Plaza Midwood: Charlotte's Streetcar Neighborhood

Plaza Midwood was laid out in nineteen ten as a streetcar suburb of Charlotte, with trolley lines running along Central Avenue and The Plaza carrying residents out from the center city. The Oakland Land Company designed the streets, and through the nineteen twenties and thirties the neighborhood thrived. By mid-century, as cars replaced streetcars and suburban highways drew development outward, Plaza Midwood declined.

By the nineteen seventies it had acquired a reputation as one of Charlotte's rougher edges. The Plaza Midwood Neighborhood Association formed in nineteen seventy-five to push back. By the mid-nineteen nineties, reinvestment had transformed the area, and today it is Charlotte's most eclectic district, known for independent restaurants, art galleries, and local music venues that have become central to the city's creative identity.