More pictures of crap around Charlotte, and stuff about other stuff

I took more pictures of (quasi) abandoned stuff today. I don't really understand my attraction to abandonment. Maybe because I myself feel somewhat abandoned even though people do care about me, which makes it a really odd way to feel. That stadium in Winterfield is in really bad shape, I actually had no idea it existed until today. Surely it doesn't belong to the neighboring elementary school? Eastland Mall really needs no introduction, it should be torn down and redeveloped. I remember when you couldn't find a parking spot there on a friday night or weekend, now it's more empty asphalt than mall.

Everyone seems to be getting sick, which means when midweek or the weekend rolls around I'll be sick. I'm always the last one to be sick. My precious Janey (ok, she's not MINE, only in my wildest dreams, I just have to settle for being the e-Mr. Jane) is still sick. Hopefully she'll be better soon, I hate it when she's sick because she doesn't deserve it and I can't do anything about it, though I wish I could tend to her, so it makes me feel as if my hands are bound. I actually admire how tough she is, I get floored by the littlest stuff yet she keeps going through some things that would hospitalize my weak self. Jane, I bow to thee.

Charlotte's decaying Eastside

Eastland is Charlotte's forgotten neighborhood. Though it's near neighbors Plaza-Midwood and Elizabeth enjoy skyrocketing property values and seemingly unending investment, Eastland is left to rot. Nowhere is this more painfully evident than the Amity Gardens - Coliseum Center shopping complex on Independence Boulevard (I realize it's officially in Sheffield Park). I read a story in yesterday's newspaper about how Eastside residents, of which I am one, are beginning to lose patience with the city's empty promises of redevelopment for the area. I took some pictures of the shopping center this afternoon, admittedly they aren't very good but they get the point across. I'm barely old enough to remember when the shopping center still had life, when you could have a sandwich at the lunch counter in the Eckard's and then go to K-Mart. That ended when K-Mart declared bankruptcy, dealing a crippling blow to the area.

There was talk of a transit center, similar to the one uptown, and later talk of a new shopping center anchored by a Wal-Mart supercenter, none of which have come to anything. In part because the land is toxic, and in part because Harbor Fright Tools won't sell it's lease to the city. I'd personally run a light rail line over what is now the sparingly used HOV lane. Though that may be infeasible.

Whatever the outcome, something needs to happen because it's becoming a magnet for crime.