This coming Saturday, June 11, the 1st league game between the teams will be held, at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Before You Go. Being in the South, it's going to be warmer in Charlotte than in New York. In this case, hot. Check the website of the The Charlotte Observer, the Carolinas' largest newspaper, after you order your tickets. They're predicting the mid-80s in the afternoon, and the mid-60s at night. Remember to stay hydrated.
Before You Go. Being in the South, it's going to be warmer in Charlotte than in New York. In this case, hot. Check the website of the The Charlotte Observer, the Carolinas' largest newspaper, after you order your tickets. They're predicting the mid-80s in the afternoon, and the mid-60s at night. Remember to stay hydrated.
Unfortunately, "staying hydrated" does not count getting rained on. "Scattered thunderstorms" are predicted, including for the hours of 3 to 5 in the afternoon, when the game would be played. And the stadium doesn't exactly have much protection from the rain. This matchup is in that tricky range of "Too far to drive, too close to fly." If you're a completist, and need to see your favorite team play every other team in the league, maybe you should wait until next season for this one.
Charlotte is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to fiddle with your timepieces. It is in North Carolina, a former Confederate State, but you won't need your passport or to change your money.
Tickets. This is an expansion team, so attendance figures are meaningless. Fortunately, it's an MLS team, and an entire section is set aside for visiting fans. In this case, it's Section 254, in the northwest corner. Tickets are a whopping $61.
Charlotte is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to fiddle with your timepieces. It is in North Carolina, a former Confederate State, but you won't need your passport or to change your money.
Tickets. This is an expansion team, so attendance figures are meaningless. Fortunately, it's an MLS team, and an entire section is set aside for visiting fans. In this case, it's Section 254, in the northwest corner. Tickets are a whopping $61.
Getting There. It's 634 miles from Times Square in New York to downtown Charlotte, and 618 miles from Red Bull Arena to Bank of America Stadium. It's in that tricky range: A bit too close to fly, a bit too far to go any other way.
If you're going to drive, take the New Jersey Turnpike/I-95 all the way from New Jersey to Petersburg, Virginia. Exit 51 will put you on I-85 South, and that will take you right into Charlotte.
Greyhound has 7 buses a day leaving from Port Authority to Charlotte, but only 2 of them are no-changeover routes. It costs as much as $294 round-trip, though it can be as low as $178 on advanced purchase. The station is at 601 W. Trade Street, 9 blocks west of the arena.
Once In the City. Although both North Carolina and South Carolina were named for the King of England at the time of their initial settlements, King Charles I, Charlotte was named for a Queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg, the wife of King George III. For this reason, the city is known as the Queen City of the Southeast. (Buffalo is the Queen City of the Great Lakes, Cincinnati is the Queen City of the Midwest, and Seattle the Queen City of the Northwest.)
Founded in 1755, Charlotte is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country, with a city population of about 875,000, making it the largest city in the Carolinas and the 5th-largest city in the South (the 2nd-largest behind Jacksonville if you don't count Texas), and a metropolitan area population of about 2.6 million, ranking it 23rd among the 30 MLS markets.
You'll be in New Jersey for about an hour and a half, Delaware for 20 minutes, Maryland for 2 hours, inside the Capital Beltway (Maryland, District of Columbia and Virginia) for half an hour if you're lucky (and don't make a rest stop anywhere near D.C.), Virginia for 3 hours, and North Carolina for 4 hours. Throw in traffic at each end, rest stops, preferably in Delaware, near Richmond and near Raleigh, and it'll be close to 14 hours.
Greyhound has 7 buses a day leaving from Port Authority to Charlotte, but only 2 of them are no-changeover routes. It costs as much as $294 round-trip, though it can be as low as $178 on advanced purchase. The station is at 601 W. Trade Street, 9 blocks west of the arena.
Amtrak's New York-to-New Orleans train, the Crescent, is suspended for the time being. That leaves as their only other option the Carolinian, which leaves New York at 7:17 AM and arrives at 8:56 PM, which means you'd have to leave early Friday morning and arrive on Friday night. And it's not available this coming Sunday, so even if you were willing to spend 2 nights in a hotel, you couldn't take the train this time. Like I said: Maybe it's best to wait until next year.
Perhaps the best way to get from New York to Charlotte is by plane. After all, lots of routes change planes at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (named for Ben E. Douglas Sr., the 1st directly-elected Mayor). A round-trip fare can be had for $731, but it might not be nonstop: You could have to change at Dulles in the D.C. suburbs. The airport is 8 miles west of downtown, and the Number 5 bus can get you downtown in about 25 minutes.
Once In the City. Although both North Carolina and South Carolina were named for the King of England at the time of their initial settlements, King Charles I, Charlotte was named for a Queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg, the wife of King George III. For this reason, the city is known as the Queen City of the Southeast. (Buffalo is the Queen City of the Great Lakes, Cincinnati is the Queen City of the Midwest, and Seattle the Queen City of the Northwest.)
Founded in 1755, Charlotte is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country, with a city population of about 875,000, making it the largest city in the Carolinas and the 5th-largest city in the South (the 2nd-largest behind Jacksonville if you don't count Texas), and a metropolitan area population of about 2.6 million, ranking it 23rd among the 30 MLS markets.
It is known as the Mint City, because it was the home the earliest "branch mint" in the country, making gold coins for the United States from 1837 to 1873. That wasn't a long time, and it's even less when you consider that, from 1861 to 1865, they were making gold coins for the Confederate States of America. Today, when we think of cities with mints, we think of Philadelphia and Denver, and maybe San Francisco. Nevertheless, Charlotte FC have embraced the "Mint City" name, saying they were "Minted in 2022," although their uniforms are "process blue" rather than the color known as mint green.
The city is about 45 percent white, 35 percent black, 13 percent Hispanic, 5 percent Asian, and 1 percent Native American. This is a big shift from 1970, when it was 69 percent white and 30 percent black. The suburbs and the south side of the city are mostly white, the north and west sides of the city mostly black, and the east side mixed.
North Carolina is known for its beaches on "The Outer Banks," or "OBX." This includes Kill Devil Hill, with the Wright Brothers National Memorial, on roughly the location where Orville Wright, with brother Wilbur Wright watching, took off in Flyer I on December 17, 1903, marking the 1st heavier-than-air human flight. The Outer Banks are centered on Nags Head, about 360 miles east of downtown Charlotte.
Going In. The official address of Bank of America Stadium is 800 S. Mint Street, at Graham Street. The nearest stop on LYNX is Stonewall, 4 blocks away. Most likely, you'll be going in through the arena's north or east gates.
If you drive in, parking can be had for as little as $5.00. This being the South, tailgating is encouraged, with some suggestions. Many fans set up tents like at college games, which is what the Carolinas had to go on until 1995: UNC, Duke, N.C. State and Wake Forest in the North; USC (only Carolinians use those initials for anything other than the Los Angeles school) and Clemson in the South. If you want to tailgate, reserve a spot online in advance.
The stadium opened in 1996, and was named Carolinas Stadium in the planning stage and Ericsson Stadium until 2004. The Panthers and the stadium were owned from their inception until 2017 by Jerry Richardson, a wide receiver on the Baltimore Colts' 1959 (but not 1958) NFL Championship team. He was thus only the 2nd former NFL player to be the controlling owner of an NFL team, the 1st being league and Chicago Bears founder George Halas.
Richardson had to sell the team, because he was one of the entitled rich white men who got exposed in a sexual harassment scandal -- not unlike the former owner of the neighboring Hornets, George Shinn. The new owner is David Tepper, a Pittsburgh native, a Miami hedge fund manager, and a former 5 percent stockholder in his hometown Steelers.
The field at Bank of America Stadium had always been natural grass until the 2021 season. It has been converted to FieldTurf, so that it can host both the Panthers and MLS expansion team Charlotte FC. The field is aligned east-to-west -- or, more precisely from a literal geographic standpoint, northwest-to-southeast.
The stadium, known as "BOA," "The Bank" or "The Vault," has hosted the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game since 2010, understandable given Charlotte's size and centralized location within the league. The city usually also hosts the ACC's basketball tournament. Since 2002, it has hosted the Belk Bowl, and in 2015, it added the Belk Kickoff Game.
Five times, East Carolina University has played home games there. The North Carolina-North Carolina State game was played there in 1998 and 1999, and North Carolina and South Carolina opened their 2015 seasons there. Number 5 Georgia just defeated Number 3 Clemson there.
Ordinarily, only the 38,000 seats in the lower bowl are opened for MLS matches. But for Charlotte FC's home opener on March 5, the entire stadium was opened, and a new single-game MLS attendance record was set, 74,479, breaking the record that Atlanta United set for the 2018 MLS Cup Final. Good: That stadium in Atlanta is hideous, especially their artificial turf.
On November 4, 2020, MoneyWise published an article ranking the worst NFL stadiums. Bank of America Stadium was ranked 2nd -- 29th out of 30: "This stadium has fallen behind others as it approaches its 25th birthday. And as other NFL venues find new and unique amenities to appeal to every level of fan, Bank of America Stadium is missing modern features."
Team History Displays. As was said, not that long ago, and truthfully at the time, of another CFC in blue, London's Chelsea, they ain't got no history. Except that isn't even true anymore: As I said, their home opener set a single-game MLS attendance record. So they can point to that with some pride.
As MLS' newest team, they don't have any books written about them, or team videos.
There are several restaurants within a short walk of the stadium, but finding one with an obvious sports connection in the name might be hard. A Mellow Mushroom is at 255 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 4 blocks from the stadium, closer to the new minor-league ballpark. Lebowski's Neighborhood Grill was rated by Yelpers as Charlotte's best sports bar, but it's at 1524 East Blvd., over 2 miles from the stadium, and not reachable by the LYNX system. And I can't find a reference to any bar in the Charlotte area that is home to a local fan club for any New York team.
If your visit to Charlotte is during the European soccer season, as we are now in, your best bet to watch your club play is at Big Ben, the city's original "football pub," at 1535 Elizabeth Avenue, 2 miles south of downtown. LYNX to Elizabeth & Hawthorne.
It is 11 blocks from the stadium, at 333 E. Trade Street, at Brevard Street. CTC/Arena stop on LYNX. It hosted the 2012 Democratic Convention, and has been chosen as the site of the 2020 Republican Convention.
* American Legion Memorial Stadium. It doesn't look like much, just a concrete horseshoe seating 21,000 people. But this relic is the city's leading high school football stadium, and, in 1974 and '75, it was the home of the city's 1st pro football team, the World Football League version of the Charlotte Hornets.
Despite its age (it opened in 1936), it still hosts high school sports, and the Charlotte Hounds of Major League Lacrosse. 310 N. Kings Drive at Armory Drive. Number 27 bus from downtown.
* Bojangles' Coliseum. Previously known as the original Charlotte Coliseum, the Independence Arena and the Cricket Arena, this arena went up in 1955, and is now named after the Charlotte-based fast-food fried chicken franchise. When it opened, it had the world's largest dome, but it didn't hold that title for long.
This Coliseum was the home base of the Carolinas' 1st team that could have been called "major league": The Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association, from 1969 to 1974. At the time, none of the Carolinas' cities were large enough to support a team by itself so, management used several home courts, including this one, Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, and the Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum. This path would be followed by the ABA's Virginia Squires (Norfolk, Hampton, Richmond and Roanoke) and Texas Chaparrals (the forerunners of the San Antonio Spurs played in Dallas, Fort Worth and Lubbock).
In 1973, with Larry Brown in his 1st season as a head coach anywhere, the Cougars, led by Billy Cunningham, Joe Caldwell, Gene Littles, Roger Brown and Steve "Snapper" Jones, lost the ABA Finals to the Indiana Pacers. Despite some success on the court and at the box office -- both rare for ABA teams -- it was thought that a "regional franchise" could not succeed in the NBA, with whom merger talks were ongoing, so the team was moved to what was then a larger market, St. Louis. On occasion, the Hornets will wear Cougars "throwback" uniforms.
The Charlotte Checkers brought minor-league hockey there in 1956, left in 1977, returned in 1993, left for the larger new Bobcats Arena (Spectrum Center) in 2005, and in 2017 they returned, and are now the major tenant in the Carolinas' 1st major sports building. Elvis Presley sang there on June 26, 1956; April 13, 1972; March 9, 1974; March 20, 1976; and February 20 and 21, 1977. (The Beatles never performed in the Carolinas.)
2700 E. Independence Blvd. Number 27 bus to Chipley Avenue, then walk 3 blocks up Chipley.
* Site of Charlotte Coliseum. When "The Hive" (a nickname now transferred to the new arena) opened in 1988, it seated just under 23,000, making it the largest arena in the NBA. (The Detroit Pistons played many years at the Silverdome and the Seattle SuperSonics many home games at the Kingdome, but neither was meant to be a regular basketball facility.) And the Hornets filled it, getting 364 consecutive home sellouts -- just under 9 full seasons.
Founding owner George Shinn -- whose son Chris Shinn is lead singer of the rock band Live -- moved the team to New Orleans in 2002, because he thought he could no longer live in the Carolinas due to the local anger over his sex scandals, as fans stopped going to games, just to spite him. He ended up selling the team in 2010, and it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Hornets name wasn't given to the replacement team until after that.
He also owned the Charlotte Knights baseball team, and the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks of the short-lived World League of American Football. (Playing at N.C. State's stadium, they've been called the worst team in pro football history.) He also tried and failed to get an NHL expansion team for the Norfolk area in 1997.
The NCAA Final Four was held there in 1994, with Arkansas overcoming Duke's "home-court advantage." (The only other Final Four to be held in the Carolinas was in 1974, at the Greensboro Coliseum, and visiting Marquette wasn't so lucky, losing to North Carolina State.) The WNBA's Charlotte Sting played home games there, and it was used for the basketball-themed films Eddie, He Got Game and Juwanna Mann.
A new arena, downtown (as the Coliseum and the Coliseum before it most definitely were not), with better luxury boxes, was seen as a prerequisite for getting a replacement franchise, and so the Bobcats only played their 1st season there, 2004-05. Ironically, considering where the old Hornets ended up, the Coliseum's last major use was as a refugee center for people made homeless by Hurricane Katrina's near-destruction of New Orleans in 2005.
It was demolished in 2007 -- after only 19 years, a disgraceful waste, but Camden Yards really did change the game in 1992 when it came to stadium and arena construction -- and mixed-use development is currently under construction on the site.
100 Paul Buck Blvd. Number 501 bus to Tyvola Station, then transfer to Number 60 bus to N. Falls Drive, then walk up Tyvola Parkway and Yorkmont Road. The street leading to the arena site is still named Hive Drive.
* UNC-Charlotte. The Charlotte campus of the University of North Carolina plays at Jerry Richardson Stadium, named for the Panthers' founder. The Charlotte 49ers (when referring to the school, it's usually "UNC-Charlotte") didn't have a football team from 1949 to 2012, then started up again, and joined Conference USA in 2015.
Richardson Stadium, which opened with the 2013 restart of the football program, isn't much: It seats just 15,314, less than the Hornets' arena and only a little bit more than the Knights' ballpark. 8701 Phillips Road, just off Tryon Road/U.S. Route 29, 9 miles northeast of downtown. Light Rail route 501 to J.W. Clay Blvd. Station, then a 10-minute walk.
Auto racing is not a sport. But, if you think it is, the NASCAR Hall of Fame is at Brevard & Stonewall Streets. Stonewall station on LYNX.
Charlotte has the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as a "mid-major" college basketball team, but in terms of college football, here's the distances to the closest Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly "Division I-A") teams: Wake Forest 82 miles, South Carolina 99, Clemson 139, University of North Carolina 140, Duke 141, North Carolina State 160, Virginia Tech 173, University of Tennessee 231, and East Carolina 247. (Wake Forest's Wait Chapel hosted Presidential Debates in 1988, between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, and in 2000, between George W. Bush and Al Gore.)
North Carolina A&T, in Greensboro, about 92 miles northeast of Charlotte and 76 miles west of Raleigh, has won "the National Championship of black college football" 6 times: 1951, 1968, 1990, 1999, 2015 and 2017. Winston-Salem State University, in the city of the same name, 75 miles northeast of Charlotte and 104 miles west of Raleigh, has won it 4 times, all recently: 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016. North Carolina Central, in Durham, has won it 3 times: 1954, 2005 and 2006.
Fayetteville State University, in the city of the same name, 136 miles east of Charlotte and 57 miles south of Raleigh, won it in 2002, although they compete in NCAA Division II. And Shaw University, in Raleigh, won it in 1947, and also now competes in Division II.
In addition to the old Charlotte Coliseum in 1956, Elvis Presley sang in Charlotte earlier in the year, doing (believe it) 4 shows at the Carolina Theater on February 10, 1956: 2:30, 4:30, 7:00 and 9:00. 224 N. Tryon Street, downtown.
In addition to Charlotte -- Raleigh, which I've covered in my guide for the Hurricanes -- Elvis sang at the following North Carolina locations: In New Bern, at the Shrine Auditorium in New Bern on May 14 and September 13, 1955; in Asheville, at the City Auditorium on May 17 and September 16, 1955, and at the Asheville Civic Center on July 22, 23 and 24, 1975; in Thomasville at the High School Auditorium on September 17, 1955; in Wilson at Fleming Stadium on September 14, 1955, and 3 shows at the Charles L. Coon Auditorium on February 14, 1956; in Greensboro, 4 shows in 1 day at the National Theater on February 6, 1956, and at the Greensboro Coliseum on April 14, 1972; March 13, 1974; July 21, 1975; June 30, 1976; and April 21, 1977; in High Point, 4 shows in 1 day at the Convention Center on February 7, 1956; in Williams, at the High School Auditorium on February 15, 1956; in Winston-Salem, 3 shows in 1 day at the Carolina Theater on February 16, 1956; in Lexington, at the YMCA Gym on March 21, 1956; and in Fayetteville, at the Cumberland County Memorial Arena in Fayetteville on August 3, 4 and 5, 1976.
If you're paying attention, you saw that he did 4 shows in 1 day on February 6, 7, 8 and 10, 1956. That's 16 shows in a span of 5 days. He was 21. It was easier to do that than to do 2 in 1 day when he was packing on the pounds in his early 40s in 1975, '76 and '77.
Charlotte features some downtown museums. The Levine Museum of the New South is about Southern life since the American Civil War, and it doesn't shy away from racial issues. 200 E. 7th Street at College Street. Discovery Place, a child-oriented science museum, is 2 blocks away at 301 N. Tryon Street at 6th Street.
Bechtler Museum of Modern Art is at 420 S. Tryon Street at 1st Street. The Mint Museum Uptown is not, as its name might suggest, a museum dedicated to money. Rather, it's a former mint converted into an art museum. 500 S. Tryon Street, across 1st Street from the Bechtler Museum.
Bank of America Corporate Center, at 871 feet, is not only the tallest building in town and the tallest in the Carolinas, but the tallest building between Philadelphia and Atlanta. 100 N. Tryon Street at 5th Street.
Charlotte has never produced a President. The Carolinas have produced 3. No one is precisely sure where Andrew Jackson was born -- not even whether it happened in North or South Carolina, only that it was in the Waxhaw region along the State Line. He was the 1st President born in a log cabin, but that cabin is long-gone. Andrew Jackson State Park, at 196 Andrew Jackson Park Road in Lancaster, South Carolina, is considered the likeliest place. It's about 33 miles south of Charlotte, and not reachable by public transportation.
James K. Polk State Historical Site is in Pineville, which, like Charlotte, is in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. It's about 12 miles south, at 12031 Lancaster Highway. It's easier to reach without a car: The Number 20 bus can get you to within half a mile.
Andrew Johnson was born in the State capital of Raleigh, 167 miles to the northeast. His birthplace was a log cabin (which didn't help him as much as it helped Jackson, or Johnson's immediate predecessor, Abraham Lincoln) on the grounds of Casso's Inn, where his father worked, at Morgan Street and Fayetteville Street, across from the State House. It was moved to Mordecai Historic Park at 1 Mimosa Street, a mile north of downtown. Number 1 Bus.
All 3 Carolina-born Presidents have their main historical sites in Tennessee: Polk is buried on the State House grounds in Nashville; Jackson's home, The Hermitage, is in the Nashville suburbs; and Johnson's Museum is in Greeneville.
Yankee Legend Jim "Catfish" Hunter was from Hertford, North Carolina, 315 miles east of Charlotte, in the coastal Inner Banks region, and is buried in Cedarwood Cemetery there, on Hyde Park Road. Another major baseball legend, though not a New York one, Willie Stargell, is buried at Oleander Memorial Gardens, at 306 Bradley Drive, in Wilmington, 206 miles east of Charlotte. (Wilmington is also the hometown of Michael Jordan and TV journalist David Brinkley.) And, considerably closer to Charlotte, about 25 miles north, football legend Reggie White is buried at Glenwood Memorial Park in Mooresville.
A few TV shows have been filmed in North Carolina, most notably Dawson's Creek in Wilmington, but set in the fictional Capeside, Massachusetts. The Andy Griffith Show, of course, was set in the fictional North Carolina town of Mayberry and based on Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy. One Tree Hill was set in the fictional town of Tree Hill, North Carolina. But both were filmed in Southern California.
Shows set in Charlotte are few and far between. Recently, The Carmichael Show, based on the standup comedy of Jerrod Carmichael, aired on NBC. Homeland has had scenes shot in Charlotte. Scenes from the Hunger Games films, whose "District 12" includes the Carolinas, have been shot in Charlotte.
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Charlotte had no major league sports teams as recently as the Summer of 1988. By the Fall of 1996, it had the NBA and the NFL, and now they have MLS. MLB in the future is not yet out of the question.
The street grid isn't north-south-east-west, at least not geographically. Rather, it's on a diagonal. However, Trade Street separates street addresses from north and south, and Tryon Street separates them from east and west. Their centerpoint intersection is sometimes known as "Trade & Tryon," "Independence Square" or just "The Square." Interstate 485 serves as a beltway.
The Charlotte Area Transportation System (CATS) runs buses, the LYNX Blue Line light rail system, and the CityLYNX Gold Line streetcar service. The fare is $2.20.
The sales tax in North Carolina is 4.75 percent, but it rises to 7.25 percent in Charlotte. ZIP Codes for Charlotte start with the digits 280, 281 and 282. The Area Code is 704, overlaid with 980. Charlotte Utilities runs the electricity for Mecklenburg County. The Charlotte Observer is the city's daily newspaper.
The Charlotte Area Transportation System (CATS) runs buses, the LYNX Blue Line light rail system, and the CityLYNX Gold Line streetcar service. The fare is $2.20.
LYNX Blue Line
The sales tax in North Carolina is 4.75 percent, but it rises to 7.25 percent in Charlotte. ZIP Codes for Charlotte start with the digits 280, 281 and 282. The Area Code is 704, overlaid with 980. Charlotte Utilities runs the electricity for Mecklenburg County. The Charlotte Observer is the city's daily newspaper.
In spite of Dean Smith's activism, and the apparent racial harmony on the Tar Heel and Blue Devil teams, the State of North Carolina is still Southern, and a former Confederate State, and has had its racial issues.
In 1870, 5 years after the war, the Ku Klux Klan used murder and intimidation to prevent recently freed slaves from exercising their right to vote, newly granted by the 15th Amendment to the Constitution. Governor William Holden (no relation to the later actor of the same name) assigned Colonel George Washington Kirk, who went from Union Army to Confederate Army and back to the Union, to handle things imposing martial law in Caswell and Alamance Counties, in the north-central part of the State, on the Virginia line. This became known as the Kirk-Holden War. The Wilmington Insurrection was carried out on November 10, 1898, white supremacists burning down the office of a newspaper, The Daily Record.
The Battle of Hayes Pond took place near Maxton on January 18, 1958, when KKK members tried to attack members of the Lumbee tribe of Native Americans, and got their asses kicked. On February 1, 1960, the Greensboro Sit-In began when black students at North Carolina A&T sat at the lunch counter at a Woolworth's, and refused to leave until they were served. The site of the store is now home to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. On June 6, 1963, a group of black patrons was refused service in Lexington, and they fought back. One died, and it was one of the few times in the era when it wasn't the whites who started it.
North Carolina is known for its beaches on "The Outer Banks," or "OBX." This includes Kill Devil Hill, with the Wright Brothers National Memorial, on roughly the location where Orville Wright, with brother Wilbur Wright watching, took off in Flyer I on December 17, 1903, marking the 1st heavier-than-air human flight. The Outer Banks are centered on Nags Head, about 360 miles east of downtown Charlotte.
The stadium opened in 1996, and was named Carolinas Stadium in the planning stage and Ericsson Stadium until 2004. The Panthers and the stadium were owned from their inception until 2017 by Jerry Richardson, a wide receiver on the Baltimore Colts' 1959 (but not 1958) NFL Championship team. He was thus only the 2nd former NFL player to be the controlling owner of an NFL team, the 1st being league and Chicago Bears founder George Halas.
Richardson had to sell the team, because he was one of the entitled rich white men who got exposed in a sexual harassment scandal -- not unlike the former owner of the neighboring Hornets, George Shinn. The new owner is David Tepper, a Pittsburgh native, a Miami hedge fund manager, and a former 5 percent stockholder in his hometown Steelers.
The field at Bank of America Stadium had always been natural grass until the 2021 season. It has been converted to FieldTurf, so that it can host both the Panthers and MLS expansion team Charlotte FC. The field is aligned east-to-west -- or, more precisely from a literal geographic standpoint, northwest-to-southeast.
Five times, East Carolina University has played home games there. The North Carolina-North Carolina State game was played there in 1998 and 1999, and North Carolina and South Carolina opened their 2015 seasons there. Number 5 Georgia just defeated Number 3 Clemson there.
Ordinarily, only the 38,000 seats in the lower bowl are opened for MLS matches. But for Charlotte FC's home opener on March 5, the entire stadium was opened, and a new single-game MLS attendance record was set, 74,479, breaking the record that Atlanta United set for the 2018 MLS Cup Final. Good: That stadium in Atlanta is hideous, especially their artificial turf.
BOA hosted the NCAA Men's Soccer Championship in 1999 and 2000. It hosted 2 games of the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2011, 2015 and 2019. It's hosted the national teams of Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iceland, Martinique, and Trinidad and Tobago. It has hosted the U.S. women's team, in a 2-0 win over South Korea on October 3, 2019, but not, as yet, the U.S. men's team.
In club soccer, it's hosted Liverpool over AC Milan in 2014, Chelsea of London over Paris Saint-Germain in 2015, Bayern Munich over Internazionale Milano in 2016, Borussia Dortmund over Liverpool in 2018, and Arsenal of London over Fiorentina of Florence, Italy in 2019.
It's only hosted 5 concerts: The Rolling Stones in 1997; and Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw in 2012; and, earlier this year, Billy Joel, and Chesney again. But it's picking up as a concert venue: On June 28, it will host a bill with 1980s hard-rock stalwarts Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Joan Jett and Poison. Garth Brooks will play there in July, and September will see Red Hot Chili Peppers and the farewell tour of Elton John come in.
When the Democratic Convention was held in Charlotte in 2012, the Party was considering moving the acceptance speeches of President Obama and Vice President Biden outdoors to the stadium, as had been done in Denver in 2008 (and in Los Angeles in 1960, for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson), but a rainy forecast put the kibosh on that, and so they stayed indoors at the Hornets' arena.
On September 12, 2017, Thrillist had an article ranking all 31 NFL stadiums. The Panthers' stadium ranked 24th, in the bottom quartile:
The amenities and convenience at BoA are top-notch. HD video boards, ribbon boards, a brain-jostling sound system make the field a real show, while escalator bays, tons of Carolina barbecue, fantastic sight lines, and sturdy Wi-Fi make a day there plain ol' pleasant. You can see the action from anywhere in the stadium, with an open-air view further heightened by a skyline backdrop that lights up to coincide with the scoreboard. It's a refreshing reminder that you're still in the city center, with post-game options galore for 75,000 sore-throated fans. Just plan to arrive early if tailgating is on your schedule; the address puts parking lots at a premium.
Food. This is the South, tailgate party country, and North Carolina is among the places in this country particularly known for good barbecue. And while the NBA's Hornets are a little vague on details of their concessions, the Panthers have apparently figured out that football fans care about food, and they've gone to the other extreme: Very, very detailed. So much so that I decided to just post the link. Enjoy. (Yes, lots of barbecue.)
Team History Displays. As was said, not that long ago, and truthfully at the time, of another CFC in blue, London's Chelsea, they ain't got no history. Except that isn't even true anymore: As I said, their home opener set a single-game MLS attendance record. So they can point to that with some pride.
Nevertheless, there are no on-field achievements to celebrate. There are 2 statues outside the stadium, but they are both of Panthers figures: Linebacker and assistant coach Sam Mills, and team executive Mike McCormack.
If the distance between Charlotte and Atlanta isn't enough to make Atlanta United the new team's biggest rival, breaking United's attendance record might. They've already played each other home and away in league play, with each team winning at home: Atlanta 2-1 on March 13, and Charlotte 1-0 on April 10.
Stuff. The Carolina Panthers Team Store is on the ground floor of the stadium, at the east corner at Mint & Graham Streets. It has the usual team-related doodads available, and this should extend to Charlotte FC as well.
As MLS' newest team, they don't have any books written about them, or team videos.
During the Game. Unless you're going to a basketball game between Duke University and the University of North Carolina -- especially at Duke -- North Carolina fans, in any sport, don't have a rough reputation. Your safety is unlikely to be an issue.
Charlotte FC will be holding a promotion on Saturday, Black Excellence Night. These days, MLS is doing a better job of reaching out to African-Americans than Major League Baseball is, which is good for American soccer, and good for both Carolinas, who have a higher percentage of black people among their citizens than most States do.
The team holds auditions for singing the National Anthem, rather than having a regular singer.
Their mascot is Sir Minty, a giant soccer ball playing on the royal theme with a crown and a royal robe.
There are 5 officially recognized supporters' groups, in the southeast end, at the Main Street end: Mint City Collective, Southbound and Crown (obviously, a takeoff on the Jerry Reed song "Eastbound and Down"), the Uptown Ultras, the Carolina Hooliganz, and the Latino group Blue Furia. They're one of several teams that have adapted Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough," and the "Olé, Olé, Olé" song.
After the Game. Charlotte is not notorious for having a crime problem. It's still a city, so you should be aware of the possibility. But, most likely, you will be safe, and if you drove in, so will your car.
There are several restaurants within a short walk of the stadium, but finding one with an obvious sports connection in the name might be hard. A Mellow Mushroom is at 255 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 4 blocks from the stadium, closer to the new minor-league ballpark. Lebowski's Neighborhood Grill was rated by Yelpers as Charlotte's best sports bar, but it's at 1524 East Blvd., over 2 miles from the stadium, and not reachable by the LYNX system. And I can't find a reference to any bar in the Charlotte area that is home to a local fan club for any New York team.
If your visit to Charlotte is during the European soccer season, as we are now in, your best bet to watch your club play is at Big Ben, the city's original "football pub," at 1535 Elizabeth Avenue, 2 miles south of downtown. LYNX to Elizabeth & Hawthorne.
Ri Ra, 208 N. Tryon Street, downtown. That's an Arsenal bar, so if you don't like Gooners, try another possibility. The Valhalla Pub & Eatery, at 317 S. Church St., 4 blocks from the Panthers' stadium and 6 blocks from the Hornets' arena. However, it's a Liverpool bar, so it's a question of how you feel about Scousers, real and pretended. As for the Other Scousers, Queen City Bites & Crafts, an Everton bar, is at 135 Brevard Court.
Courtyard Hooligans is at 140 Brevard Court, next to Queen City Bites. They also had an outlet at 1523 Elizabeth, a few doors down from Big Ben, but it's closed -- temporarily, they say.
Sidelights. On February 3, 2017, Thrillist made a list ranking the 30 NFL cities (New York and Los Angeles each having 2 teams), and Charlotte finished 28th, 3rd from the bottom. Charlotte's sports history, at least as far as the major league level is concerned, is not very long, having only gotten their 1st team that could remotely be considered major league 34 years ago (the original version of the NBA's Hornets).
* Spectrum Center. Built in 2005 as the home of the expansion Charlotte Bobcats, who have now reclaimed the Hornets name from the team that moved to New Orleans in 2002, this arena was known as the Charlotte Bobcats Arena until 2008, then the Time Warner Cable Arena until 2016, when Time Warner sold Time Warner Cable to Spectrum. This arena should not be confused with The Spectrum, the former Philadelphia arena.
It is 11 blocks from the stadium, at 333 E. Trade Street, at Brevard Street. CTC/Arena stop on LYNX. It hosted the 2012 Democratic Convention, and has been chosen as the site of the 2020 Republican Convention.
* American Legion Memorial Stadium. It doesn't look like much, just a concrete horseshoe seating 21,000 people. But this relic is the city's leading high school football stadium, and, in 1974 and '75, it was the home of the city's 1st pro football team, the World Football League version of the Charlotte Hornets.
* Bojangles' Coliseum. Previously known as the original Charlotte Coliseum, the Independence Arena and the Cricket Arena, this arena went up in 1955, and is now named after the Charlotte-based fast-food fried chicken franchise. When it opened, it had the world's largest dome, but it didn't hold that title for long.
This Coliseum was the home base of the Carolinas' 1st team that could have been called "major league": The Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association, from 1969 to 1974. At the time, none of the Carolinas' cities were large enough to support a team by itself so, management used several home courts, including this one, Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, and the Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum. This path would be followed by the ABA's Virginia Squires (Norfolk, Hampton, Richmond and Roanoke) and Texas Chaparrals (the forerunners of the San Antonio Spurs played in Dallas, Fort Worth and Lubbock).
In 1973, with Larry Brown in his 1st season as a head coach anywhere, the Cougars, led by Billy Cunningham, Joe Caldwell, Gene Littles, Roger Brown and Steve "Snapper" Jones, lost the ABA Finals to the Indiana Pacers. Despite some success on the court and at the box office -- both rare for ABA teams -- it was thought that a "regional franchise" could not succeed in the NBA, with whom merger talks were ongoing, so the team was moved to what was then a larger market, St. Louis. On occasion, the Hornets will wear Cougars "throwback" uniforms.
The Charlotte Checkers brought minor-league hockey there in 1956, left in 1977, returned in 1993, left for the larger new Bobcats Arena (Spectrum Center) in 2005, and in 2017 they returned, and are now the major tenant in the Carolinas' 1st major sports building. Elvis Presley sang there on June 26, 1956; April 13, 1972; March 9, 1974; March 20, 1976; and February 20 and 21, 1977. (The Beatles never performed in the Carolinas.)
2700 E. Independence Blvd. Number 27 bus to Chipley Avenue, then walk 3 blocks up Chipley.
* Site of Charlotte Coliseum. When "The Hive" (a nickname now transferred to the new arena) opened in 1988, it seated just under 23,000, making it the largest arena in the NBA. (The Detroit Pistons played many years at the Silverdome and the Seattle SuperSonics many home games at the Kingdome, but neither was meant to be a regular basketball facility.) And the Hornets filled it, getting 364 consecutive home sellouts -- just under 9 full seasons.
Founding owner George Shinn -- whose son Chris Shinn is lead singer of the rock band Live -- moved the team to New Orleans in 2002, because he thought he could no longer live in the Carolinas due to the local anger over his sex scandals, as fans stopped going to games, just to spite him. He ended up selling the team in 2010, and it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Hornets name wasn't given to the replacement team until after that.
He also owned the Charlotte Knights baseball team, and the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks of the short-lived World League of American Football. (Playing at N.C. State's stadium, they've been called the worst team in pro football history.) He also tried and failed to get an NHL expansion team for the Norfolk area in 1997.
The NCAA Final Four was held there in 1994, with Arkansas overcoming Duke's "home-court advantage." (The only other Final Four to be held in the Carolinas was in 1974, at the Greensboro Coliseum, and visiting Marquette wasn't so lucky, losing to North Carolina State.) The WNBA's Charlotte Sting played home games there, and it was used for the basketball-themed films Eddie, He Got Game and Juwanna Mann.
A new arena, downtown (as the Coliseum and the Coliseum before it most definitely were not), with better luxury boxes, was seen as a prerequisite for getting a replacement franchise, and so the Bobcats only played their 1st season there, 2004-05. Ironically, considering where the old Hornets ended up, the Coliseum's last major use was as a refugee center for people made homeless by Hurricane Katrina's near-destruction of New Orleans in 2005.
It was demolished in 2007 -- after only 19 years, a disgraceful waste, but Camden Yards really did change the game in 1992 when it came to stadium and arena construction -- and mixed-use development is currently under construction on the site.
100 Paul Buck Blvd. Number 501 bus to Tyvola Station, then transfer to Number 60 bus to N. Falls Drive, then walk up Tyvola Parkway and Yorkmont Road. The street leading to the arena site is still named Hive Drive.
* UNC-Charlotte. The Charlotte campus of the University of North Carolina plays at Jerry Richardson Stadium, named for the Panthers' founder. The Charlotte 49ers (when referring to the school, it's usually "UNC-Charlotte") didn't have a football team from 1949 to 2012, then started up again, and joined Conference USA in 2015.
Richardson Stadium, which opened with the 2013 restart of the football program, isn't much: It seats just 15,314, less than the Hornets' arena and only a little bit more than the Knights' ballpark. 8701 Phillips Road, just off Tryon Road/U.S. Route 29, 9 miles northeast of downtown. Light Rail route 501 to J.W. Clay Blvd. Station, then a 10-minute walk.
On November 19, 2018, Moneywise compiled a list of their Worst College Football Stadiums, the bottom 19 percent of college football, 25 out of 129. Richardson Stadium came in 16th. There is a plan to expand it to 25,000 seats, and even another stage which would raise it to 40,000 if it turns out to be necessary.
* Charlotte ballparks. The original Charlotte Hornets were a minor-league baseball team, on and off from 1892 to 1973. Prior to the building of their most familiar ballpark, they won Pennants in their various leagues in 1902, 1916, 1923, 1931 and 1938.
From 1937 to 1972, they were owned by the Griffith family as a farm team of the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins franchise. In 1940, they opened a new ballpark, named Griffith Park after team owner Clark Griffith. When he died in 1955, his nephew Calvin Griffith inherited the franchise. He wasn't willing to stick his own name on the Senators' D.C. ballpark, but renamed the Charlotte facility Calvin Griffith Park. At this stadium, they won Tri-State League Pennants in 1946, 1947 and 1952; the South Atlantic League Pennant in 1957; and the Southern League Pennant in 1969 and 1971.
Founded in 1976 as a Class AA team, the Charlotte Knights have been a Class AAA team since 1993, and a Chicago White Sox farm team since 1990. They played at Griffith Park, renamed Jim Crockett Sr. Park, after the new owner, and won SL Pennants in 1980 and 1984, before the park burned down in 1985 -- due to arson, although not an insurance scam. George Shinn bought the team in 1987, and moved them after the 1989 season.
400 Magnolia Avenue, in the Dilworth section of the city, about 2 miles south of downtown. Number 10 bus to East Blvd., then a half-mile walk down South Blvd. and Magnolia.
Shinn built Knights Castle, later renamed Knights Stadium across the State Line, 16 miles south of downtown Charlotte. A stadium seating 10,002, it was intended to showcase the Charlotte area as a future site for a Major League Baseball team, either expansion or moved. And the Knights did do well there, getting as many as 15,427 fans for a 2007 game with the Durham Bulls. They won International League Pennants there in 1993 and 1999, and a Division title as recently as 2012.
In 1990, MLB chose Charlotte as 1 of the 10 semifinalists for the 2 new teams they wanted for the 1993 season. But, in spite of a decent ballpark by Triple-A standards and a growing fanbase, MLB did not choose Charlotte as 1 of the 6 finalists, also eliminating Nashville, Phoenix and Sacramento. In mid-1991, they rejected Buffalo, Orlando, Tampa Bay and Washington, and chose Denver and Miami. Charlotte did not even submit an application in 1994 for the 1998 expansion that went to Phoenix and Tampa Bay.
Knights Castle closed after the 2013 season, and was demolished in 2015. 2280 Deerfield Drive, Fort Mill, South Carolina. Not reachable by public transportation, unless you want to take a train to a bus and then walk 4 miles from the closest bus stop.
BB&T Ballpark (named for a bank) opened in 2014. It was renamed Truist Field in 2020, after Truist bought out BB&T. It seats 10,200, slightly more than Knights Castle, and has a nice view of downtown Charlotte, which is actually called Uptown. However, there is no room to expand it to 35,000 or more seats, as a major league ballpark would need, so, despite the inabilities of the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics to get new ballparks thus far, the new Uptown Charlotte ballpark pretty much eliminates the Carolinas from future contention, unless MLB expands again in the next few years. 324 South Mint Street at W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 2 blocks north of the Panthers' stadium.
According to an April 23, 2014 article in The New York Times, the Yankees are actually the most popular MLB team in Charlotte, a little bit ahead of the Atlanta Braves, the closest team at 246 miles away. (The Washington Nationals are the next-closest, 402 miles.) The closest NHL team is the Carolina Hurricanes, 160 miles away.
Population is also an issue for Metrolina getting an ML team anytime soon: It would rank 29th among MLB markets. And, unless the 'Canes want to become a "regional team," as was experimented with in pro basketball in the 1970s and '80s (most recently with the Boston Celtics in Hartford in 1995), Charlotte won't get an NHL team either, as they'd rank 23rd -- although that's 3 places ahead of where Raleigh is now. Combining the 2 markets would jump it to 16th, but the logistics of alternating between Charlotte and Raleigh would make the move too risky.
The U.S. national soccer team has never played a game in Charlotte. There have been 7 such games played in North Carolina: 3 in High Point, 2 in Cary, and 1 each in Greensboro and Davidson. The U.S. women's team played at Bank of America Stadium on October 3, 2019, defeating South Korea, 2-0.
From 1937 to 1972, they were owned by the Griffith family as a farm team of the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins franchise. In 1940, they opened a new ballpark, named Griffith Park after team owner Clark Griffith. When he died in 1955, his nephew Calvin Griffith inherited the franchise. He wasn't willing to stick his own name on the Senators' D.C. ballpark, but renamed the Charlotte facility Calvin Griffith Park. At this stadium, they won Tri-State League Pennants in 1946, 1947 and 1952; the South Atlantic League Pennant in 1957; and the Southern League Pennant in 1969 and 1971.
Founded in 1976 as a Class AA team, the Charlotte Knights have been a Class AAA team since 1993, and a Chicago White Sox farm team since 1990. They played at Griffith Park, renamed Jim Crockett Sr. Park, after the new owner, and won SL Pennants in 1980 and 1984, before the park burned down in 1985 -- due to arson, although not an insurance scam. George Shinn bought the team in 1987, and moved them after the 1989 season.
400 Magnolia Avenue, in the Dilworth section of the city, about 2 miles south of downtown. Number 10 bus to East Blvd., then a half-mile walk down South Blvd. and Magnolia.
Shinn built Knights Castle, later renamed Knights Stadium across the State Line, 16 miles south of downtown Charlotte. A stadium seating 10,002, it was intended to showcase the Charlotte area as a future site for a Major League Baseball team, either expansion or moved. And the Knights did do well there, getting as many as 15,427 fans for a 2007 game with the Durham Bulls. They won International League Pennants there in 1993 and 1999, and a Division title as recently as 2012.
In 1990, MLB chose Charlotte as 1 of the 10 semifinalists for the 2 new teams they wanted for the 1993 season. But, in spite of a decent ballpark by Triple-A standards and a growing fanbase, MLB did not choose Charlotte as 1 of the 6 finalists, also eliminating Nashville, Phoenix and Sacramento. In mid-1991, they rejected Buffalo, Orlando, Tampa Bay and Washington, and chose Denver and Miami. Charlotte did not even submit an application in 1994 for the 1998 expansion that went to Phoenix and Tampa Bay.
Knights Castle closed after the 2013 season, and was demolished in 2015. 2280 Deerfield Drive, Fort Mill, South Carolina. Not reachable by public transportation, unless you want to take a train to a bus and then walk 4 miles from the closest bus stop.
BB&T Ballpark (named for a bank) opened in 2014. It was renamed Truist Field in 2020, after Truist bought out BB&T. It seats 10,200, slightly more than Knights Castle, and has a nice view of downtown Charlotte, which is actually called Uptown. However, there is no room to expand it to 35,000 or more seats, as a major league ballpark would need, so, despite the inabilities of the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics to get new ballparks thus far, the new Uptown Charlotte ballpark pretty much eliminates the Carolinas from future contention, unless MLB expands again in the next few years. 324 South Mint Street at W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 2 blocks north of the Panthers' stadium.
According to an April 23, 2014 article in The New York Times, the Yankees are actually the most popular MLB team in Charlotte, a little bit ahead of the Atlanta Braves, the closest team at 246 miles away. (The Washington Nationals are the next-closest, 402 miles.) The closest NHL team is the Carolina Hurricanes, 160 miles away.
Population is also an issue for Metrolina getting an ML team anytime soon: It would rank 29th among MLB markets. And, unless the 'Canes want to become a "regional team," as was experimented with in pro basketball in the 1970s and '80s (most recently with the Boston Celtics in Hartford in 1995), Charlotte won't get an NHL team either, as they'd rank 23rd -- although that's 3 places ahead of where Raleigh is now. Combining the 2 markets would jump it to 16th, but the logistics of alternating between Charlotte and Raleigh would make the move too risky.
The U.S. national soccer team has never played a game in Charlotte. There have been 7 such games played in North Carolina: 3 in High Point, 2 in Cary, and 1 each in Greensboro and Davidson. The U.S. women's team played at Bank of America Stadium on October 3, 2019, defeating South Korea, 2-0.
In 2017, the Western New York Flash of the National Women's Soccer League moved, and became the North Carolina Courage. They NWSL Championship in 2018 and 2019. WakeMed Soccer Park, 201 Soccer Park Drive in Cary, 8 miles west of downtown Raleigh. Bus 300.
Auto racing is not a sport. But, if you think it is, the NASCAR Hall of Fame is at Brevard & Stonewall Streets. Stonewall station on LYNX.
Charlotte has the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as a "mid-major" college basketball team, but in terms of college football, here's the distances to the closest Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly "Division I-A") teams: Wake Forest 82 miles, South Carolina 99, Clemson 139, University of North Carolina 140, Duke 141, North Carolina State 160, Virginia Tech 173, University of Tennessee 231, and East Carolina 247. (Wake Forest's Wait Chapel hosted Presidential Debates in 1988, between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, and in 2000, between George W. Bush and Al Gore.)
North Carolina A&T, in Greensboro, about 92 miles northeast of Charlotte and 76 miles west of Raleigh, has won "the National Championship of black college football" 6 times: 1951, 1968, 1990, 1999, 2015 and 2017. Winston-Salem State University, in the city of the same name, 75 miles northeast of Charlotte and 104 miles west of Raleigh, has won it 4 times, all recently: 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016. North Carolina Central, in Durham, has won it 3 times: 1954, 2005 and 2006.
Fayetteville State University, in the city of the same name, 136 miles east of Charlotte and 57 miles south of Raleigh, won it in 2002, although they compete in NCAA Division II. And Shaw University, in Raleigh, won it in 1947, and also now competes in Division II.
In addition to the old Charlotte Coliseum in 1956, Elvis Presley sang in Charlotte earlier in the year, doing (believe it) 4 shows at the Carolina Theater on February 10, 1956: 2:30, 4:30, 7:00 and 9:00. 224 N. Tryon Street, downtown.
In addition to Charlotte -- Raleigh, which I've covered in my guide for the Hurricanes -- Elvis sang at the following North Carolina locations: In New Bern, at the Shrine Auditorium in New Bern on May 14 and September 13, 1955; in Asheville, at the City Auditorium on May 17 and September 16, 1955, and at the Asheville Civic Center on July 22, 23 and 24, 1975; in Thomasville at the High School Auditorium on September 17, 1955; in Wilson at Fleming Stadium on September 14, 1955, and 3 shows at the Charles L. Coon Auditorium on February 14, 1956; in Greensboro, 4 shows in 1 day at the National Theater on February 6, 1956, and at the Greensboro Coliseum on April 14, 1972; March 13, 1974; July 21, 1975; June 30, 1976; and April 21, 1977; in High Point, 4 shows in 1 day at the Convention Center on February 7, 1956; in Williams, at the High School Auditorium on February 15, 1956; in Winston-Salem, 3 shows in 1 day at the Carolina Theater on February 16, 1956; in Lexington, at the YMCA Gym on March 21, 1956; and in Fayetteville, at the Cumberland County Memorial Arena in Fayetteville on August 3, 4 and 5, 1976.
If you're paying attention, you saw that he did 4 shows in 1 day on February 6, 7, 8 and 10, 1956. That's 16 shows in a span of 5 days. He was 21. It was easier to do that than to do 2 in 1 day when he was packing on the pounds in his early 40s in 1975, '76 and '77.
Charlotte features some downtown museums. The Levine Museum of the New South is about Southern life since the American Civil War, and it doesn't shy away from racial issues. 200 E. 7th Street at College Street. Discovery Place, a child-oriented science museum, is 2 blocks away at 301 N. Tryon Street at 6th Street.
Bechtler Museum of Modern Art is at 420 S. Tryon Street at 1st Street. The Mint Museum Uptown is not, as its name might suggest, a museum dedicated to money. Rather, it's a former mint converted into an art museum. 500 S. Tryon Street, across 1st Street from the Bechtler Museum.
Bank of America Corporate Center, at 871 feet, is not only the tallest building in town and the tallest in the Carolinas, but the tallest building between Philadelphia and Atlanta. 100 N. Tryon Street at 5th Street.
Charlotte has never produced a President. The Carolinas have produced 3. No one is precisely sure where Andrew Jackson was born -- not even whether it happened in North or South Carolina, only that it was in the Waxhaw region along the State Line. He was the 1st President born in a log cabin, but that cabin is long-gone. Andrew Jackson State Park, at 196 Andrew Jackson Park Road in Lancaster, South Carolina, is considered the likeliest place. It's about 33 miles south of Charlotte, and not reachable by public transportation.
James K. Polk State Historical Site is in Pineville, which, like Charlotte, is in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. It's about 12 miles south, at 12031 Lancaster Highway. It's easier to reach without a car: The Number 20 bus can get you to within half a mile.
Andrew Johnson was born in the State capital of Raleigh, 167 miles to the northeast. His birthplace was a log cabin (which didn't help him as much as it helped Jackson, or Johnson's immediate predecessor, Abraham Lincoln) on the grounds of Casso's Inn, where his father worked, at Morgan Street and Fayetteville Street, across from the State House. It was moved to Mordecai Historic Park at 1 Mimosa Street, a mile north of downtown. Number 1 Bus.
Yankee Legend Jim "Catfish" Hunter was from Hertford, North Carolina, 315 miles east of Charlotte, in the coastal Inner Banks region, and is buried in Cedarwood Cemetery there, on Hyde Park Road. Another major baseball legend, though not a New York one, Willie Stargell, is buried at Oleander Memorial Gardens, at 306 Bradley Drive, in Wilmington, 206 miles east of Charlotte. (Wilmington is also the hometown of Michael Jordan and TV journalist David Brinkley.) And, considerably closer to Charlotte, about 25 miles north, football legend Reggie White is buried at Glenwood Memorial Park in Mooresville.
A few TV shows have been filmed in North Carolina, most notably Dawson's Creek in Wilmington, but set in the fictional Capeside, Massachusetts. The Andy Griffith Show, of course, was set in the fictional North Carolina town of Mayberry and based on Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy. One Tree Hill was set in the fictional town of Tree Hill, North Carolina. But both were filmed in Southern California.
Shows set in Charlotte are few and far between. Recently, The Carmichael Show, based on the standup comedy of Jerrod Carmichael, aired on NBC. Homeland has had scenes shot in Charlotte. Scenes from the Hunger Games films, whose "District 12" includes the Carolinas, have been shot in Charlotte.
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Charlotte had no major league sports teams as recently as the Summer of 1988. By the Fall of 1996, it had the NBA and the NFL, and now they have MLS. MLB in the future is not yet out of the question.
It's true that North Carolina prefers college basketball over all sports. But a Red Bulls vs. Charlotte FC game could be a fun experience.
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