I remember when Arsenal Avenue was intact, running uninterrupted past Myrover Street to Bradford Avenue. The Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway was still called the Central Business District Loop, and it ended abruptly in a wall of dirt and concrete just beyond the exit to Hay Street. Highschool bands would choose this point to disembark and prepare for their place in various local parades, emerging at the apex and then marching down the hill. Hay Street in those years had a tarnished image, a mystique of something unsavory, and my young mind wondered about the boarded up Prince Charles Hotel, what went on in all those clubs, and just who lived in the brick Tudor house perched on a corner above the city. I still don't know whose home that is, but in the intervening years I have had the privilege of watching Hay Street change and grow, and actually return to what it was in gentler years now gone.

I appreciate that the powers that be, after making the decision to decimate the site of the former Arsenal, have in these later years developed what is actually a quite lovely area. It is a shame to me that more people aren't aware of the significigance of the Ghost Tower, rising over the traffic on the freeway, a hint of what was before. The Poe House and its grounds, the Museum of the Cape Fear, all of these wonderful attractions escape great notice, but visiting them reminds me that Fayetteville has attractions just as interesting as larger cities in this state, simply not as prominent. Will this change as the BRAC project gains momentum, moving to fruition, and further increasing the population of our town? What will Fayetteville be like in twenty years as a result? I'm anxious to see.

It seems to me that there is much untapped potential in Fayetteville, things that exist beneath the radar, opportunities that could break the surface of what is for all intents and purposes the quiet millpond of life in this town. Great things can happen when they are least expected, prosperity springs from where there was none. I hear whisperings of greater things to come for Fayetteville. There is talk of a technology explosion that will set the internet giants on their ears. It's been rumored that we may finally get a Fresh Market.

There is a footbridge which comprises a virtual hanging garden extending across the chasm where the Arsenal once stood, bridging the site of the foundations of the armory and smitheys from Myrover Street to Bradford Avenue. To me, it represents a span uniting the past with the present, inspiring thoughts of what is yet to be.