The year is 1991, and The Rathskeller is teeming with college students, like my dad, enjoying the Hillsborough Street nightlife with a beer in hand, listening to live music in the balmy summer air.
The year is 2007, and I’m enjoying greasy New York-style pizza at Two Guys on Hillsborough with my family, the cheese perfectly stringy and the sauce spiced just right. At a table next to ours, a group of raucous college boys cheer when the Wolfpack baseball team hits a homerun.
The year is 2017, and these popular hangout spots, along with many others, are closed, some even bulldozed to make room for new developments. In their places are restaurants that cost twice as much money, whose atmospheres are three times as fancy and stifling, with none of the legacy or history of the university and its students remaining in their walls.
Hanging out at cheap, comfortable bars and restaurants, live music in the background and a sports game or two on the television is the epitomic scene of popular college culture. In fact, I grew up listening to stories about such experiences from my parents, all the while dreaming of my own picture perfect college experience.
You can imagine what kind of let down it was, then, for me to come to NC State — my parents’ alma mater and the stage for all of their cool college shenanigans — only to find out that all of their favorite spots to hang out on Hillsborough Street have been closed in favor of new developments. Even worse is that most of these new up and coming eateries are way outside of my budget.
As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, the most tragic part of the story is the eradication of Raleigh’s history in the wake of new restaurants, apartments and hotels. Many of the buildings that line Hillsborough Street have existed since the early 20th century, according to City of Raleigh website.
The building that used to house NC State’s beloved bowling alley, The Alley, was one of the first commercial buildings on Hillsborough Street in 1939. Although it was mostly destroyed in a fire in 1959, the building that replaced it and was still standing proudly until 2016 was built in 1960 — 56 years of history that has now been gutted in favor of a new Target.
Now, don’t get me wrong — I love Target just as much as the next person. However, Target can’t replace a vintage bowling alley with a hopping vibe as a hangout spot for my friends and me. Neither can Aloft Hotel with its expensive ground floor restaurants, nor Freshii, H Street Kitchen, Kabob and Curry or any of the other recently added restaurants or coffee shops whose menus and pricelists appear to be just outside the affordability range of the average college student.
It’s clear that the people behind the Hillsborough Street Renewal Project are aiming to target Hillsborough Street and its newest, brightest attractions to a new demographic of people; perhaps they’re aiming at recent grads with newly minted jobs looking to stay close to the college life they so dearly enjoyed.
Regardless, the fact of the matter is that Hillsborough Street is NC State territory. It’s a place for NC State students to find a change of scenery from windowless classrooms and group study rooms in the library during the day, or to find reprieve from the grind of academia at night. Lately, though, it’s impossible to do either of those things without breaking the bank, or feeling oddly confined in highbrow restaurants with smooth jazz playing in the background and centerpieces more expensive than some textbooks.
As hard as H Street Kitchen tries to be the next “it” place on Hillsborough Street, the fact remains that nothing will ever beat the old, sometimes greasy, always charming landmarks that existed even a mere five, maybe ten years ago.
Classy comes after college, when I can afford it. For now, I’m just looking for cheap food, a cold drink and loud music drowned out by louder laughter.
