“Charlotte Then and Now,” by Brandon Lunsford. Thunder Bay Press. 144 pp. $18.95.
By Deirdre Parker Smith
dp1@salisburypost.com
The thing you will notice immediately about “Charlotte Then and Now” is there’s not much “then” left.
Beautiful buildings have been demolished to make way for soulless steel and glass towers that reflect … more steel and glass towers.
Looking at the photos then, readers get the impression that the Queen City contained many jewels, everything from ornate public buildings to a striking Egyptian style Masonic temple.
Most of those jewels are gone, which is not to say modern-day Charlotte doesn’t have its jewels, just that holding on to the past is not a priority for city leaders.
Unlike, say, Salisbury, where historic sites (some would say hysteric sites) are preserved and redeveloped, Charlotte is all about forging full speed ahead with the new, newer and newest.
Author Brandon Lunsford, a North Rowan High School graduate and now archivist at Johnson C. Smith University, laments the loss of many of Charlotte’s remarkable buildings. His favorite in his research for the book was the Egyptian-style Masonic temple smack in downtown. It’s enormous columns are now in a sculpture garden in Rock Hill, and Two Wachovia Tower, the ubiquitous steel and glass style, takes it’s place.
Lunsford was able to do the book as part of his thesis project
“I was in the last hours of getting a graduate degree in public history at UNCC and I needed a thesis project,” Lunsford explains. “I was working with Dr. Dan Morrill, director of the Charlotte Landmarks Commission. He called me with the idea.” The company that publishes the “Then and Now” series had approached Morrill, who simply did not have the time. “He offered it to me to do for my thesis, and said, ‘They’ll pay you, too.'”
The catch ó Lunsford had to collect the photos, do the research and help a photographer set up the now photos and produce the finished product in just three months.
He chose 80 pictures, finding most at the public library, then ended up having to pick more photos because of the restrictions on getting current photos of the same areas.
“Then I found out the word count wasn’t high enough for a thesis,” Lunsford said. So he had to come up with an additional paper based on one of the photos.
Still, he’s now the published author of a coffee-table book.
“There’s been a whole series of these books. … Charlotte seems to have the most changes.”
A professional photographer from England came to shoot the photos. Thunder Bay Press is owned by an English company, Anova Books. “I took him around city, we had a map and he took the pictures.”
Lunsford got most of the history from the public library and the Landmarks Commission Web site.
“Charlotte’s always tearing things down,” Lunsford said.
The “most sad part of the Charlotte book was the urban renewal of the 1970s in Second Ward and then First Ward.” The city’s African-Americans were displaced twice to make way for commercial development, and some resentment lingers to this day.
Some other photos were deemed “too depressing,” like one of an old movie palace that has been replaced by urban blight. “They want the book to be upbeat.
“It makes you appreciate the very few things that are left.”
Lunsford’s degree will be in public history with a concentration in historic preservation. He’s been at JCSU for eight years now and enjoys that, especially the archivist part.
“I would love to collect photos from this neighborhood and do a book.”
One thing Lunsford quickly discovered was “Charlotte history always has something to do with transportation; first it was the railroad, now the light rail. The car changed everything.”
He says Charlotte and Salisbury were about the same size at one point, “Then the railroad came to Charlotte and it exploded.”
Lunsford, who, like many natives, didn’t think much of Salisbury when he was growing up, now appreciates it a great deal and thinks “it would be cool to do one (a book) on Salisbury.”
He’s learning a little about what it’s like to be an author. “Charlotte Then and Now” showed up in Sam’s and Costco in October; Amazon.com just got copies last month.
He’s doing a book signing at Costco in Charlotte, then one for Historic Charlotte.
He loves writing books and he hopes someone in Charlotte will see this one and say, ‘Hey, maybe we should do something about this’ tearing everything down.
“Being a published author is so cool.”