Up & Coming Weekly

4 UCW SEPTEMBER 29 - OCTOBER 5, 2021 Best of Fayetteville C I TY l i fe 2021 Thank you for voting us Best Wingz 3 years in a row! 407 N Eastern Blvd Sun-Thurs: 11AM-10PM•Fri-Sat: 11AM-11PM Best Place to Board Pets Thank You for voting us 910-484-0300 2401 Stonegate Rd.•bedandbiscuits@gmail.com 2021 Best Use of Local Tax Dollars Highways and Road Maintenance Road construction seems to be everywhere in our community. With the sheer number of cars driving on our highways and byways, that is a very good thing. Fayetteville has some of the busiest highways in our state, and with many people just passing through, our older roads became quickly congested. Thanks to a massive injection of money into the national and state highway systems, much of our congestion is being dealt with by taking people around the congested area when they are just passing through, rather than clunking them right down on the Bragg 500 or the All-American Racetrack. With the opening of the I-95 North loop around Fayetteville, and the partial opening of the I-95 South loop, traffic is flowing a little easier and people who are just passing through can move on, and let those of us who are doing business in the city get where we are going without a lot of hurry up and wait. Of course, these improvements have caused some headaches, with part of roads narrowing to one lane at times. With all of the goodness of our massive highway construction, we still have one nagging question that we all have to ask: Who was the guy who decided that putting medians down every road of our city is a good idea? The medians force you to go past where you are going, do a u-turn and try not to hit the panhandlers who step off the median to ask for money, all while dodging oncoming cars. Best Local Landmark The Market House Downtown Fayetteville The Market House in Fayetteville's Downtown District was built in 1838 on the site of the old state house and Town Hall which burned down in 1831. At that time, Fayetteville was the capital of North Carolina. The Market House's construction was in line with the style of that time, and has an arcaded open ground level, and a meeting hall above in a standard market house format which originated in the British Isles and is also common in New England. It served both as a town hall and gen- eral market until the early 20th century, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1973. Over the past several years, the Market House has become a point of contention within the community because of its alleged ties to the slave trade. Calls for tearing it down rang out last summer as protest- ers took to the streets. For now, cooler heads have prevailed and people are coming together to see that instead of dividing us as a community, the Market House can bring us together as we acknowledge its historic role in the found- ing of our city and nation, but also its role in one of our nation's greatest sins: the selling of humans. The Market House stands as a reminder of our past. It can also stand for our future, one where we remember the sins of our past and move forward as a united city where all people can proudly proclaim they are citizens of our great city.

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