ASHEVILLE SYMPHONY MATURES IN 1980s The Asheville Symphony Orchestra began in Asheville in 1927 under the direction of the famous flutist Lamar Stringfield. He was a former member of the New York Philharmonic and founder of the North Carolina Symphony. Their first performance was a program of classical favorites at the old Plaza Theater. In August
THEATRE – If you look in a thick enough dictionary, you’ll find the fifth or sixth definition is “A place of action.” Theatre is not just the staging of dramatic works or the place where plays, music, dance, and movies are presented. There also is the theatre of war, where battles are staged, and in
In 2016 we think the arts activity in Asheville is in the River Arts District or in downtown. But at the beginning of the 1980s Highwater Center opened an exhibit space on the OTHER river—the Swannanoa. Several years before the exhibit space opened, however, fourteen artists in the mid-1970s established an artists’ co-operative in an
On Sunday morning July 16, 1916 Edith Vanderbilt was notified of the rising water and the dangerous conditions at Biltmore Village. “Without warning at 4:00 the Swannanoa River overflowed the village. Men plunged into the stream carrying their wives and children. Horses turned loose plunged madly through the flooded streets in the darkness. In an
The Asheville Mall opened in 1972 pulling the large department stores with it. When the mall was in the works, the mall developer wrote letters to all of the merchants in Asheville inviting them to consider locating in the new mall. Sears opened first in 1972, with other stores following in late 1973-74: Belk’s, Ivey’s,
Early Businesses Paved the Way Interesting things were going on in downtown Asheville in the late ’70s and throughout the ’80s. Lower rents and sagging property values lured entrepreneurial/creative small businesses and restaurants to join long-standing small businesses to make downtown the vibrant and viable place we now see around us. O.Henry’s Restaurant opened at
The North Carolina Room, Pack Memorial Library presents a six part series Asheville in the 1980s: A Formative Decade Told by Those Who Shaped It The first program of the series kicks off Wednesday April 27, 2016 from 6:00 to 7:30 in the Lord Auditorium, lower level. All events are free and open to the public.
When did Asheville’s renaissance begin?” We are often asked that question in the North Carolina Room. It is also the topic of a lot of published articles. Most responses turn straight to the 1990s. But native Ashevillians and those who lived here in the 1970s and 1980s usually see it differently. In just a few weeks, Pack Memorial Library’s
This year the North Carolina Room is featuring a series of programs on the 1980’s – a time that helped define what Asheville was to become. But, 100 years prior to that, Asheville was in the midst of an earlier Renaissance. The train had arrived in 1880 and Asheville became a true destination and was