Enlarge Mayor Anthony Foxx addresses the crowd at Levine Museum of the New South's Taste of Time event.

Posted: May 4th, 2011 Tonya Jameson

Ernest Alford, Jr. remembers not being allowed to sit at the counter at Crescents, a café inside a store in uptown Charlotte during segregation.

“I remember the lunch counters,” he said.

Alford said blacks had to stand at the end of the counter with other blacks to order their food. His recollections weren’t bitter, as he recalled a time when blacks fled the South in droves in hopes of a better life up North.

Alford was one of those people who migrated to the North, but now finds himself back in his hometown - the "New South." On Thursday, Alford and his family sat wherever they wanted during the Levine Museum of the New South’s Taste of Time celebration. The event was part of the Levine’s 20^th anniversary celebration. During last week’s activities, the museum announced that it had exceeded its fundraising goal, received a challenge grant from the Levine Foundation and updated the Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers exhibit.

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Posted: May 1st, 2011 Greg Lacour

It’s been eight years since McCreesh Place, a 63-unit apartment complex for formerly homeless disabled men, opened on North Davidson Street in the Villa Heights neighborhood. Since then, the center’s staff and residents have endeared themselves to their once-skeptical neighbors by being good neighbors themselves: helping to keep nearby Cordelia Park clean and participating in the neighborhood’s crime prevention programs.

They also seek out other, more lighthearted ways to strengthen their bond with the community--and a $2,500 Foundation For The Carolinas Front Porch Grant recently helped.

The grant paid for a Bingo Night at McCreesh Place on April 29, and the whole neighborhood was invited--with catered barbecue, bingo cards and, for the winners, Wal-Mart and Harris Teeter gift cards that are “like gold” to the men living there, said Michael Boldt, the center’s property and community relations manager.

It’s the third Front Porch Grant award for McCreesh Place, named for the late Rev. Gene McCreesh, S.J., a priest from nearby St. Peter’s Catholic Church who co-founded the low-income housing nonprofit that owns the center.

“We like to open our doors to Villa Heights, North Charlotte and Belmont and just try to be better neighbors,” Boldt said. “We’re not just a facility.”

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Posted: April 29th, 2011 Greg Lacour

It’s time for Art In the A.M. to find a home.

The Crossroads initiative started in November as a showcase for Charlotte artists before an audience of early risers, held from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. and generally on the third Friday of each month. The sites have rotated from Amelie’s in NoDa to Story Slam in Plaza-Midwood to Dilworth Coffee on East Boulevard, with the hope of introducing the event to as many parts of town as possible.

And it’s worked, to a point, but that approach creates a downside: People who’ve experienced it and want to come again get confused about the location. So on April 29, organizer and spoken-word poet Quentin “Q” Talley arranged for the April Art In the A.M. to occupy the Common Market location on South Tryon Street in South End, a central location that may become permanent.

“There’s been buzz” about Art In the A.M., Talley said. “But people have told me they’re coming to Art In the A.M., and then they don’t show up … having a consistent place will help.”

Talley said he’s trying to set up one more new location before the event settles down and the weather gets too hot: The Green in Uptown, where a morning crowd is guaranteed and a roster of spoken-word poets and musicians will pique people’s interest. “Hopefully, once we do that one,” he said, “We can have more awareness.”

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Posted: April 27th, 2011 Greg Lacour

Some stories worth sharing this week:

• One of Charlotte’s longest-tenured local officials may be on his way out: Harry Jones, Mecklenburg County’s chief executive since 2000, is a finalist for the first professional manager’s job in Jefferson County, Ala., the state’s largest. Do you think it’s time for a change in county leadership?


• Some stunning (in a good way) news from the Levine Museum of the New South, which halfway through its 20^th-anniversary fundraising drive has raised nearly double its goal. It’s a remarkable feat considering how difficult it’s been for nonprofits and cultural institutions to raise money the last couple of years.


• Some stunning (in a bad way) news from Central Piedmont Community College, where budget cuts have forced the elimination of the executive director position at the college’s widely praised Center For Sustainability. Come July 1, Ernie McLaney – who has coordinated green programs at the college for more than five years – will be out of a job.


• Want to feel a little better about your fellow bipedal primates? Read this story about Charlotte’s “Mystery Man.”


• And here’s a lovely story about a couple whose common history, rooted in the Civil Rights movement, helped bring them together again in Charlotte after more than 40 years.