Harvey Gantt – A City Guy

For many people, having a cultural center named after you is a crowning achievement that nothing could come close to equaling. And while Harvey Gantt has received many accolades during his 66 years, he is certainly honored and humbled by this unique honor. (See sidebar.)

Yet at the end of our long interview about his role in the development of Uptown Charlotte, there came a moment when I unwittingly gave him a compliment that deeply resonated with the essential core of who Harvey Gantt is.

“So I guess it’s only fitting that this center should be named after you,” I said. “You have, after all, been a civil rights pioneer and a longtime leader in the African-American community.  But it’s also fitting, given that it’s located Uptown.  Because, after all is said and done, you are a ‘city guy.’”

Gantt, who had been in a reflective mood during our conversation, broke out in a wide grin that not only lit up his face, but seemingly his entire being as well.  It was a joyful look of pleasure that comes when an insightful “ah ha” moment about yourself is combined with an external recognition of what you are most proud of about yourself

“That’s right,” he said. “I’m a city guy. No one has ever called me that before. I have lived in uptown for 30 years, plus always had my business here. There aren’t many people who can say that.”

The moment ended the interview – focusing on Gantt’s role in the creation of modern uptown Charlotte – on just the right note.

Even those who have only lived in Charlotte for a short time recognize the name Harvey Gantt:  First black mayor of Charlotte (1983-1987).  A barrier-breaking candidate for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Jesse Helms in 1990 (and again in 1996).  And, before that, as the student who desegregated Clemson University when he attended its architecture program in 1963-1965.

But few people know Gantt as a distinguished architect and co-owner of Gantt Huberman Architects, which he founded with Jeff Huberman in 1971.  Fewer still – including myself, who has known him through the political arena for decades – realize that what he sees himself as is a city planner.

So, Dear Reader, come get to know Harvey Gantt, the City Guy, and learn about the history of modern Uptown Charlotte from one if its first advocates.

You were born and raised in Charleston. What brought you to Charlotte?
When I moved here in 1965, I was a young fellow looking for a place to raise my family and get certified as an architect. I wanted to stay in the South – two years of college in Iowa taught me that.  I had two choices – Atlanta and Charlotte. Although I graduated third in my class, I did not get a single job offer in South Carolina – no one wanted the notoriety of hiring the person who desegregated Clemson.

The size of the town appealed to me. It was a smaller pond than Atlanta. Odell Associates were nice and accommodating and made the case that the place was going to grow. Yet Charlotte was never originally on my radar; I wasn’t enamored with it. If you were going to go to North Carolina you thought about Raleigh or Greensboro.

What were those first years like?
For the first three years, I focused on getting my architecture license and was not involved in anything besides that and my church, Friendship Baptist.

Gouldie Odell (firm founder, Arthur Gould) allowed me to work on the first master plan for Uptown Charlotte. This was before the Civic Center, and the first office tower had not been built. There was no Fourth Ward, and Brooklyn (an old black neighborhood located near the intersection of McDowell and Stonewall streets) was being erased.

I watched from the sidelines as all the business leaders came to Odell to see the plan and saw how he sold it to them. I was in the room and saw all those people serious about the plan. It always stayed with me.  From that experience, I realized I wanted to study city planning, what made some cities great and some not.  So I got my masters in city planning from MIT, then worked as a planner at Soul City and taught city planning at UNC-Chapel Hill. For me, it was all about cities, not architecture.

Why did you come back to Charlotte?
I saw the city moving. There was another center city plan that called for using public infrastructure to promote private investment to create a place where white-table restaurants and greasy spoons were next door to each other and where housing made sense. Charlotte was a great urban laboratory, and there was a dynamism in the air. Jeff Huberman and I had met at Odell, and we had talked about forming an integrated architectural firm in Charlotte. There were few black architects anyway. He asked me to come back, and in October 1971, we opened our firm in the Johnson Building. We have always been located Uptown. A suburban location did not fit with our mission of what we wanted to be – and we felt we should be in the center of things.

Then what happened?
We did mostly institutional work, and we got our first city commission – the Belmont Regional Center — just before I was appointed to city council. That project made me more familiar with planning and how city departments worked. I realized how the city could, if they did it right, encourage housing and retail and make an exciting city. I decided I wanted to be a part of it.  Fred Alexander was my mentor, and he knew Charlotte’s history. He respected my growing knowledge about cities, and he listened to me. When he left city council for the state legislature, a lot of people wanted his seat. Out of the blue, he asked me to fill it because I was a neutral candidate. It was then that I saw how I could use my knowledge in a direct and effective way — the city needed to leverage the aspects it had control over to shape development where it needed to go. It was when I began to see Uptown as the livingroom of the region.

I remember you using that phrase in the early 1980s during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Uptown transit mall. It’s a forgotten term now. But the mall served its purpose.  It laid the groundwork for today’s Uptown.

We tore up Tryon Street, and it was nothing but clay and holes for months. I think now how remarkable it was that we convinced the retailers and financial institutions to let us close Tryon Street and transform the way it looked. We buried the utility cables, spread bus stations along the length of Tryon and built a civic realm on the street. It was the start of a new way of thinking about Uptown.

Now I look at and see the beautiful trees and bus shelters. There were some who argued for cheap little enclosed shelters, but we wanted something that would last. They were well worth the investment — they still look good after more than 20 years.

What other developments helped transform Uptown?
This place has always believed in what it planned. We saw second-floor retail in Minneapolis, and we followed through on it by building the Overstreet Mall. It fulfilled its purpose, but it had consequences we did not anticipate. We’re still working on getting retail on the street. We had a cultural plan that called for transforming a church into an arts center (Spirit Square) and for building a science museum (Discovery Place). It keeps going on and on.

The Junior League restored the Berryhill House in Fourth Ward, and some of us on council got enamored with it.  It wasn’t high-rise housing, but it was the beginning of residential development in the soft underbelly of high-rises. It was a romantic idea that made sense.

You almost got the Coliseum built uptown during the 1980s.  But it ended up off of Billy Graham.
The bond to build the coliseum passed while I was mayor, and we considered  two Uptown sites. One was where the Civic Center was (now the site of the EpiCentre), but it was too tight. Then we considered the site of the Arnold Palmer Cadillac dealership (where the Convention Center now sits).  But the council voted it down for the suburban site. I took a lot of heat for it, but I still think I had the right idea.

Progress kept being made, though.

Uptown has evolved over generations, in fits and starts, with successes and failures. But everyone had the notion that we could eventually build something very good at the city’s center.  The Charlotte Uptown Development Corporation (precursor to Charlotte Center City Partners) got business leaders involved who knew we were serious.

You made a personal commitment to Uptown as well as a business one.
I felt it was important to make a personal investment and so moved into Fourth
Ward.  Now I walk to Tryon Street from there and show it off to visitors, who are fascinated by the level of activity.  At 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, the streets are filled with people. My guests always ask me, “Where are these people going? How on earth did you get this place to look like this?”

What about the future?
I’m happy where the center city is today. It was part of a movement of people – the city manager, city council and business leaders – with the right ideas.  In 20 years, it can look even better. But we still need to work on retail, residential, and parking. We need to continue to make it a destination for the region. And I hope we don’t lose our energy and vision for public transportation. We need to extend the light rail line all the way to the university and add commuter lines to the towns, even if we have to add another quarter-percent tax.

Are you concerned that the Wells Fargo Cultural Campus (which the Gantt Center is part of) is opening during a severe economic downturn?
No. Of course there are going to be dips in the economy if you look long term. The value of my house in Fourth Ward has gone up, gone down, flattened, gone up again – we didn’t choose it for the short term. The Cultural Campus will still be great 50 years from now. It is opening at a time when people have less money for entertainment, but in the big scheme of things, it is something very special. We are being applauded that a city of this size could open so many venues in such a short period of time. It is one more thing that will make Uptown a destination in the center of the region.

The campus – and the Gantt Center – are examples of how the public sector can leverage its resources to spur development.

I remember when the Afro-Am Center – I’ll be calling the organization that for a long time – was started at UNC-Charlotte and when it was based in one room at Spirit Square. I served on its board in the 1970s. Then, when I was mayor pro tem, the Little Rock AME Church was slated for destruction to widen Seventh Street. But the road was moved to save it – I wonder how many people know that’s why the street curves like that?  The city purchased it and leased it to the Afro-Am Center once they raised a certain amount of money. Then the Center grew enough and had enough presence that when the new Cultural Campus was planned, it was right in the heart of it.

I know everyone asks this question, but I can’t resist. How does it feel to have this center named after you?
I’ve always had strong feelings that you shouldn’t name buildings after people who are living.  So I gave it a lot of thought after I was asked.  But it was thinking about children that moved me the most. The black and white kids who go there might ask, “Why is it named the Gantt Center? Who is this fellow?” And my story might be uplifting and inspiring to some of them.

The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture is the new name for the Afro-American Cultural Center that was founded 35 years.  The new four-story building at Stonewall and Tryon streets is a combination art/history museum and cultural center. It will feature 7,000 square feet of gallery space in its three main exhibit halls. The opening exhibits feature works by Belmont native Juan Logan and Atlanta-based Radcliffe Bailey, as well as the entire 58 pieces of the nationally known Hewitt Collection, part of the center’s permanent collection. Purchased in 1998 by Bank of America and donated to the Center, it features paintings by such artists as Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, Jonathan Green and Ann Tanksley.

~ Bea Quirk