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It was planned as far back as the 1950's to ease congestion on the then named Lee St. and was in the NCDOT's right-of-way until 2002, when Greensboro leaders finally opposed it due to protests from the Glenwood neighborhood that laid in its path, and due to the new Greenway in the works.
smith and fisher streets lead to battleground, and were intended as part of the bragg st expressway, as was murrow boulevard's original design, which was supposed to interchange with "lee Street" (as it was named at the time), The southern portion (south of lee st (the name at the time)) was to be extended southwest to Freeman Mill Road, near the coliseum .
Apparently Bragg St was intended to be the new US-220 thrufare thru town,
to directly link both pieces (Battleground and Freeman Mill) of the heavily traveled us route, and separate it from other highways,
as well as separate traffic on lee st that are really going north & south of town, from those going strictly east and west along lee st.
That just shows how the thinking can shift so dramatically in a few decades. This was the same 1950's era "urban renewal" thinking that brought Winston-Salem Business 40 and US 52 right through the middle of the core of the city. Now, city leaders there are trying everything they can think of to minimize how the core city feels so cut up by these roadways. It gives Greensboro a different feel. The closest Greensboro came to this in my view was on US 29, but that's further out of the central business district.
Yes it was suppose to link the newly I-40 with downtown via freeway. Murrow Blvd is the most completed section of that Bragg St freeway but today they are removing a lane for the Greenway. Murrow Blvd is a partial thoroughfare loop with freeway like interchanges. The Murrow Blvd/Summit Ave interchange is a half clover leaf. A freeway loop around downtown didn't make a lot of since anyway. Greensboro's downtown is small compared to cities like Charlotte and there were too many historic neighborhoods that would have been cut off from downtown. Charlotte sort of regrets it which is why some want a freeway cap over I-277. I do wish a freeway had been closer to downtown though. Hwy 29 which is Greensboro's Hwy 52 is the closest to downtown. It borders the A&T campus to the east and A&T borders downtown to the west. Hwy 29 is almost exactly 1 mile east of downtown Greensboro. I've always wished that Greensboro had a freeway/interstate going through the city with a close view of the city skyline.
As for Murrow Blvd, it is underutilized with very little traffic however its great to take when you want to get from the Northside of downtown to Gate City Blvd quickly bypassing the downtown traffic and slow traffic lights. Unfortunately it has become a barrier between downtown and east Greensboro (the black side of town). Some in the community have said that was intentionally done. This was the 1950/60s so its possible. It was part of the so called "urban renewal" of the 60s which gutted a lot of thriving African-American businesses of the times. During the 1940s and 50s East Market Street was thriving like Elm Street and even had its own movie theater. It was like the "black downtown". The city tore up those businesses and widened East Market Street into a thoroughfare. A similar situation happened in many other cities including Charlotte with the Brooklyn Neighborhood.
Palace Theater on East Market Street near downtown.
Another photo looking down East Market St towards downtown. You can see the Jefferson Standard Building and the King Cotton Hotel (demolished) in the background. East Market St no longer has that downtown feel due to projects such as the Bragg St freeway and urban renewal. East Market literally looked like downtown.
Thanks Gsoboi78, for the pictures and the insight. It's remarkable how different the thinking was at that time with "urban renewal" and the bad results it created not only to the physical fabric of cities but also, perhaps more importantly, even the social fabric. And there's not much diversity in who was making those decisions either. There may (?) be a documentary like this for Greensboro, but I thought the one for Winston-Salem would still be relevant and closeby enough for people to relate to.
It's almost comical to watch even just the first few minutes when the narrator is enthusiastically talking about demolishing old tobacco warehouses and other "eyesores" in exchange for brutalist plazas and parking garages. I may have mentioned it before, but that's why I loved the old Cotton Mill Square (mill turned into an enclosed mall in a cool, funky textile mill) on Spring Garden Street near Merritt Drive because it was way ahead of its time in the early 1980s.
Thanks Gsoboi78, for the pictures and the insight. It's remarkable how different the thinking was at that time with "urban renewal" and the bad results it created not only to the physical fabric of cities but also, perhaps more importantly, even the social fabric. And there's not much diversity in who was making those decisions either. There may (?) be a documentary like this for Greensboro, but I thought the one for Winston-Salem would still be relevant and closeby enough for people to relate to.
It's almost comical to watch even just the first few minutes when the narrator is enthusiastically talking about demolishing old tobacco warehouses and other "eyesores" in exchange for brutalist plazas and parking garages. I may have mentioned it before, but that's why I loved the old Cotton Mill Square (mill turned into an enclosed mall in a cool, funky textile mill) on Spring Garden Street near Merritt Drive because it was way ahead of its time in the early 1980s.
Thanks for the video. Thank God Winston-Salem chose not to demolish the warehouses. Greensboro almost demolished the Carolina Theater, the Woolworth Building and much of the historic buildings along Elm Street for a "downtown mall" thank God none of that got demolished. The Woolworth Building, now the International Civil Rights Museum was slated to be torn down for a parking deck. And its hard to fathom any city leaders wanting to tear down the historic Carolina Theatre. But it too was saved at the last minute.
They still ended up demolishing the Cotton Mill Square for student apartments and even worse demolishing the nearby railroad round house which was one of 3 left in the state. The other two are in Spencer and near Asheville. The Cotton Mill Square closed after a bad ice storm one year caused enough damage that it had to permanently close.
They still ended up demolishing the Cotton Mill Square for student apartments and even worse demolishing the nearby railroad round house which was one of 3 left in the state. The other two are in Spencer and near Asheville. The Cotton Mill Square closed after a bad ice storm one year caused enough damage that it had to permanently close.
Thanks for helping me remember why that closed. And while the student housing doesn't look bad, I miss the Cotton Mill Square. Revolution Mill turned out nicely though, but it doesn't have the shopping that CMS did, but it does have dining which is a nice concept. I didn't remember the railroad roundhouse but thanks for the information.
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