THE LAY OF THE LAND

Two mid-1950's aerial views of the Akers Motor Lines terminal and the Tower Drive-In, located at the intersection of East Franklin Avenue and South New Hope Road. New Hope is in the foreground, and Franklin is out of the pictures to the right. Gastonia's original Target store was located on the terminal site, and Akers Shopping Center now covers the land from the old drive-in movie location (earlier the site of the Gastonia fairgrounds) to Franklin.
Photo credits: Gastonia Chamber of Commerce collection. Print by Jim Brown, Cam Art Studios.

A 1946 aerial view of the intersection of East Franklin Avenue and South Broad Street looking south.

The scene illustrates the richness of life and diversity of uses that once filled this now sterile intersection. Note the human scale and walkability of the scene with the healthy mixture of small retail businesses and comfortable homes. A streetcar passes at the upper left corner of the picture. Beginning at the northwest corner (foreground to lower right corner) stands Queen's Texaco station and Loughridge Motor Company (Buick dealer) facing Franklin and John's Grill on Broad. Continuing clockwise, on the northeast corner is Beam's Pure Oil Company. The southeast corner is occupied by Tarlton's Esso service station, and on the southwest stands a McCoy service station, Boyd's Grocery, and Patrick's Hotel.

Photograph by Jim Heracklis; print courtesy of Jim Brown, Cam Art Studios.

On a clear October day in 1975, while I was working in the Display Department of Matthews Belk (on Main Avenue), I took my 1972 Minolta SRT 101 SLR 35mm camera (the one I still use), and, with the assistance of the one remaining white-jacketed elevator operator, ascended to the roof of the 1917 First National Bank Building (Lawyers' Building), I spent the greater part of that lunch hour recording the following 360-degree panorama of a still-living Downtown Gastonia. Before I called for the elevator to return me to Earth, I explored the vacant seventh floor, including the offices of an aerial photography company (that looked as if the occupants had just recently moved out) and the original studio of WGNC, Gastonia's first radio station.
There is a haunting quality to the photographs, as we now realize the depths to which a once-vibrant area can sink if not properly valued and maintained. The end had just begun.

(This series of images appears as chapter headings in A Glimpse as It Passed: Scenes from a Vanished Gastonia, North Carolina, 1972-1992, published by Trenton Creative Enterprises in 2004 and available from our Retail Partners. This book has become somewhat of a primer to Gastonia's vanished architecture, with more than 600 copies sold.)

Downtown Gastonia, early 1960's, looking west from Oakland Street. The area has taken on its familiar appearance except for the many missing buildings. Note the new First United Methodist Church, and the former National Bank of Commerce buidling at Franklin and Marietta that displays "First Union National Bank" on its facade. Franklin Avenue has been widened, and buildings still stand lining Airline Avenue to the far right.
(Photo credits: Gastonia Chamber of Commerce collection, print by Jim Brown, Cam Art Studios.)

Two 1980 eastward-facing aerial views of Downtown from above York Street and then South Street showing the completed Main Avenue landscaping / beautification / strangulation project. Most of the structures north of the Southern Railway tracks (left) have been removed in preparation for the digging of the railroad ditch. In the second photograph, the former location of Matthews-Belk (white building at center) has been trandformed into the new main office of Independence National Bank. A year later Independence would be acquired by BB&T.
(Photo credits: Kermit Hull / Chamber of Commerce collection; print by Jim Brown, Cam Art Studios.)

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