life
The Gayest Hood in the Carolinas
Charlotte’s Plaza Midwood Grows in Leaps and Bounds: Can it Maintain its Gay Identity? by David Aaron Moore qnotes Staff Writer
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laza Midwood. There’s a good chance if you’re part of the Charlotte Metro region’s LGBTQ community, you’re familiar with the neighborhood. For all intents and purposes, it’s the city’s hub for queer community. In fact, a census report from 2010 confirms that 28205, the Charlotte zip code that claims Plaza-Midwood, NoDa, Chantilly and Shamrock, is home to more LGBTQ individuals than any other zip code in both North and South Carolina. The main thoroughfare, Central Avenue, may hold part of the answer why it is so popular: it’s packed full of independently owned businesses — specialty shops and restaurants — and even a high end grocery store. Just a quick drive through the area and you’ll see a mixture of gay men, lesbians and gender-fluid 20-something blending in comfortably with their heterosexual neighbors. The beauty of it all? Everyone seems perfectly happy, comfortable and at home with each other. Plaza Midwood is a community on the go, as evidenced by constant foot traffic and the many methods of travel available, from rentable scooters and bicycles to the light rail. But it wasn’t always that way. As early as the 1970s Charlotte’s LGBTQ Community took root in the city’s Dilworth neighborhood. There they built a sense of community that included gay bars, a bath house, antique stores, gay-friendly restaurants and access to other nearby bars and dance clubs that served a mixed clientele of lesbian, gay and trans patrons in Uptown and other nearby neighborhoods. Most importantly, they found the glue that allowed them to create that community: a large neighborhood full of old apartment buildings and houses in various states of decay, available for rental and purchase prices that were more than affordable.
Central Square, formerly a strip mall in Plaza Midwood, is currently being developed into mixed-use spaces. (Photo Credit: (Left) David Aaron Moore (Right) Crosland Southeast via Twitter) Not unlike other neighborhoods and cities across the country, the Queer Community moved in, spruced things up and the property values shot up. Then the rest of the city wanted a piece of the cool. In less than two decades gentrification took hold and most residents started to look elsewhere for other affordable places to live that had a sense of character. Rental prices were going up, and the homeowners were being offered sums of cash they never anticipated. That’s when the LGBTQ community found Plaza Midwood and the exodus began, sometime in the mid 1990s. Older homes could be bought for a song and rental properties were plentiful and inexpensive. In Plaza Midwood today, as you make your way from Five Points — that intersection where Louise Avenue crosses over Kings Drive, 10th Street and Central Avenue, you’ve entered what most residents consider Plaza Midwood. From there to the end of the Big Q Strip — arguably somewhere around Kenilworth Avenue — you’ll find a plethora of new high density condo and apartment construction, mixed
The Diamond is a popular restaurant among the LGBTQ community. (Photo Credit: David Aaron Moore)
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qnotes
Oct. 15–28,, 2021
together with earlier construction, some dating from the 1920s up to the 1970s. While the general region has largely come to be referred to as Plaza Midwood, it’s actually a mix of neighborhoods that — depending on an individual’s viewpoint or CDA (Charlotte Date of Arrival) — can also include Morningside, Commonwealth, Country Club, Windsor Park and Sheffield. All dot one side or the other of Central Avenue. Plaza Midwood is now into its third decade of queer evolution. A lot has changed, and the forces of gentrification, once again, want their piece of cool. The most apparent change evidenced by the popularity of location is the architectural landscape. Entire blocks of old houses and small apartment buildings have been replaced with that newer construction, which is usually multi-use and allows for more people, more amenities and easier access throughout the area itself and other parts of the city. For example, if you choose not to drive but work on the other side of town or somewhere in Uptown, getting there
isn’t that hard. Snag one of those rentable scooters or a bicycle and make your way to a Central Avenue bus headed in town or the Lynx Light Rail. It’s just a couple of blocks off Central Avenue down Hawthorne Avenue. Not only does your trip allow for some cardio, it’s also a chance to enjoy the urban outdoors and take in some sightseeing. The Light Rail Line can take you to places in Mecklenburg as distant as the campus of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and down South Blvd. to 485, with a sizable number of stops for your convenience in between. So what about the amenities? Some have been with us for awhile, others are new to the scene and still more are yet to come. White Rabbit books, located near the corner of Central, Louise and Kings, is a specifically gay-owned and operated retail store offering gift items and hard to find specialty goods of LGBTQ interest. For the sake of full disclosure, it also houses the offices of qnotes. Moving along Central and some of its various side streets, you’ll find LGBTQpopular and established restaurants like
The old Dairy Queen building will be turned into a second location for Milkbread, a popular restaurant located in Davidson. (Photo Credit: David Aaron Moore)
