So I'm out for a late afternoon walk to clear my head, standing on South Tryon getting ready to cross Stonewall Street over to the Gantt Center, and I hear something that sounds like a small explosion. Across the street, just next to the Juan Logan work out front of the Gantt, shards of glass appear to burst from the pavement. Lots of shards.
The wind is gusting mightily - not quite hurricane force winds but maybe 30 or so mph, I'd guess. With some anxiety, I cross the street and look up, and then down at the broken glass, and all around. There are a lot of very small pieces of glass, more than you'd get with a drink bottle. It's gray, not the color of beer or liquor bottles. I don't see any obvious gaping holes in the glass facade of the Duke Energy building, but spot some plywood way, way up high. Could the glass have fallen from that high? Seems unlikely. But where else would it have come from?
A woman who is crossing the street toward me, who had been walking up from the other direction, says she couldn't see where the glass came from either. Like me, she first thought it had come from the artwork in front of the Gantt Center.
I go up to Dean & Deluca, get some decaf - who needs caffeine after that experience? - and walk back to the office, avoiding either side of the block of Tryon in front of the Duke Energy building. The shards are still there. Wherever the glass came from, I think no one realizes it fell, or someone would be out sweeping away the evidence.
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30 comments:
The broken glass probably came about because of the rock thrown through the street car window by those members of city council wise enough to understand the wishes of Charlotte taxpayers.
Democrats' Folly: Foxx's Trolley.
5:32pm:
After you threw the brick, which way did you go?
This type of thing NEVER happened at Haaavvvard.......
Hmmm, how interesting. And then you knew you had a story to write! I wish I had such an imagination, then I could work for the Observer. Imagine all the talented young people laid off there at the paper so you could write this drivel.
It was a sign for GOD!
Best thing you written in ten years, wow!
Sorry about that, I was riding my bike down the street when two guys holding a big panel of glass started walking across the street. I couldn't stop fast enough and bash right through it. The two guys who were holding the glass freaked out and ran off. I didn't want to stick around either, so I also ran off as well. So yea, opps!
Mr. Anonymous,
Actually Mary is making an interesting point here. When you walk around in your environment, you see things that you don't see when you're in a car.
Study after study has shown that we become knowledgeable about a place by moving around it at pedestrian speed.
We have 2 generations of Americans that in many ways literally don't know where they're coming from. They don't have a sense of place because they're not intimately acquainted with it, having spent most of their youth being driven here and there by parents.
Mary would have never noticed that glass from a car. Although distracted by something else, she may have hit 5:32pm in the butt as she turned the corner.
So, I was out walking in the woods today. Near a creek. I saw an old Budweiser can.
I thought you said "Grass from on high", got kinda excited for a minute.
You went and stood where the glass had fallen - and looked up?
And here I thought my opinion of your intelligence couldn't go any lower...
Despite President Obama's long history of criticizing the Bush administration for "sweetheart deals" with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.
The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in war-torn Afghanistan.
Consultant employs the Saul Alinsky strategy of attacking the messenger, but never factually making a rebuttal to the message.
The gig is up.
Marry, I enjoy this article. Shows that people driving around in their urban-assault vehicles have no idea what is going on in the city around them.
What if that glass had blown off Duke Energy center or from above and hit someone. This would make front page news if it killed them or their family.
Some people in this town have no culture or tact which is clearly displayed by the tasteless comments frequently left on your blog.
Can we get back to the glass on the street?
It sounds like a scene out of a "24" episode.
I'm not a superstitious man, but I'm never setting foot in the Duke/Wachovia Memorial tower. At least one worker was killed, more injured, the company building it implodes, some debris fell on a school bus a while back, now this. That place is cursed.
9:10pm,
Help me out. Is your comment reverse psychology or an example of compassionate conservatism?
I get the two mixed up.
And why the assumption the glass was from "on high?" Couldn't it have just as easily been on the "down low?"
Obviously, uptown is not a safe place! I urge Council to immediately declare a Code Red, evacutate the city, commission a commission to study the conditions and not allow any traffic, pedestrian or vehicular, to return until we can be assured that we will never again have to step around broken glass!
Anon 1/25/2010 09:10 - Two words for you:
Grow up.
I almost never agree with Consultant, as our ideological beliefs are pretty much polar opposites. But everyone has a right to their opinion. To curse and insult those you don't agree with exposes yourself as being of small mind and being bereft of maturity.
Mary, why did you allow that comment to stay on here so long?
Now, back to the glass... I'd really be curious to hear what happened. The plywood is probably a leftover; they've finished the exterior of the Duke Energy Center. Could something have fallen from the top of the Gantt Center?
Don't tell Michael and Moira.
J,
The whole point of my 9:10 comment WAS to see how long it would stay up and to call Mary's bluff about Consultant's numerous insulting and abusive posts. Take a look at the garbage just on the previous article (streetcar money) that Mary allows Consultant to get away with.
There is a blatant double-standard here - agree with Mary and you can get away with anything; disagree with her and get deleted.
Oh for Pete's sake. I don't care what position the comments take. If they're abusive or insulting I kill them. If anything, I am more lenient with people who are disagreeing with me. Let's not get overly paranoid.
That said, I am not policing this thing 24/7 for obvious reasons. I have a whole other job to do and try to occasionally have what passes for a life. Please feel free to e-mail me if there's an abusive/obscene or otherwise unacceptable comment that I may not have seen yet.
If your comments are being deleted, then you are not being civil.
Mary - keep up the good work, I love your articles and ALWAYS read your stories ASAP when I see them in the paper. It is clear that you are "paying attention" to the long term needs of our comunity and our environment.
Bogus.
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