The Charlotte of My Youth

Eastland Mall, circa 1980's.  Yes, that's a skating rink inside the mall.

I started writing about being depressed but I think this might be a better topic to blog.  :)

I'm probably one of the few people (of like 2 dozen) who can safely say that I'm from Charlotte and have mostly stayed in the area.  I came to Charlotte as a baby, grew up around here, then Kings Mountain for another 9 years (still relatively close to Charlotte), then went off to college, and back again to the Charlotte area.

Circa 1980 and 90's

Much has change over the 34 years of me being in North Carolina.  I once remember Charlotte being a quaint little southern city.  It was and still is the largest city in the Carolinas but back then, there was no Ballantyne, there wasn't a shopping area near UNC Charlotte (the location of Dick's, Sam's Club, and the old Walmart), there was no Northlake Mall, no I-485, not even Carolina Place Mall in Pineville.  Southpark Mall used to have a Sears and used to be just a regular mall until it went upscale in early 2000.  And speaking of malls, the place to go in the 80's was Eastland Mall.  If you knew how to skate, you can go to Eastland Mall to skate.  But it was also fun to watch the people skate.  

The current Bojangle's Coliseum was the Charlotte Coliseum.  There was no Time Warner Arena, and not even the Bank of America Stadium.  There was no BOA building either or Duke Energy building.  The current Wells Fargo building in downtown Charlotte was the First Union tower (yes, First Union, remember that?).

I moved away from Charlotte in 1989, so much of the 90's, I wasn't in Charlotte.  However, I do remember almost a weekly ride to Charlotte with my parents to shop for Chinese groceries and things.  During this decade, I saw Charlotte grew tremendously.  By the end of the 80's, I-485 was under construction on the south side of Charlotte, between Johnston Road to S. Tryon St.  Carolina Place was newly built and the late 80's Charlotte Hornets already made a home as the first professional sport teams in Charlotte.  (No Carolina Panthers yet...)  During this time, there seem to be a big boom in the financial sector.  Towards the end of the 90's, First Union bought Wachovia but kept the Wachovia name as it had better customer service than First Union.  I think around the same time, Bank of America (from Nations Bank) made its home also in Charlotte.  Then finally, the Carolina Panthers came on board as an expansion team of the NFL.  Charlotte grew in the 90's and became a top financial center in the U.S. next to Manhattan, NY.

This is just a glimpse of Charlotte from the eyes of a child who grew up in and around this city.  I hope to write some more about specific stories, because Charlotte now is not the same as back then.