relocated to North Carolina in 2004. She earned an MFA from the Maine College of Art in 2011 and a BA in creative writing from Methodist University in 2002. She has been the recipient of several grants including a United Arts Regional Project Grant and a Puffin Foundation Grant.
]]>About the artwork:
“While the majority of my artwork is mixed media collage built out of secondhand print materials, I often work through these ideas digitally first. As a result of this practice, I’ve become increasingly interested in digital collage. The layers in my work remind me a lot of our city. Raleigh’s history is preserved in architecture. This mixture of old and new gives the city its variety. Pillars of Community takes nostalgic images of historical buildings and presents them with a contemporary aesthetic. The complete image shows the history of the South Blount Street district. I chose these specific sites because they create a full picture of this small but distinct area of Raleigh. Components like the university, residential neighborhoods, community spaces and small businesses give the area the variety that I hope this project helps to preserve.”
About the artist:
Brandon Cordrey is a mixed media collage artist living in Raleigh, North Carolina. His works’ content frequently focuses on information transfer, thinking of humans as data processing units. He earned his BFA in painting and drawing from East Carolina University. He is represented by Emerge Gallery in Greenville, NC and Penland Gallery on the Penland School of Crafts campus. He is currently the director of exhibitions at Visual Art Exchange and the program director for Arts Access in Raleigh.
]]>About the artwork:
“Preserve celebrates food traditions and aims to help viewers recollect the vibrant past of the East Raleigh-South Park Historical District. My banner design is an ode to the African American home demonstrators. From 1919 to 1965, these dedicated women taught North Carolina’s African American homemakers about nutrition, sanitation and home economy. The woman in the design represents the hard-working African American home demonstrators and homemakers who canned and preserved foods to extend the bounty of their summer gardens and farms.
I designed my submission to bridge the past and the future of Blount Street. I am a supporter of the Raleigh Food Corridor—a community-sourced project along two miles of Blount and Person streets that links communities through local foods. I believe that the home demonstrators’ ethos of making the very best of limited resources is well worth reclaiming and preserving.”
About the artist:
Linda Dallas received a master’s degree in product design from NC State University and a BS in mathematics from Howard University. She has been an instructor at various institutions and organizations since 2006. In 1997, she coordinated the Exploris project team that traveled to Senegal, West Africa to collect artifacts, video footage and photographs for Exploris’s WOW Senegal exhibit.
]]>About the artwork:
“To start this project, I made two scouting trips to Blount Street where I walked the blocks mentioned in the project and searched for a subject. I decided to create a composition
using Prince Hall as the subject. I was inspired by the building’s architectural details and the shadow patterns they created just after noon in early December. I included the Mason
signage to help define the subject and honor their long history at that site. Also, from my vantage point sitting across the street from Prince Hall, I noticed the Cabarrus street sign and decided to include it in the composition as a nod to the street intersection and to help create an interesting space in the drawing.”
About the artist:
Robert Quinn received an MS in mathematics from the United States Coast Guard Academy, an MS in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an MS in mathematics from NC State University. In 2008 he received the First Premium for Web and Graphic Design and the Second Premium for Sculpture at the NC State Fair. Robert lives and works in Raleigh.
]]>About the artwork:
“The work I am presenting represents what I have read about the historic portion of Raleigh. The African American roots of the freedmen who started on Blount Street and other areas of downtown, because it was one of the few places they could start, gave me the inspiration to take a historic area and give it a modern twist with the bright smiling face of today’s modern African American person.
Image today is of a very sensitive nature, along with race and creed, which is part of the reason I chose to make the image. The challenge of creating something that wasn’t stereotypical, but was a mix of a building signifying the past in the present with a very young, fresh, smiling face accompanied by the splash of graphics, helps bring it into the present and future.”
About the artist:
Aaron Cracium is a veteran multimedia designer with high level experience in 3D animation, interactive game design, advertising design, web development and video production. He is currently the webmaster at the School of Communication Arts, where he received his certificate in digital animation.
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