Secrets of the trolley walk
We strolled along this little-known uptown path, where stories of people's lives unfold

STORY ELIZABETH LELAND, PHOTOS GARY O'BRIEN

Cutting through the heart of this city driven by cars is a little-used path stretching two miles through old and new Charlotte, South End and uptown.

From first appearances, it is simply another sidewalk.

Take a closer look.

Photographer Gary O'Brien and I whiled away three mornings exploring the walkway, which parallels the trolley line. It begins at Tremont Avenue near the Atherton Mill antique shops, dodges across West Boulevard, sneaks by the painted dragon under Morehead Street, soars over I-277 and Third, Fourth and Trade streets, then stops at Ninth Street on uptown's northern edge.

Gary and I planned to go nowhere except down the sidewalk, but we ended up on the roof of an old bra and panty mill, in the basement studio of a well-known artist and on the porch of the last bungalow on Camden Road. We watched workers at Price's Chicken Coop fill the first of the day's 2,000 cups of iced tea and workers at the new arena dismantle the last of 40 wells drilled to drain water from the construction site.

With a brisk walk, you can get from Tremont to Ninth Street in 35 minutes (add another 35 to get back). But you'll probably want to allow more time to stop and explore along the way.

A light breeze blew as Gary and I eased out of the shade of the Trolley Barn near Tremont Avenue into the morning sunshine. The sidewalk ran straight ahead, but what caught my eye were low-slung warehouses to the left that looked like old brick newly renovated.

We had walked only about 30 steps, but decided to detour anyway. We jumped over a low-slung wire fence, crossed an abandoned railroad track, climbed up a grassy bank, sneaked through a hedge and came upon Ralph Story taking a cigarette break.

Story is a superintendent for Whelchel Builders. When I asked him about the funky-looking brick building with the wide wooden trellis across Hawkins Street, he took a puff from his cigarette, then laughed:

"We call it the ruins. It was nothing but a brick shell. We went in and built a building inside a building."

The once-dilapidated cotton warehouse now houses high-end interior decorating stores. And so it went for the next few minutes as Gary and I made our way back to the sidewalk and headed north to West Boulevard: Old factories built 80 to 100 years ago with sturdy brick walls, hardwood floors and soaring ceilings have been refurbished as modern businesses: the Design Center, the Film Foundry, the Pewter Rose restaurant. ...

This part of old Charlotte escaped the bulldozer, and it is beautiful.

Lillie Fryer's home probably won't be so lucky.She was sweeping her front walk as Gary and I approached. Her rented bungalow on Camden Road is one building down from West Boulevard, hidden in the shadow of a grand old oak.

Lillie has lived there 10 years; her grandparents lived there before her.

"I tell people I live on Camden Road, and they say, `I haven't seen a house on Camden Road.' " She laughed in her never-met-a-stranger way and motioned: "Come on, you want to see inside?"

She led us into her home, built in 1929, and showed off the wide front porch, the two fireplaces, the breakfast nook with built-in wooden benches.

"There are good memories in this house," she said. "We had a real chicken we bought in Kings Mountain. We had cookouts in the back yard."

Across Camden Road, there used to be weeds and trash and trouble where the sidewalk now runs along the trolley tracks. Lillie says she heard that a woman got raped there, and she hated looking over there.

Now, she loves to look; and if you walk by, that'll be Lillie waving at you from the little house across the street.

Lillie knows her landlord plans to tear down the house and several buildings nearby and build condominiums. She knows change is coming, but Lillie isn't budging until it gets to her corner.

Half a block, but a world away, Gary and I peeked through a window into Charlotte Machine Co., and were taken aback:

Fifteen men were working at big, grimy, ancient-looking machines in a large warehouse. Metal shavings littered the floor.

What in the world? we wondered. And why here?

We found Skip Gribble in the office. The machine company, he told us, is a holdover from another era. While other warehouses shut down, stood vacant for years, then reopened as refurbished modern shops and offices, the machines at Skip's business kept running.

His grandfather started the company in 1914, and it's been on Camden Road since 1920. Skip is now teaching his son Brian the operation.

"You don't hear a lot about manufacturing in Charlotte," Skip said. "It's not a large presence; you've got to go looking for it. You pick up the newspaper and read about the banks every day. Manufacturers just go about their business, doing things, making things."

One man was making stainless steel parts for power tools; another, aluminum brackets to hold flags; a third, plastic tracking systems for automated guided vehicles.

Though the property is valuable, Skip has no intention of moving shop. Instead, he spruced up half of the warehouse and his wife, Nancy, now operates South End Exchange out of it. Her consignment shop is decorated with tables and chairs and art work, chandeliers and silverware and rugs.

On this block of Camden, old and new Charlotte share a wall.

Across the street, a man in a baseball cap was refinishing furniture in a back room at Crossland Studio. When I told him what we were up to, he laughed and said: "There are 100 stories in the naked city. We've been here 16 years, and we've seen it all. In the first four years, we saw the getaway from two bank robberies. Sixteen years ago when we moved here, we didn't look too smart."He is Bob Fuller and he has an identical twin, Dick.

"If you quote me," he said, "quote him."

Then Bob -- and Dick, if you please -- invited Gary and me to the roof of the warehouse. It's a brick building with big windows and a red and white sign up top advertising "Architectural Antiques." We climbed two floors to a rusty metal ladder, then climbed the ladder to the rooftop and a 360-degree view of Charlotte.

"It was a bra and panty factory when we bought it," said Bob (and Dick). When I laughed, he had his next line ready: "You think I'm kidding? I'm glad it was because I get to tell people that!"

Before underwear, he said, it was a mattress manufacturer. He pointed across the street to The Kingston, a project by developer Tony Pressley that was designed to resemble an early 1900s building.

"People are building buildings to look like they've been here forever," Bob (and Dick) said. "We've got one we think that's been here since 1900."

About half of what the brothers sell are pieces rescued before old houses and warehouses in Charlotte were torn down. People buy them to make their new homes look old.

At nearby Park Avenue, the sidewalk veers away from Camden Road, past Phat Burrito restaurant (where you can tell the restrooms apart by Ken and Barbie-like dolls) to a former biscuit factory.

The door was open. Gary and I trooped in.

Tom Snyder was sitting on a window bench, using a stainless steel dinner knife to reposition a confetti of tiny hand-cut glass tiles he had glued onto a glass urn. The sun hit the blues and reds and greens, flashing a rainbow onto Tom's shirt.

The old warehouse is home to the Charlotte Art League, and Tom works in one of 10 studios.

He wore khaki pants, leather boat shoes and a button-down striped shirt. It looked as if there was a bit of a businessman in him, and it turned out there was. He worked 25 years as a corporate treasurer for United Dominion Industries and left the company three years ago with a severance package, but no plans.

He found this new challenge when he helped his daughter cut glass for an art project. He printed up new business cards: "Designer Glass Mosaics by Tom Snyder" and began making decorative urns, fireplace surrounds, kitchen back splashes.

"In some regards, it's like an advanced hobby," Tom said. "If I was making more money than I was spending, I would call it a business."

Art, he said, has brought him peace. We left him sitting on the window bench, one more glass tile closer to finishing the $1,800 urn.

From the Charlotte Art League, the sidewalk passes a tangle of sweet-smelling honeysuckle, then Jillian's and the Greek Isles Restaurant, before slipping beneath Morehead Street. If you've ever ridden the trolley with children, you've probably noticed the yellow dragon head, painted on a bridge support, with green neck scales and a red eye.City workers painted over other graffiti, but left the friendly dragon.

The sidewalk passes below the Summit Grandview apartments and onto a bridge crossing I-277. Be prepared: The sidewalk disappears before the end of the bridge. You have to shuffle through gravel or over the trolley tracks to a walkway beside the Westin hotel. (New 12-foot-wide sidewalks eventually will be suspended from each side of the bridge as part of the $371 million light-rail project.)

Take a moment to look east toward the spire of Covenant Presbyterian Church peaking out from a blanket of green treetops in the Dilworth neighborhood.

From the Westin, the trolley rails follow a bridge over Stonewall Street and through the convention center. But not the sidewalk. If you're walking, you have to climb down 46 steps at the Westin to Stonewall (or ride an elevator down), walk around the convention center (west on Stonewall, right onto College Street, right onto Second Street) and pick up the sidewalk again near the Hilton Hotel.

From there, you'll pass through an urban world, over Trade Street, by the roof of the transit center, past the construction sites for the new arena and the children's learning center and on to Seventh Street Station. At Seventh Street Station, touch the colored-glass panels to trigger music and laughter and other fun sounds.

We met up with Faye Cain, Dereama Gaddy and Tom Mims on a lunch break from BellSouth. They were among only a handful of people we saw walking along the sidewalk during the three mornings we were there. They were headed to Dixie's Tavern, a restaurant/bar in a restored warehouse on Seventh Street.

The warehouse was built in 1907, among a number of warehouses that once lined the railway tracks.

Most are now gone.

One block farther, at Eighth Street, another warehouse avoided demolition.

A wholesale paper supplier operated out of the building and shipped supplies on the rail lines. The loading dock is now decorated with a potted Japanese maple and hibiscus and a trellis of Lady Bankshire roses. A marketing firm has offices up front.

Gary and I wandered around back to a second platform, where mule-drawn wagons once lined up to pick up paper supplies for Charlotte businesses. We rang a bell. Again and again and again. Then again.

A somewhat-miffed looking man opened the door. He had salt-and-pepper hair, a mustache and short beard. We apologized. His face softened and he introduced himself as Tommie Robinson. The artist Tommie Robinson.

He led us through a labyrinth of halls to the studio where he has painted for 10 years.

"This is one of my favorite places," Tommie said, sweeping his hand around the windowless room with cement floors and a jumble of tubes and canvas and books. "In fact, I am here more than at home."

He arrived about 7:40 that morning after a 55-minute walk with Jackie Stowe along the trolley line. They walked the line even before the sidewalk was built.

Tommie makes a living from art. His works hang at the ABC headquarters, the Adam 3 police precinct and Bank of America, the West Boulevard Library, RJR Nabisco and Wachovia. He was sketching a piece for the new arena when we arrived. It has something to do with Charlotte history, but he didn't want us looking at it. Not yet.

The painting will be 20 feet high. He needs a bigger studio. We told him about the Charlotte Art League on the other end of the line.

He said he'd walk up there and check it out.

A few more feet, and the sidewalk ended abruptly at Ninth Street. Surveyors were taking measurements for the light rail system that someday will connect uptown to the University area.Across Ninth Street, a chain-link and razor-wire fence now blocks the way. Weeds are knee-high, but buried in the dirt you can see railroad tracks heading off into the future.

Sunscreen. There's little shade.

Be prepared to push your way through hedges if you want to detour off the sidewalk. There are no access points, other than at streets and trolley stops. John Mrzygod, co-project manager, said: "If we did access to private property at one location, other private properties would want the same thing. It would have been a huge cost, and some places may not want that at all."

Stop by Skipper's Scoops (named for Skip Gribble and tucked between Charlotte Machine Co. at 1618 Camden Road and South End Exchange) for homemade ice cream. Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m.

Key to Trolley Map

1. TROLLEY BARN. Grab a drink from Tea Rex Teahouse.

2. OLD COTTON WAREHOUSE. Now interior decorating shops. Check out the lamps.

3. LILLIE FRYER'S CAMDEN ROAD HOME. Notice the keys

in the doorsill at B C Lock & Key Inc. next door.

4. CHARLOTTE MACHINE CO. Try the ice cream at

nearby Skipper's Scoops.

5. CROSSLAND STUDIO. Search for treasures.

6. PHAT BURRITO. Beware the cactus in the men's restroom.

7. CHARLOTTE ART LEAGUE. Wander through the gallery.

8. GRAFFITI DRAGON. Cool off under the overpass.

9. SUMMIT GRANDVIEW. Get ready for an urban experience.

10. WESTIN. Look at the outdoor artwork.

11. CONVENTION CENTER. Take a detour.

12. HILTON. Enjoy the covered walkways.

13. TRANSIT CENTER. Need a bus ride home? There's no way down.

14. ARENA SITE. Watch it rise.

15. IMAGINON (Children's Learning Center). Watch it rise, II.

16. SEVENTH STREET STATION. Touch the glass panels and make them sing.

17. DIXIE'S TAVERN. Stop for a cool drink.

18. TOMMIE ROBINSON'S STUDIO. Enjoy the pretty plants.

19. END OF THE LINE. Turn around and go back to

where you started.

Staff writer Elizabeth Leland and photographer Gary O'Brien have worked together on projects about people and places of the Carolinas, including three mornings along the sidewalk that parallels Charlotte's trolley line.