Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014 - 42

Katie Larrington

you don't need to leave the city to
get to the mountains-an entire
mountain, mill mountain, exists
within the city limits.
Besides all that, you don't need to leave the city to
get to the mountains - an entire mountain, Mill
Mountain, exists within the city limits. Its giant neon
star, erected in 1949 as, essentially, a Christmas decoration, has become a symbol of the city - yes, overthe-top (1,045 feet over the top - of the city), but also
a comforting beacon from the road or the air that tells
us we've come home again.
We often say that when we live in a place, we take
it for granted, and perhaps sometimes I do, but not
too often. There are too many moments, every day,
like those glimpses of mountains, that remind me, or
that surprise me.
Downtown is full of those glimpses and surprises.
It is a bit of a cross-section of the city - its history, its
challenges, its future. The farmers market is still a
farmers market, and every day (and even more on
weekends) you'll find local farmers, gardeners, bakers
and artists selling produce, herbs, jewelry, candles,
carved wood, pies, soap. At Halloween, pumpkins; at
Christmas, trees and greenery. The old storefronts are
new storefronts - gift shops, a dry cleaner, a couple
bakeries, a deli, a hookah bar - coffee, candy, hiking
boots, copper pots, overalls - seafood, Indian food,
Japanese, Thai, Cajun. Mill Mountain Theatre (where
I've experienced the magic vicariously, playing six
42 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

shows a week in the orchestra pit) auditions its actors
in New York City; the Roanoke Symphony, Opera
Roanoke, Jefferson Center, several ballet companies
and numerous concert series in churches and other
venues fill the calendar with inspired performances.
The downtown blends old and new, commercial
and artistic. Art galleries, architecture firms, condos,
restaurants, a bed and breakfast have all moved into
old buildings, maintaining exposed brick and tin ceilings. The Hotel Roanoke is a balance of antique neoTudor and 20th-century conference center. The old
city market building, recently renovated, is home to
eateries and special event space. The Taubman
Museum, designed by Frank Gehry protege Randall
Stout, raises its asymmetrical glass and metal rooftop
next door to an antique letterpress business. Old
Norfolk & Western (now Norfolk Southern) buildings
have been reincarnated as the Roanoke Higher
Education Center and an apartment building.
Railroads built Roanoke, and the Norfolk Southern
rails run straight through it, a working downtown
world of freight and coal transport. The heavy cars and
locomotives roll through the Norfolk Southern shops
- many evenings, I can hear from my front porch the
clank of freight cars coupling. The Martin Luther
King, Jr. Memorial pedestrian bridge and the glass
walkway from downtown to the Hotel Roanoke are
my favorite places to watch the trains. The O. Winston
Link Museum (the site of our wedding reception) and
the Virginia Museum of Transportation (one of my
four-year-old niece's, six-year-old nephew's and
74-year-old father's favorite places to visit) are also
reincarnations: The former was Roanoke's old passenger station (there is more and more talk of passenger
service returning in the next few years) and the latter,
a 1918 N&W freight station that Norfolk Southern

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Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014

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