11 things I guarantee you didn’t know about Charlotte
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I’m going to assume you know that Charlotte started as a trading post at Trade (get it?) and Tryon streets. I’m going to also assume that you know the origins of “Uptown” vs “Downtown”. I’m even going to assume that you know the Hornets got their nickname because Lord Cornwallis (he was British) during the Revolutionary War called this area “a hornet’s nest of rebellion”. All that stuff is on the first page of the Charlotte brochure.
With that in mind, here are some facts about the city that you might not know:
(1) The Charlotte Convention Center used to be where the Epicentre is now.
(2) Hugh McColl essentially built the Charlotte Transit Center so that buses wouldn’t line up outside of his headquarters, now called Bank of America Corporate Center.
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(3) Constructing the Time Warner Cable Arena was put to a public referendum in 2001 and it lost. The next year the city built it anyway.
(4) The 1994 Final Four was held in Charlotte at the Charlotte Coliseum (where the original Hornets played). Arkansas beat Duke.
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(5) The Charlotte area was home to the first gold rush in the United States. It began in 1799, 50 years before that other one.
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(6) UNC-Charlotte sports teams are not called the 49ers because of the aforementioned gold rush, but because the school’s predecessor Charlotte College was established in 1949.
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(7) The weird coin-like sculpture outside of the Bank of America Plaza used to spin around.
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(8) It’s not called “The Light Rail” like some sci-fi vehicle that runs on light. Its proper name is the Lynx Blue Line, and it is designated as a “light rail” transit system, as opposed to “heavy rail” that carries freight or longer-distance passenger trains.
(9) There used to be a baseball stadium where the Lowe’s is on South Boulevard.
(10) The pink building in South End is a condo building called The Arlington. No one cares that you think it’s weird. It’s pink and it’s fabulous.
(11) The giant murals at Bank of America Corporate Center are the subject of a number of conspiracy theories.
You now have my permission to act incredulous when your friends don’t know these facts.