Is Uptown cool yet?

I needed to snag some photos for our media library and knew the 9-to-5 neighborhood would be slow enough on a weeknight to allow for hassle-free street parking on my way back from the gym.

I was right. I quickly found a spot across the street from the Westin just off the main Tryon drag and set out onto mostly abandoned sidewalks bathed in the intoxicating glow of post-Daylight Saving sunlight.

There were a few khaki-clad office stragglers heading home for the day and a handful of joggers taking advantage of the weather, but, as predicted, I was mostly on my own on the streets.

That is until I came upon a few lively pockets of people gathered over al fresco dinner and drinks at places like Essex at the corner of Trade and Tryon, Sea Level on 5th Street and Malabar in the dramatic courtyard leading to Hearst Tower.

Totally wasted on perfect springtime weather, I suddenly wondered where Uptown had been all my life.

At one of the most trafficked intersections in town, I felt a dissonant insiderness, like the people on the patios and I were in on the most obvious secret in Charlotte: Uptown is actually pretty cool.

I’ve long been unimpressed by Uptown and I know I’m not the only one.

Almost a decade ago, shortly after college but before I’d moved here, my older brother drove me through the cool neighborhoods I might want to live in one day, pointing out spots like Plaza Midwood, Elizabeth and some new apartments in this up and coming area along the light rail on South Boulevard.

Uptown, however, was an interstate drive-by dismissed with a simple, “Nothing happens there after 5 o’clock.”

That wasn’t entirely true then and still isn’t today, especially after years of continued commercial and residential development and countless new additions to the social scene — like Essex, Sea Level, Flight, Ink N Ivy, The Imperial, 204 North, Fahrenheit, City Lights, Stoke and others. But it’s an image Uptown has struggled to shake for decades and one that’s not without merit.

In 1993, Observer columnist Doug Smith held Uptown to a practical measure of urban liveliness: Is it possible to buy a Snickers bar in Charlotte after 5:30 p.m.? (Spoiler alert: It was not.)

Today, you can get your Snickers fix at the CVS at the EpiCentre until midnight seven days a week. Does that mean Uptown is the world-class urban neighborhood we all want it to be? Not exactly, but it’s got a few things going for it beyond late-night Snickers access.

Uptown has lots of appealing qualities that draw people to other thriving Charlotte neighborhoods — new bars and restaurants, overpriced craft cocktails, trendy coffee shops, beautiful parks, plenty of apartments and the highest walkability score in the city. But something’s still missing that leaves it relatively dead on a Tuesday night. So what’s the problem?

My theory is that Uptown is stuck in an awkward adolescent phase.

It’s not unlike the experience of 20-somethings when they abruptly enter the world of professional workplace adulthood after 4+ years of late-teenaged collegiate freedom from responsibility.

Uptown isn’t the stodgy steakhouse scene of its blue button down-wearing banker heyday. But it’s not all shots and bottle service at the EpiCentre either.

It’s a little bit of both ends of the spectrum and, as a result, anything cool about it is lost somewhere in the middle.

That’s probably why people like me continue to look to Uptown for business meetings, rowdy nights out or special-occasion dinners on the weekends and not for effortlessly cool low-key hangouts on a perfect Tuesday night.

And it’s ok. Bank of America Corporate Center, an iconic symbol of Uptown, opened in 1992. Hearst Tower was completed in 2002. Duke Energy Center, a fixture I can’t picture the city without, only joined the skyline lineup in 2010.

Uptown certainly wasn’t born in 1992, but I’d argue that was the rebirth that gave way to the city as we know her today — a 25-year-old trying desperately to assert her maturity while clinging tight to her college glory days. In the immortal words of Britney Spears, Charlotte is not a girl, not yet a woman.

I think it’s still too soon to say if Uptown will ever become the truly bustling after-hours urban district it’s poised to be. But I know those people soaking up a perfect Tuesday in April are living in it like it already is.