When I visited downtown to meet a friend for lunch on Sunday a few weeks ago, I was surprised at how dead it was. Although the pandemic, the recovery and the work-from-home trend have all impacted cities, in Raleigh, our downtown dining/entertainment/residential district has reportedly been making a solid comeback.
There are many luxury apartments and condos being built and purchased by young people who want to live in the center of town. There are college campuses within walking distance that feed into the nightlife. There are events like concerts and festivals that are happening regularly that draw people from all over the region. And there are complaints from residents about crowds, noise, parking, traffic and partiers who drift into residential areas on evenings and weekends.
I fully expected to see a lot of people out enjoying a beautiful sunny afternoon. Instead, there was almost nobody. Our restaurant had only 2 groups there for lunch on the patio – one of whom was us. Other restaurants lining the street were open, but deserted too.
Parking was a breeze – with plenty of free spots everywhere.
There were, of course, some homeless people hanging around the fringes. But on the main streets it was a quiet.
It reminded me of Pittsburgh’s downtown back in the 1980s. During the workweek, the streets were jammed packed with people who commuted to work, delivery trucks, buses and cars. On Saturdays, they were busy with shoppers visiting to the 3 bustling department stores – Kaufmann’s, Gimbels, Hornes. But on Sundays, it was empty. Dead. The stores were all closed and nobody was on the streets except a few bums, a handful of shift workers waiting at bus stops, and a few of us feral kids. My friends and I would go there to visit Point State Park and to roller skate throughout the empty city streets.
After lunch, we decided to walk to the Art Museum a few miles away. It was now early afternoon and that’s when things began filling up.
I saw patios full of young people (college aged and early 20s, I suspect) drinking and dining. I saw families pouring out of cars on their way to visit shops and restaurants.
I even bumped into a few young guys wandering out of bars, after apparently (judging from their breath and their staggering) drank enough booze to make them pleasantly tipsy by 1PM.
That’s when it occurred to me.
It’s not a ghost town, my timing was just off.
Unlike me, people who are college-aged and in their 20s and 30s sleep in on Sundays. They aren’t jumping out of bed at dawn and meeting friends for lunch at 11:30AM. They were probably out late the night before. Then they slept in on Sunday before joining u with others at the local bars and restaurants to watch a ball game, drink some beer and hangout.
It was nice to see some “normalcy”.
Even if it’s not my personal normalcy and hasn’t been for a long, long time.