The project features a rainbow horizon, large bookend profiles of a transvestite, and a couple of street walkers.
According to Matt Comer editor of QNotes, the project is titled “Our Lives, Our Culture, Our Time,” and focuses on a message of love, equality and peace, and is meant to bring awareness to the local LGBT community.
The painting is located at the White Rabbit building at 920 Central Avenue which Comer goes on to note, "White Rabbit is the only LGBT-specific bookstore in the state. The building also houses the offices of this (QNotes) newspaper. Organizers say that the mural’s presence on Central Ave. will highlight Plaza Midwood and surrounding areas known for their LGBT-inclusive and friendly atmosphere and high concentration of LGBT residents and small business owners."
Cedar's Take: If you paint a wall on a "Gay" bookstore and newspaper office and it has a LGBT theme, then it is not a community project, it is an advertisement. And therefore it probably violates Charlotte's zoning ordinances.
Have a look for yourself:
When Eastland opened in 1975 it was the center of East Charlotte, a once thriving and vibrant area of the city. Over the last 15 years the area has been in a steep spiral towards ghettodom, as the demographics have shifted from white middle class to black low income as well as Asian and Latino immigrants.
The property now sits vacant, a stalemate of economic reality and crazy redevelopment ideas, including a Latino themed discount shopping complex, and turning it into a television and movie studio.
Charlotte much like Fort Mill is impotent when it comes to abandoned property. As we have seen with the former PTL tower to the south of Charlotte there is little that can be done to force property owners to do the right thing. Eastland Mall needs to meet the wrecking ball. The direction the city wants to take is "mixed use" redevelopment, but the truth is no amount of "capital investment" will change the perception of Eastland Mall.
While some city council members see a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, $13 millon is just the start of the costs taxpayers will absorb. Lost tax revenue, and demolition costs are only the tip of the iceberg, there are interest expenses and lost time value of money. Meanwhile the businesses who profited from Eastland Mall over the last 40 years are singing all the way to the bank.
DNC 2012 - What was sold as a cash cow for Charlotte has fast become a black hole of empty promises. Democratic leaders Harry Reed and Nancy Polisi have publicly encouraged their members to stay away from Charlotte. Fun raising has fallen short, small business contracts have failed to materialize and time is running out.
Meanwhile protest groups planning to converge on Charlotte seem to have a solid plan and even interest by the news media has waned. The expected windfall many Charlotte homeowners expected may have been just wishful thinking.
By the time the convention starts most uptown small businesses will have shuttered their store fronts, accepting that security restrictions and lack of customers make running a business impossible during the shortened event. They only rainbow Charlotte will see is after the DNC moves on.
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