Thanks to everyone who took part in our referral competition in last Sunday’s email. The winner of the $50 gift card to Andy’s Print Shop, selected at random, is Gina Sheridan! Gina had 12 entries in the contest because she persuaded 12 friends to sign up. That’s some influence.
Also, as promised, here’s an audio version of last week’s feature story on Dae-Lee Arrington and the merry band of musicians he assembled to create a song for Charlotte. Dae-Lee says August 20 is the planned release date for the song. I went to a listening session on Thursday night, and the conversations around it were dynamic.
Now, this week’s Optimist is a little different. Lots here, but no long feature story. First, a photo essay from Logan Cyrus, with a short few words from me. Then, a dive into how the power of communication and narrative-setting will be key to the I-77 discussion. Then some notes and thoughts from a powerful week, including a call to consider shopping at Sav/Way on Central Avenue this week.
Standing outside a broken phone booth with a camera in his hand
Photos by Logan Cyrus
At bedtime, my 6-year-old has been asking me to tell him stories from “the olden days.”
One night he asked if, in the olden days, we had “TELEphones.” The “tele,” in his mind, distinguishes it from the ones we carry in our pockets today. I regaled him with tales of phone cords that stretched like slinkies from the kitchen to the living room, of the terror of calling a friend’s house without knowing who would answer, and of the embarrassment that fell over me whenever my dad would interrupt a call by picking up a telephone in another room.
Pure coincidence, but I used my “phone” recently to call photographer Logan Cyrus and see what he was up to.
“Taking pictures of old pay phones,” he said. I’ve known him long enough to know not to ask for an explanation.
A few days later he sent me the pay phone photographs that follow. Some have been stickered and spray painted. Others, left alone. They don’t work, at least not in the traditional sense. But through graffiti and grit, many remain hubs for communication, for expression, for opining on the state of this or that. Put together, the photos offer small proof that no matter where technology tugs us, or how quickly platforms shift, people just want to be heard.
As I scrolled through the images, I couldn’t help but remember all the cultural references to pay phones. What, exactly, would be today’s companion to the country breakup line: Here’s a quarter, call someone who cares? Where’s the 1990s band Primitive Radio Gods even supposed to stand? What could even trap Colin Farrell? Would Superman exist?
Locally, phone booth references began to appear in The Charlotte Observer in the early 1900s. Cafes that had one advertised it in the newspaper, as an attraction: “Business Men Find the Denny Cafe,” one 1905 ad reads. “A well appointed place. Phone booth, public stenographer, and best of all an elegant bill of fare, with a filled pantry to back it up.”
The first phone booth in a Charlotte government building was installed in early 1921, when the commissioner of public works convinced the board of commissioners of its benefits by saying, “the telephone will be of great convenience for patrons of the auditorium who may have occasion to use a telephone while attending a meeting or gathering in the municipal building.”
Mayor John Wilson assured the public that the phone booth would be installed at no cost to the city, and that the city would get a cut of the profits from Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company.
The peak decade for use of the term “phone booth” in the Observer’s archives was the 1970s. That was when Eastland Mall had a special holiday gift phone booth, where people could find information about Southern Bell products. SouthPark Mall’s pay phones drew crowds on Saturdays.
A phone booth in Kannapolis was used by “flimflammers” to con people out of money, using the old “Pigeon Drop” routine. They’d approach strangers to say they found tens of thousands of dollars in the booth, offer to split it with the stranger but only if they put up money as collateral. One elderly woman lost $10,000 in 1979.
Two things about that: We don’t use the word flimflammer enough anymore. And today’s online scams are, by comparison, profoundly lame.
So yes, Logan’s pictures of life from the pre-iPhone era caught my attention. Not just because folks have turned them into artwork, or because they simply look vintage. But because if you look closely, you can imagine the stories they hold — of frantic calls made after a car broke down, of heartfelt apologies and angry breakups, and of asking “the operator” to help you make a connection, human to human to human.
You know, back in the “olden days.”
Have a favorite pay phone memory or story? Send a few lines our way by replying to this email, and we’ll run it in a future edition.
Johnson C. Smith University last week began demolition of Liston Hall, and more than 500 tributes from alums poured in on the JCSU social feeds.
Named for former university president Hardy Liston, the building opened in 1962 as a residence hall for women. It later grew to include men.
Calvin Banks, a 1969 alum who’s worked as a JCSU grants officer for years, remembered how, in those early years, his palms got sweaty in the lobby.
“As you entered, you were confronted by a dormitory directress who demanded to know why you were there," Banks told JCSU’s comms team for its web story. "You explained that you were there to call on a particular young lady. The directress would then page the young lady, informing her that she had a visitor in the lobby. Then the wait began. Is she coming down? Will she send her roommate down with some excuse? What are the other students already seated in the lobby thinking? Then, she appears and all is right in the world."
Meanwhile, on the other side of center city, Central Piedmont Community College will remove its “Granddaddy Oak” this week, citing extensive evaluations that revealed the tree’s deteriorating condition and safety risks. The 100-year-old willow oak is one of Mecklenburg County’s largest known trees, about 21 feet around with a 95-foot canopy spread, the college said.
For whom the road tolls
Photo by Logan Cyrus
The Interstate 77 South toll lanes story is entering docuseries territory.
The saga’s latest big development is that N.C. Secretary of Transportation Daniel Johnson sent a letter to community leaders last week saying that a revised funding and delivery model “allows for up to $300 million in additional community investment,” if the project is resurrected.
Quick catch-up for those who missed the first dozen episodes:The 11-mile stretch of I-77 from Charlotte to the state line stinks. NCDOT wants to make it better by building elevated toll lanes, paid for by $600 million in state money and more than $3 billion from a private company, which would then recoup the money via tolls over time. Council approved the funding model several years ago. But when community members saw designs for the lanes earlier this year, they found them appalling. So they pushed back. Activists raised a bullhorn for those frustrations. In May, Charlotte’s City Council voted 6-5 to back out of supporting the project. A week later, the regional transportation board, which includes Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and a number of other municipalities, also voted to back out.
The state legislature didn’t exactly like that, so they slipped some lines into the state budget that said the regional board would have to pay back $60 million in design and pre-construction costs already incurred. They gave the regional body until October to take back their take-back. Charlotte's the big domino; if the city flips, the regional board will, too.
And that’s not even the half of it! But here we are, and over the past month or so, NCDOT has been talking to the city and community leaders about how to make the project more appealing, particularly to the historically Black communities that were torn apart when the road was built in the first place.
Among the community benefits,NCDOT promises to:
Identify “cap-and-cover” opportunities that would reconnect the Historic West End to center city,
work with community partners to address food deserts on the west side.
I’ve talked to a dozen or so people in key positions about the issue over the past couple of weeks, and it’s clear that the stone wall of opposition to the project is at least softening. I’m still not here to tell anyone how to feel about the matter, but I’m wildly fascinated by the roles communications and storytelling are playing. Here are a few things worth watching:
The narratives:For six months, opponents owned the narrative, while NCDOT fumbled community engagement. Meanwhile, the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance was left on an island as the only group willing to make public statements in favor of the toll lanes.
There were two signs of that shifting last week, one highly visible and one more subtle.
The visible one came from the consulting and lobbying firm CLT Public Relations, which commissioned and released a poll that suggested a majority of voters agreed with the statement, “Charlotte should move forward with the proposed expansion of the southern section of I-77 immediately.”
It’s worth noting, as many pointed out, that the statement didn’t include the word “tolls.” A few questions down, however, participants were asked for their preferred funding mechanism, and tolls won out over new taxes. That’s consistent with a poll of county residents from 2023. (WFAE’s Steve Harrison wrote a deeper analysis of the latest poll on Friday.)
Indeed, the poll’s questions could’ve been less leading. But it did give some indication that voters want something to be done with 77. And more than anything, in my view, it was a sign that people in favor of the toll lanes are likely to be more vocal and organized this time around.
The more subtle shift: I was sitting against the wall at a packed Sarah Stevenson Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum last week, watching Mayor Robert Harrington field difficult questions about everything from I-77 to teen takeovers to data centers to how the city’s small business program might lift up an in-the-works pizza shop on Beatties Ford Road.
Harrington maintained that he hasn’t made up his mind about the I-77 project, and that he’s listening to everyone.
Toward the end of the meeting, prominent toll lanes opponent Shannon Binns took the mic. Binns, the founder of Sustain Charlotte, is skilled at asking pointed questions that can box leaders in. He told the room he’s been working with 20 neighborhoods throughout the I-77 corridor and that, overwhelmingly, they do not want the toll lanes. Binns then asked two direct questions of Harrington:
“Do you intend, despite the fact that the city's already voted on this issue, to bring it up for a vote again by putting it on the agenda? And if it is put on the agenda by you or six council members, do you intend to vote if there is a tie?”
It was the type of questioning that could’ve drawn former Mayor Vi Lyles into a wandering answer in her final months as mayor. But Harrington didn’t take the bait.
“I think it's early to decide that,” Harrington said. “I'm conscious of the history of the decision-making. I'm conscious of the many entities and people that play a role in the engagement going forward, and I think we're just going to have to see how the next few months play out. … And I'm not in a position this morning to prejudge any of that. But I appreciate the question.”
A polite signal, perhaps, that Harrington won’t be swayed by public pressure from the most outspoken citizens, from either side.
Also at the forum, former city council member Carlenia Ivory spoke up. She lives in a house that was moved from McCrorey Heights during the initial construction of Interstate 77 a half-century ago. She wants the city to revisit the toll lanes and avoid paying the $60 million. “I just want to make sure that people know that there are several views in this community,” Ivory said to Harrington. “I believe that after listening to everything, you can come up with a different perspective. I just want you to know that it’s more than one side.”
The mayor’s fresh presence:Harrington’s earned points behind the scenes in his first four weeks. Several council members and staffers say he’s been communicative, walking the halls and responding to calls. He’s also promised to not run for the office in 2027, which gives him about 16 months to calm the cold winds that have consumed the council of late. He answered all 30 questions at the Tuesday forum, and still the event ended on time. “A Tuesday morning record!” the host said. “Efficiency and effectiveness.”
Harrington’s presence has reminded me of the old Nintendo trick where, if a game is malfunctioning, you take out the cartridge and blow on it. There’s at least hope things’ll work better now.
Action NC’s Robert Dawkins, another toll lanes opponent, told me Friday that Harrington invited him to the mayor’s office last week and talked to him for 45 minutes.
“He started by saying, ‘No answers from me today. But lay out your points,’” Dawkins said.
Dawkins, who’s been mobilizing in Charlotte for decades, is a key player in which narrative will land. He’s been persistent in adding quotes around “community benefits.”
“I laid out why it’s bad for Charlotte,” Dawkins told me of the meeting with Harrington. “And he started talking to me about other toll lanes around the country. I actually left with, ‘Man, he knows more about this than I thought.’ … And that was pretty f***ing cool. Because you know me, I’m never going to shut up.”
Outreach:NCDOT’s inability to bring neighborhoods together around the project sank it once. Several top neighborhood leaders have been included in more recent discussions around community benefits, but real trust will require going beyond that. One or two people don’t speak for a neighborhood.
The trouble is the timeline. The state gave the regional transportation board until early October to switch positions, or else pay the $60 million back. It’ll be near impossible to listen to every stakeholder over two months.
But it’s important. In West End, for instance, the promise of a community grocery store is certainly intriguing, as is the possibility of reconnecting the neighborhood to center city. But Historic West End Partners has already spent years on plans for both. In February, city council approved a $4.1 million loan to the nonprofit to purchase land for affordable housing and a co-op grocery store.
Point being, the neighborhood’s residents have been working for years on a plan for West End’s future. One question, then, is: Will NCDOT’s community benefits work with those plans, or supersede them?
What’s next:Council’s transportation committee meets tomorrow. Full council business meetings return on August 10.
Notes …
The Panthers welcomed 47,000 or so fans to Bank of America Stadium on Friday for Fan Fest. And don’t forget, all-around nice guy but mean football player Luke Kuechly will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame next Saturday.
Federal funding for nonprofits dropped by $7 billion, or 17%, from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2025, according to a new report. But if you look just at the eight-month period from February 2025 to September 2025 — the first full month of the new administration to the end of that fiscal year — and compared it to the same eight-month stretch as the year before, nonprofits saw a 40.9% drop in federal grant funding.
Farms in trouble: A new report from the Urban Institute at UNC Charlotte found that the 14-county Charlotte region lost 760 farms between 2017 and 2022 — a decline of about 8%, or nearly one in every 13 farms. Mecklenburg County has the smallest average farm size, while Union County has the largest. Read more.
Traffic alert: The Matheson Avenue bridge closed Friday and will remain closed until “late 2026” (basically forever), for streetscape improvements. Contractors will rehab the bridge, upgrade sidewalks, and enhance stormwater drainage.
From the Optimist archives …
William McNeely, the founder and CEO of Do Greater, stands next to the original Do Greater mobile lab. Photo by Logan Cyrus
“It’s the front door for upward mobility.” — William “Coach Mac” McNeely, founder, Do Greater and Sparkhouse
Back in January we profiled Coach Mac, sharing how his journey as a kid from a low-income neighborhood on Charlotte’s west side led him to creating Do Greater and Sparkhouse — spaces where high school kids can work alongside professional entrepreneurs and experience “creative collisions.”
On Friday, I stopped by the recently opened Sparkhouse on North Tryon Street in Uptown. It’s a 20,000-square-foot space in a 100-year-old building that used to house former Mayor Harvey Gantt’s architectural offices. McNeely spent years renovating it, with funding from Truist and others, into a place with a coffee shop, coworking, creative labs, and podcast studios. Memberships start around $100 a month.
McNeely took part in a “Showroom Session” at the building Friday morning, sharing the story behind his vision on the new community stage. He also announced that Sparkhouse will be included in the redevelopment of the Allegra Westbrooks Regional Library on Beatties Ford Road. “We’ll call it a Sparkhouse Mini.”
Last Tuesday night, I had the honor of sitting with a dozen good souls — several of them Charlotte Optimist members — as part of Carlos Salum’s TheSircle dinner series. I was technically the guest presenter, there to speak on the topic of “The New Charlotte: Between Memory and Forward Momentum.” But my favorite parts came when I wasn’t talking.
Retired Foundation For The Carolinas CEO Michael Marsicano added context to the stories of how Charlotte’s leadership has evolved over the past half-century, from a small table of executives to many tables today. Then he pointed to bakery owner Manolo Betancur, a few seats over, and applauded him as an example of what courageous local leadership looks like now.
Two days later, Manolo called to say how much it meant to him. I didn’t have lunch plans that day, so I met him for a Torta at El Molino Deli, a hidden gem inside of the Sav/Way Foods Latin Supermarket on Central Avenue. The grocery store was nearly empty. El Molino owner Rodolfo Montero, who in the 1980s and 1990s ran the beloved Tio Montero’s on East Boulevard, was in the back dealing with broken equipment.
Manolo says business at Sav/Way has been slow recently, as stories like last week’s immigration enforcement raid at Wilson Creek in the Pisgah National Forest, where Latino families from Charlotte go on summer weekends, stir fear even in immigrants who are here with documentation.
Manolo wants to get the word out that Sav/Way and El Molino could use your business this week.
We took the lunch back to his bakery to eat. Two of Manolo's friends walked in with two young girls. The adults are foster parents. They told me how the younger girl came to be with them, a difficult story that started on another continent and is not mine to put in a newsletter. It made me swallow hard.
What I can tell you is that she was three years old, smiling and laughing and taste-testing chicken and loving on Manolo. I was sitting on a stool, and out of the blue she walked up and hugged my leg.
"So many stories, man," Manolo said. "All in this one city. You just never know."
