CityLab, one of my favorite online reads, has a kooky piece about a Polish guy who makes paper cut-outs of Brutalist architecture. This style of building, which was cheap and relied heavily on concrete, was popular from the 1950s until about the mid-1970s. The N.C. Mutual Life building in Durham and many state government buildings […]
Lisa Sorg
Bio: Lisa Sorg is the editor of INDY Week.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/lisasorg
Posted inFood & Drink
Six years in the making, the Durham Co-op is—drum roll, please—open
The Durham Co-Op Market opened this morning, and throughout the afternoon, the lines were long at the cash register. Six years in the making, the Co-Op is community-owned (similar to Weaver Street Market in Orange County), and hundreds of eager owners flocked to West Chapel Hill Street curious about the place that their contributions helped […]
Posted inNews
Durham launches living wage campaign
$7.25 an hour won’t buy squat. That’s why 29 states and Washington, D.C. have raised their minimum wage rates above the federal level. But in North Carolina, where the social service safety net is already frayed and unions are non-existent, we’re still asking people to subsist on low pay. Based on the Living Wage Certification […]
Posted inFood & Drink
On Chapel Hill Street, Dashi and Blue Coffee show two sides of Durham
Dashi 415 E. Chapel Hill St., Durham 919-251-9335, www.dashiramen.com Ramen shop: 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m., 5–10:30 p.m. Izakaya: 5 p.m.–2 a.m. | Closed Sundays Blue Coffee Cafe N.C. Mutual Life building 411 W. Chapel Hill St., Durham www.bluecoffeedurham.com Hours: Monday–Friday, 7 a.m.–5 p.m. Downtown Durham, what will become of you? Over the past 15 years, the […]
Posted inNews
Start your drills: Fracking can begin in North Carolina today
It seems so long ago, 2012, the year fracking became legal in North Carolina. With additional permitting and environmental rules still to put in place, there was a (small) hope that someone would come to his or her senses and call the whole thing off. But no, here we are in 2015, and all the […]
Posted inNews
N.C. homebuilders’ lobby to citizens: Stop your (legal) bitching
Ye doth protest too much, sayeth the state’s homebuilders’ lobby. Spurred by the powerful special interest group, several legislators are trying to revoke North Carolina citizens’ right to file a protest petition, a legal mechanism used to block unwanted developments. Now three Democratic senators from the Triangle have sponsored compromise legislation, Senate Bill 285. Sens. […]
Posted inNews
House bill would strip citizens of right to formally protest rezoning
For several years, the state’s powerful homebuilders’ lobby has consistently tried to convince lawmakers to strip citizens of their right—a right enshrined since 1923—to formally protest a rezoning. And on Tuesday, Republican legislators introduced a bill to do just that. House Bill 201 would repeal the statutory right of a neighbor to file a protest […]
Posted inNews
Dancing Bruce, free after 34 years in the system
He did 17 years in prison and 17 years on parole. Now Bruce Thomas, also known as Dancing Bruce for his graceful moves on the Weaver Street lawn, is finally free. Each year, Thomas had asked Florida officialshe was jailed at Union Correctional Institution in that state after robbing a bank in 1980to be released […]
Posted inArt
The South’s first interracial basketball game, exposed
Scott Ellsworth, The Secret Game Thursday, March 19, 7 p.m., free Motorco, 723 Rigsbee Ave. Durham, 919-286-2700 regulatorbookshop.com Amid the perennial hullaballoo about ACC powerhouses Duke, UNC and N.C. State, there is a fourth local men’s team that has quietlyunless you’re in the stands, where it is quite loudaccrued another distinguished season. Even though the […]
Posted inNews
Evaluating environmental, neighborhood impacts of the train yard
It may not be the sexiest part of building a 17-mile light-rail route from UNC to Alston Avenue in East Durham but it’s one of the most important: The train yard. You need a place to fix the trains, to wash them, to put them when they’re not running. The train yard would require 15 […]