Keeping Up with the Belks

When I was still at UNCC, I didn’t fully understand that Trade and Tryon was the city center. My cash-strapped friends and I, when we were desperate for beer money or scrambling to pay sorority dues, used to joke that we could work the corner of Trade and Tryon to earn some money. This was before we knew that what we were suggesting was better suited to Wilkinson Blvd. Alas, we were young and naive. Of course, when I got engaged at Charlotte’s famous cross streets, the running gag made the story a little more funny than romantic. But we had no clue, isolated in University City, Charlotte’s leper colony, that the infamous corner of T&T is the literal and figurative center of it all. It wasn’t until I started working in this very special place that I realized that you can learn everything about the this city just by spending time in this one spot. It’s the center of the cities festivals, that range from great food and wine to turkey legs and NASCAR junkies. It’s where the business elite flock in their suits Monday through Thursday and show off their neatly pressed khakis and polos on Friday. It’s where you can buy fresh fruit and discuss stocks with the homeless. It’s where you can see a perfect microcosm of the Charlotte’s obsession with fountains. And it’s where, as a male yankee friend who was visiting happily pointed out, you can always spot some tit. What more can you ask for? Now, when someone in the business crowd asks me, “Meck, where do you work?” I know that when I say “The Corner of Trade and Tryon” they usually assume that I work for Bank of America and/or I’m better than them. And that’s what it’s all about…