You Are Here

Each month, we’ll throw a dart at a map and write about where it lands.

LOCATION: 9813 South Blvd.

9813 South Blvd.

Paradise and a Parking Lot

A retaining wall is all that divides a highway from a slice of natural bliss

“TRANQUILITY” and “transportation” are rarely uttered in the same sentence. But both apply to this spot, where the Little Sugar Creek Greenway kisses the Carolina Pavilion shopping center and winds past two of Charlotte’s mosttraveled thoroughfares: South Boulevard and Interstate 485.

Bird chirps compete with the whoosh of cars and trucks that pass at 70 mph. Walkers, bikers, and joggers leave their cars in the massive suburban parking lot and set out toward a red metal bridge that connects to the greenway. A towering highway retaining wall drowns out the sound of tra c.

Once over the bridge, a riot of yellow wild owers blooms along the creek in brilliant juxtaposition to the chaos on the asphalt. This is the southern terminus of the 2.2-mile greenway section that runs from Huntingtowne Farms Park to 485, so all the action is headed in one direction: north.

A biker pulls over to examine a sign that shows the next phase under construction—an extension of the greenway to the south, toward the President James K. Polk Historic Site in Pineville. He turns his bike around as a truck driver blows his horn on the other side of the highway wall. Two dogs bark as their owners walk past each other. Each gives the other (and the dogs) space.

A blind man with a walking stick strolls silently alongside his partner. What sounds does he focus on in this moment, in a space whose dimensions and diversions he can’t see? —Cristina Bolling