Old Carolinian

If, after 10 years of profits with the last 3 and one-half years being the greatest economy in the history of the world, American, Delta, and United do not have enough cash reserve to survive a downtown that will last a few months. let them go bankrupt and allow the federal bankruptcy courts and the corporate creditors to re-organize the entities and sell off unneeded assets. Every one of these airlines has gone through bankruptcy previously and the predecessor entities to them have gone through multiple bankrutpcies, with the shareholders being 'wiped out' each time. These three airlines are well acquainted with insolvency and receivership. This is merely part of the capitalistic economic process--poorly managed, inefficient entities are replaced. Moreover, the airline oligopoly--just 4 airlines (including Southwest) that control 90% of the air passenger market could be dissolved and replaced by a multi-company, comeptitive air transport system. And, don't feel bad for the shareholders of these airlines--when you are an equity holder, that is the primary risk you assume. And, the shareholders are well aware of it--after all, the surest way to have lost money during the last 90 years is to have invested money in airline stocks.

"Too bad Ken Thompson made that agreement with WF that prevented DEC from becoming the new tallest. In a world full of super talls," That is a false statement. Thompson was pushed out of Wachovia in June 2008 as the Wachovia's financial situation deteriorated due to Thompson's bad decision to purchase Golden West. Wachovia was forced by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to merge with Wells Fargo in Septmeber 2008 after a rejected deal from CitiBank when Wachovia became unable to fund itself in the early fall. Ken Thompson joined the other bankster Ken, Ken Lewis of Bank of America, as being the most incompetent bank executives in the history of Charlotte and certainly amongst the worst bank executives in the history of the United States.

Returning from a trip to Northern Europe this evening, here's how I knew for certain I was back in Charlotte: The significant number of obese, even morbidly obese, people in the Charlotte airport terminal. On the connecting flight back to Charlotte, I sat beside a man who had to weigh at least 350 pounds; he was so large the armrest was in the upward position and he spilt over into my seat. The non-working street lights on US 74/Independence. 75% of the lights do not work. It's as if the road maintenance crews of the City (or the State, I don't which one is responsible (or irresponsible) for this) doesn't have the intelligence to screw in a lightbulb. It's negligence, pure and simple negligence by Charlotte Transportation or NCDOT (or both). Beggars standing on medians at intersections approaching stopped cars for money. There appears to be an entire night shift of them; I suppose the day shift quits begging at sundown,

There was a shooting at the Epicenter in April, a murder in October, and then the police reponse involving the shooting of two people (and death of one). If this series of events occurred at a bar or restuarant in a suburban area, the business would be shut down by court order as a nuisance and endangerment to public safety. At some point, the indifference of the city government and court system to murders and other serious crimes is going give Charlotte a comeuppance, damage its reputation, and adversely affect economic development and the recruiting of businesses.

Are the taxpayers in York County picking up a good sized part of the purchase price of Tepper's golf course like the taxpayers in Charlotte for stadium renovations and MLS facilities?

From The Financial Times: "If you wake up on a Casper mattress, work out with a Peloton before breakfast, Uber to your desk at a WeWork, order DoorDash for lunch, take a Lyft home, and get dinner through Postmates, you’ve interacted with seven companies that will collectively LOSE nearly $14 billion this year".

WeWork's purpose appears to have been (1) to lose money and (2) enrich Adam Neuman, its former CEO. 2018 $1,900,000,000 loss on $1,800,000,000 of revenue 2019 forecast $2,700,000,000 loss WeWork doesn't work (financially). Also, Neumann's $60,000,000 Gulfstream is for sale. Contact WeWork's head office before everyone loses their job in the bankruptcy.

"This parking garage makes me sad." Exactly. The utter thoughtlessness and indifference of the hospital...building a convenient parking deck for patients needing chemotherapy, radiation and surgery for cancer and patients receiving treatment and rehab for heart and vascular disease.

"The modern city is a place for banking and prostitution and very little else."--Frank Lloyd Wright

The "Iwo Jima" photo is obscene and disrespectful. There were 26,000 American casualties in the battle of Iwo Jima. 6,800 United States soldiers, marines and sailors sacrificed their lives for their country. The only thing the men is the photo did was to line their pockets with bonus checks.

Bank mergers: Consolidation eliminates duplicate branches and functions, thousands of employees are terminated to achieve expense reductions, senior management receives stock options and cash bonuses, and customers of the combined banking organization are charged increased fees for services.

I'm sure the NCDOT will find it easier to cap over 277 than to repair the hundreds and hundreds of non-working streetlights along the highway that haven't functioned in the last 15 or 20 years.

One of the buildings is the back of the First Union building, built in the very early 1950s, it's in the background on the left side of the barn. Then the Johnston Building and the Commercial National building, the latter being demolished (along with the American Trust building) for the NCNB building completed in 1960 or 1961. To the extreme right the Liberty Life building in the foreground and the Wachovia building on East Trade at Church under construction, completed in 1958, I think. Between the First Union and Johnston building--is that the Wilder building? I'll guess the photo is from 1957. The Thompson farm extended across old Independence down Kings Drive; I remember the cows, a similar scene to those cows that grazed on the land on which SouthPark was built.

"...Since Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest, and United are the only tenants in A North..." I recall boarding Air Canada flights a few times out of A North during the last few months...

The Doctors Building...built in the 1940s...apparently the owners decided the renovation costs were too excessive to update it to current standards as a medical office building...and thus the demolition

Are parking charges/fees subject to NC state sales tax? If so, they're already being taxed by NC counties; the county sales tax is collected with the state sales tax. If not, neither the county nor the city can impose a sales tax or gross receipts tax on parking without consent of the NC General Assembly, since NC is a 'Dillon Rule' state. And, we all know how the bumpkins and yokels from rural NC who are elected to the General Assembly feel about Charlotte collecting taxes, so it's unlikely legislation to impose a parking tax would make it through a committee hearing in Raleigh, let alone be approved by a vote in the legislature.

If the photo posts, here's the old Southern station on West Trade, demolished around 1962, I think:

It's interesting to note that Charlotte and Raleigh are the 'economies' of North Carolina per the UNCC economic forecast report: "...the Metropolitan Statistical Areas of Charlotte and Raleigh represent around 85 percent of the state’s GDP an d over 50 percent of the state’s employment growth during the economic recovery from the Great Recession..." Also, about half the state's counties are losing population (and jobs): "...the data revealed that 48 counties –almost half of North Carolina’s 100 counties — lost population between 2010-2016..." News & Observer May 25 2017 on Census Bureau population estimates for 2016.

Well if the Amazon HQ2 thing doesn't work out, being the world headquarters of Krispy Kreme would be a good second place finish...

And, here's the Krispy Kreme at Hawthore/Indendence--1981 or thereabouts?

To be historically accurate, the addition to the courthouse should be designed in the architectural style of the original US post office and courthouse on West Trade that was demolished in 1917 in order to construct the first phase of the existing courthouse. How unfortunate it was for the city to lose this beautiful structure!

"The Really Big One" The New Yorker July 20, 2015 If, on that occasion, only the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone gives way—your first two fingers, say—the magnitude of the resulting quake will be somewhere between 8.0 and 8.6. That’s the big one. If the entire zone gives way at once, an event that seismologists call a full-margin rupture, the magnitude will be somewhere between 8.7 and 9.2. That’s the very big one. When the next very big earthquake hits, the northwest edge of the continent, from California to Canada and the continental shelf to the Cascades, will drop by as much as six feet and rebound thirty to a hundred feet to the west—losing, within minutes, all the elevation and compression it has gained over centuries. Some of that shift will take place beneath the ocean, displacing a colossal quantity of seawater. The water will surge upward into a huge hill, then promptly collapse. One side will rush west, toward Japan. The other side will rush east, in a seven-hundred-mile liquid wall that will reach the Northwest coast, on average, fifteen minutes after the earthquake begins. By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.” In the Pacific Northwest, everything west of Interstate 5 covers some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million.

"Our GA seems to be as anti-city as any in the country. I have a real tough time imagining reps from Henderson county agreeing to give Charlotte more incentive tax money from the state." From slate.com: Charlotte is at the mercy of the reactionary North Carolina Legislature.

An aerial photo of downtown from the early 1950s. Notice the warehouses and rail yard that occupied the land from Stonewall to Fourth Street, between College and Brevard.

The first try at a bond issue to build the terminal now in use failed and it required a second attempt a couple of years later to pass the bonds for the terminal and concourse completed in 1984 that are shown in the postcard photo. And, yes I also remember parking in the surface lot and walking to the terminal to catch flights. The old terminal and concourses from 1956 are shown below. There used to be no security--you walked straight through the concourse to your gate. Metal detectors didn't go into use until after the DB Cooper episode. And, the dominant carriers were Eastern and Piedmont.