Carrboro Music Festival

One of the first impressions I had of Carrboro was in 2005, when I made a trip down here to house hunt. In one of those wonderful accidents that can change a life, I turned a corner and walked right into the Carrboro Music Festival. Everywhere I looked there were bands, colorful crowds, beautiful music, and people…

Welcome Back

Orange County is beginning to feel like its former self. Restaurants and bars are open, buzzing with students, visitors, and townies. The simplest things – a drink, a meal, a walk downtown – feel celebratory. Our fare-free buses are filling up with vaccinated riders. It’s a return to what we think of around here as…

Juneteenth 2021

Juneteenth commemorates the day the enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally received the news that they were free. The news came two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, on June 19, 1865. Flash-forward almost exactly 100 years, to Chapel Hill in 1969. That’s when Howard N. Lee was elected mayor of this town. In so…

University Place in Chapel Hill is Open for Business

There’s a shopping center in Chapel Hill that’s fun to visit because many longtime Chapel Hill retailers are at the helm and their experience adds to the feeling of community. University Place (formerly known as University Mall) is anchored by SilverSpot Cinema. The mall originally opened with Ivey’s and Belk (Belk-Leggett Horton) in 1973, and Roses Stores as a junior anchor. It was developed…

Historic Preservation

Historic preservation has been around forever. In one form or another, people have always wanted to maintain the past – the old homeplace – while at the same time inviting in the new. The new takes many forms: a road, a store, a building. But the world is finite, and once the old is gone…