The North Carolina Department of Transportation has modified the Alternative 3 plan for the Interstate 26 connector. The new plan, if adopted, would demolish fewer homes — seven instead of 25 — in the predominantly African-American Burton Street neighborhood.
The spiffed-up Burton Street Recreation Center should really just be called “home,” because that’s what it felt like as folks gathered Jan. 12 to celebrate its recent reopening. Neighbors hugged, carried in covered dishes and checked out the community center’s fresh paint and gleaming halls. Once a shabby symbol of the drug-ridden streets outside, the […]
In a tense 3-2 vote at their Jan. 6 meeting, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners endorsed alternative 3, a controversial route for the Interstate 26 connector through Asheville. “My late grandfather worked hard for that home”: Burton Street resident Stephen Waters, who said he will lose his family home if Alternative 3 is selected, […]
The spiffed-up Burton Street Recreation Center should really just be called “home,” because that’s what it felt like Monday night as folks gathered to celebrate it’s recent reopening.
Alternative 3, a plan for the future I-26 connector backed by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce and some Buncombe County commissioners, would demolish about 25 houses in the predominantly African-American Burton Street neighborhood, leaving 13 others nearby facing a sound wall.
Last year, Leicester resident Valeria Watson-Doost submitted a letter to Mountain Xpress about an historic building in West Asheville’s Burton Street neighborhood that was slated for demolition (see “Wrecking Ball Swings Toward Asheville Black History,” Letters, May 15, 2007). “I did research on the building … and found out that it was built in 1924 […]
