THANKSGIVING NIGHT 1954
In the time before shopping centers and the suburban exodus, Thanksgiving night was a magical time, for, at dusk, the Christmas lights were turned on Uptown.  People drove from miles around to get in line and slowly move under the canopy of lights as everyone "oohed" and "aahhed."  It was officially the Christmas season! (This photograph was taken in the 200th block of West Main Avenue loking east. Leon Schneider Department Store's jingle was, "Let's go to Schneider's; buy the family's clothes at Schneider's; two thirty-three West Main Av-e-nue, in the mid-dle of the block.")
Take a drive east on Main Avenue during this Christmas season...and remember.
Click here for more Christmas scenes Uptown

A BUSTLING UPTOWN GASTONIA, EARLY 1917

We will begin the new year of 2010 with an early 1917 look east on West Main Avenue from South Street. On the left, the new U.S. Post Office is the pride of the city, while next door, the First National Bank Building (today known as the Lawyers' Building) nears completion. The tower of the Craig and Wilson Building (later part of the Raylass department store chain, currently under renovation) rises in the distance. On the right are the drug stores of Kennedy and Adams. The seven-story Third National Bank Building was constructed on the Kennedy site in 1923. In a few short years, the sleepy railroad town had become a young industrial giant. 

True rebirth of Gastonia's center city will eventually come as citizens discover the joys of living in comfortable homes surrounding a compact, walkable, and human-scale commercial district, which offers all the goods and services required by the local residents. A healthy uptown will never result from government spending on the latest trendy "big idea" that is based on attracting suburban residents to special events. A permanent residential population with disposable income will pump undreamed-of vitality back into the city's core, if that core is left intact, spared from political and social idiocy.

Armstrong (originally South School), located on Union Road, just south of the East Seventh Avenue
(now  Garrison Boulevard) intersection.
Constructed ____. Burned in the mid-1960's.

View from West Franklin Boulevard of the National Bank of Commerce (First Union) site after demolition of the building
February 8, 2009.

2011 Toyota Camry in Downtown Gastonia, June 20, 2010. "State of the art" is tongue-in-cheek no more!
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