SWEPT AWAY AND FORGOTTEN

“Though greatly altered and cut into apartments, this Victorian house of the Second Empire style retained hints of its 1890’s dignity as it stood aloof on the corner of East Long [Avenue] and North Oakland Street in this July 1975 photograph. By the time of its centennial, both the Victorian and its surviving neighbors had been swept away by the railroad track lowering project [now merely known as “the ditch”].”

From A Glimpse as It Passed: Scenes From a Vanished Gastonia, North Carolina, 1972-1992.

URBAN TAPESTRY JULY 1984

This July 1984 photograph by Mike Falls of Blacksburg, S.C.(He grew up in Gaston County.) looks southward from Long Avenue at North Broad Street and clearly shows the gritty and complex urban beauty that existed before the area was obliterated by urban planners and misguided "preservationists."
The cross streets are East Airline Avenue, East Main Avenue, and, in the distance, East Franklin Boulevard. On the right stands Carolina Farm and Garden at Main and Broad before its relocation to Union Road. On the left are Goodnight Brothers Wholesale Grocers and the Piedmont and Northern/Seaboard/CSX train station. The large house in the distance is McLean Funeral Home on the east side of South Broad Street. The tracks in the foreground are of the Carolina and Northwestern Railroad, and those before Main belong to the Southern Railway. The intersection of these tracks mark the geographical center of the City of Gastonia.
Everything in this scene except the former home of McLean's
is gone.

A NEW LIBRARY FOR UPTOWN/DOWNTOWN GASTONIA?

Photo credits: Above, Scott Lewis, print by Jim Brown, Cam Art Studios (circa 1955). Below, The County of Gaston: Two Centuries of A North Carolina Region by Robert F. Cope and Manly Wade Wellman, published by The Gaston County Historical Society, 1961.

If you are connected to dear old Uptown/Downtown Gastonia with your heart or head or both, now is the time to participate in the discussions currently taking place regarding the city's Gastonia 2020 Comprehensive Plan. 

Under "The Key Guiding Principles" section of the Executive Summary of the plan (click here to see it), it is stated that, "...the center city will become the primary location for new amenities within the city, featuring a variety of retail destinations, cultural and civic activities, and quality housing opportunities and will evolve into an energetic destination for our growing population."

The draft copy of the 2020 Plan plainly states that the Garrison Boulevard main library facility is inadequate and needs replacement. It goes on to say that the Union Road Branch receives some of the library system's heaviest use. It does not take a genius to deduce the next step. The Union Road Branch will be enlarged to become the main library, leaving the older parts of the city even more deprived of library services than they were in 1978 when the Garrison Boulevard building opened. This is standard suburban thinking, which goes contrary to recent efforts to revive the center city. 

"A Plan for the Center City" portion of the 2020 Executive Summary states that , "Without a strong and vital Center City, the City of Gastonia would be just another sprawling amorphous suburb of Charlotte."

The 1931 Gastonia Public Library building, used as the Gastonia Police headquarters since the library relocated to Garrison Boulevard in 1978, has sat vacant since the new Police headquarters opened on Long Avenue. What better reuse for a wonderful, memory-filled piece of Gastonia history than for its original purpose. Since much of current library use has shifted to technology and group meetings, the old Main Library could become a traditional book-filled location and a wonderfully appropriate setting for the North Carolina Room, which houses materials for historical research. (The old Number 1 Fire Station next door could even become a technology facility.)

This is an idea that makes sense!

Original Gastonia City Hospital, located on the third, fourth, and part of the fifth floor of the Realty Building, built in 1912. It stood at the current location of Citizens South Bank on West Main Avenue and was razed in 1971.

OLD CITY HOSPITAL/GASTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL COMPLEX
NORTH HIGHLAND STREET AT WEST MAUNEY AVENUE
THREATENED WITH DEMOLITION

Illustration from Gastonia Centennial Commemorative Book: 1877-1977, edited by James H. Atkins, published by Gastonia Centennial Celebration, Inc., 1977. The caption read, "The old Gaston Memorial Hospital was a 223-bed institution located on N. Highland St. It began in 1946 with the purchase of the old City Hospital, darker portion of building on the left, which was opened in 1924. The new addition, lighter section, was opened in 1951, and the portion joining the two buildings was completed in 1957."

Linen postcard of Gaston Memorial Complex in 1951.

Gastonia's City Hospital circa 1924. (Credits: Scott Lewis; print by Jim Brown.)

From American Legion Post 23 Junior Baseball Championship Program 1950.

From American Legion Post 23 Junior Baseball Chapionship Program 1950.

CITY HOSPITAL BUILDING
MAY 18, 2007
(Click on image for slideshow.)

GASTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL ADDITION (BUILT 1951)
MAY 18, 2007
(Click on image for slideshow.)

ORIGINAL NURSING SCHOOL BUILDING
MAY 18, 2007
(Click on image for slideshow.)

STONE WALLS
MAY 18, 2007
(Click image for slideshow.) 

GASTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
1951 LAMP POSTS

THESE HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE PROPERTY.
IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO DETERMINE THEIR PRESENT LOCATION.

 

Gastonia Gazette article August 16, 1956  describing the pending construction of the final addition to the old Gaston Memorial Hospital.

GASTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL DEDICATION
(Photo submitted by Deb Lewis Ogden. Her father, Gordon Lewis, is standing at far left in the color guard. Other color guard members, left to right: Ira Cox, Ralph Jordan, and Lester Kinlaw.)
The Legionnaire in the center of the three seated at right is Ernest R. Morgan. He was the general contractor who built the National Bank of Commerce building in 1956 (recently demolished), a city councilman, an Army colonel in World War II, and a Gastonia civic leader. He gave the dedicatory speech for the presentation of the hospital to the county. (Information furnished by his son-in-law, Bill Beam.) 

ARTICLES FROM THE 1973 YEARBOOK OF THE GASTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF NURSING
(THE SCHOOL'S FINAL YEAR OF OPERATION)
(Submitted by Deb Lewis Ogden.)

The former banking center of Downtown Gastonia at the intersection of South Marietta Street and Franklin Boulevard, April 7, 1995. The First Union (center) and First Citizens (right) buildings were demolished by order of the Mayor and City Council under the direction of the City Manager to show that they were serious (?) about Downtown redevelopment. (Urban Renewal revisited decades after it was declared an utter failure.) A gravel parking lot now awaits the construction of their "legacy," whatever that might eventually be. (Photograph by Jim Brown.)

National Bank of Commerce / First Union National Bank
(Postcard circa 1956)

Built in 1956 as Gastonia's premier contribution to postwar modernist architecture.
It was declared obsolete by the City Manager and destroyed January 2009 by order of the Mayor and City Council to demonstrate their dedication to Downtown revitalization. Click here to see how the site looked after demolition.

For the history of First National Bank, the National Bank of Commerce, and this building, visit the Journal article entitled "Remember Me as I Was."

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