Quote :

"Farm Fresh I think. They had movie rentals in the back"

that kinda sounds like it, but the movies were in the front, if i remember they were like 89 cents, the best in town

3/5/2008 8:35:07 PM

its pretty crazy how many of us actually grew up in cary our whole lives...i was born and raised here and was a proud graduate of cary elementary!!!

i actually ate at ashworths today...hot dog special bitches!

3/5/2008 10:47:06 PM

Quote :

"Farm Fresh"

I think that area has a Raleigh address.

Anyone remember the 99 cent theater off Buck Jones - in the same area as the Farm Fresh was. I believe it is a Gold's Gym Beyond Fitness now.

Also, the water tower at Cary High when the students were the ones that painted "Class of XX"

[Edited on March 5, 2008 at 10:59 PM. Reason : -]

3/5/2008 10:56:39 PM

Quote :

"was a proud graduate of cary elementary!!!"

They've done SOOOO much work to that school, it looks almost nothing like it once did.


who else went to West Cary Middle?

3/5/2008 11:55:25 PM

^^hahah, yes, that was one ghetto ass theater, suprisingly i didnt go there much, back then i didnt even have 99 cents, and if i did it would be spent on a slushy

3/6/2008 1:42:10 AM

Quote :

"i remember the tree on the hill at cary village mall"

I had totally forgotten about that. I guess it was an omen of sorts


God that place sucks now.

3/6/2008 7:17:57 AM

yea i remember that theater. that was back before jellybeans and ruth chris were across the street.

3/6/2008 10:14:07 AM

cant believe i just saw this thread. raised in cary, been here almost my whole life (except for that i was born in raleigh and lived off powell drive until i was about 5.)

really hate the rap cary gets but they we get what we deserve. its amazing at what is considered cary these days.

ashworth's drugs is money.


[Edited on March 6, 2008 at 11:41 AM. Reason : went to middle school at martin middle, high school at chs]

3/6/2008 11:39:32 AM

Hungry Howies Pizza on Maynard == Good shit

3/6/2008 11:41:42 AM

Ashworths hotdogs are really good. Makes me wanna good ole cherry coke from there too.

3/6/2008 11:44:46 AM

by the way... for you cary folks who haven't been in the area lately, you need to check out the high school. jesus.... the thing is huge.

there is a new gym with a full size basketball/volleyball PRACTICE court on one side, and the other side of the gym is strictly for wrestling PRACTICE.

saw it for the first time a few weeks ago when i went to see cary play apex on senior night (sister is a senior cheerleader) and was amazed.

3/6/2008 11:50:42 AM

i went to cary elementary, west cary, then cary high and all three schools look totally different now then they did back in the day...for the better i guess. when i was at cary elementary they tore my first grade building (dry building) down a few years later because of asbestos!!

i remember eating hungry howies pizza all the time...or when ace hardware did 25 cent hotdogs in the spring and fall...oh the days!!!!!

3/6/2008 7:00:00 PM

lived in cary since before my first birthday

our first house was actually on kildaire rd itself, next to the big church at maynard / kildaire. we had a pool, and our neighbors had free range chickens in their backyard. this was in 1980

3/6/2008 7:06:25 PM

i lived in cary from 92 until 2005 (rest of family still lives there). went to a.v. baucom for a year (i lived in preston before they started building all the schools there), then west lake middle, then enloe (class of 2000). worked at the cary ymca from like 98 to 2003.

i have to say, as much crap as cary gets for looking like a strip mall paradise, they have done a much better job then other places. suburban atlanta makes cary look like a trendy little town with character

though i have to say that whole new entrance onto 64S by the cook-out freaked the hell out of me last time i went up there, and i screwed it up twice. actually, that whole area freaks me out.

3/6/2008 7:33:55 PM

^ Trust the engineers. What they've done is better than how it was before.

The exit isn't as direct, but VERY heavy traffic flows much better through that area now, and the wait at the light is shorter. I think the average speed you travel through that corridor is a little faster now, but your top speed is definitely a lot lower. It is kind of freaky and unusual, but I like what they did with it (I'm biased I had an internship doing survey for that job for a few months, lulz).

The biggest thing I hate about that intersection is the landscaping and that tiny little street clock cary wanted in there with the dinky little sign hanging off of it. The landscaping is dying/looks like some sort of shitty beach grass, the tiny street clock is WAY far away from the street and looks almost comical being so far away and so small, and the little sign they have hanging from it... Well, did you know there was a sign hanging from it? Keep an eye out next time and try to read it. Don't try too hard though or you'll get in a wreck. It says shopping on your right, city center on your left with gold letters on a dark green background. The letters are way too damn small.

And, my final complaint, those huge brick circle things look weird with a big mound of dirt and tiny landscaping in them. Better idea: Build lots of little brick circle thingies and put dogwood trees in them lining the onramp/offramp.

3/6/2008 7:56:29 PM

oh - i 'm sure its better. but as someone who drove in that area for YEARS, and then moved away, and then came back and was doing some shopping and swinging by her friends house who lives right there and not really expecting anything...........it freaked me out

oh - but i do agree, the landscaping was kinda weird and seemed out of place

also for the entrace to 64N from cary parkway (one exit down) i kept wanting to turn left

3/6/2008 8:08:30 PM

sounds like Cary used to be a shithole and gradually evolved into a nice place to live.

3/6/2008 8:16:03 PM

North carolina in general used to be a poor shit hole. welcome to growth fueled by economic development. It sucks that it isn't like it used to be, but it's still pretty awesome that it isn't like it used to be.


Ashworth's hotdogs are the best. used to ride my tricycle down S. Academy street back in the 80s, you know, when tricycles were cool.

3/6/2008 9:42:05 PM

DJ Bauren

3/6/2008 9:42:54 PM

<--- Cary Native

Spent the majority of my childhood in Kildaire Farms before moving to a new development on the outskirts of Cary.

Anybody else from Kildaire?

3/6/2008 9:53:45 PM

We're mostly complaining that Cary, once having neat things that made it unique and a nicer place to live, has now turned into a gigantic, poorly planned residential and shopping megaburb. Economic progress and so on don't necessarily require that the whole city turn into a traffic-laden mess with small business being an afterthought to big box mega-chains which dominate the area.

I'm not against growth at all. I think it's fantastic that so many people want to live here and that there's so many places to work and shop and eat and what have you. I'm severely disappointed in the fact that they're selling low-quality vinyl boxes on tiny lots for large markups and completely destroying whole forested areas entirely just to put down a few hundred generic copycat homes marketed under a popular interior designer's moniker.

The same thing for the commercial developments applies to the residential ones. There is no planning for expanding most of the stores in the area, no reserved land so they can expand the store in phases to support a larger future customer base. We just move on from our old location and plop down a shopping center in yet another area that currently looks like a quiet suburban neighborhood. With this new shopping comes the traffic, then the roads get widened and tons of ugly, plastic houses on tiny lots and bland apartment complexes spring up nearby.

It seems like this is how the growth has been able to take off since the 90's. There's absolutely nothing I or anyone else can do about it either since some people are happy to live in poorly planned, poorly built, unsustainable neighborhoods because they're marketed towards such a group and priced in such a way that the demand continues to be there for this one market demographic.

When we moved to Cary when I was less than a year old, it was one of the best places to live for being safe, having relatively cheap land, having good schools, and not suffering any of the ills that more developed areas have. Now it still is safe, has some excellent schools, has a lot of available real estate but much of it is overpriced or poorly made (or has <0.2 acres), has probably five times the traffic problems it used to have, and lacks any sort of special draw that would set it apart from the other sides of town (besides being very safe and filled with yuppies).

The Cary government just kind of sold out the interests of its residents and zoned for some sloppy development in a move that I would consider much akin to a get rich quick scheme. The scheme worked, but the town/city lacks any draw that would make it anything besides a big boring overgrown megaburb.

[Edited on March 6, 2008 at 10:13 PM. Reason : Somebody embed Rockin' the Suburbs plz.]

3/6/2008 10:13:03 PM

Quote :

"I'm not against growth at all. I think it's fantastic that so many people want to live here and that there's so many places to work and shop and eat and what have you."

I am, but that is simply because I'm a curmudgeon.

I've been out of step with society since I was born though. I definitely agree there are more poorly planned places out there (NOVA, Atlanta, Dallas) but that is like asking me if I want to be kicked in both balls or just one.

3/7/2008 7:40:58 AM

Quote :

" Anybody else from Kildaire?"

Cary Parkway and Lake Pine behind Grocery Boy Jr. TILL I DIE!!111

3/7/2008 7:49:52 AM

i used to go there to ride bikes like the badass that i was

and fuck cary, never did anything but give me hell, and i was paying the same shit into the economy as the rest of the douchebags there

all they ever did for me was run me out of town by tearing my home to shit with some bogus ass lie filled search warrant. if they knew so much about me, they wouldnt have asked all the black guys i lived with if they were travis, the only white guy that lived there. but they sure acted like they knew who i was when they got that warrant and that swat team. and left without shit

and im sure that didnt play into them charging me with 8 warrants while i lived in arizona either. i did something wrong, but they kinda piled them on when they saw the chance. cops like that are why i hated all police for so long. they even called my lawyer and said that it was only 2 warrants, and i should drive back and negotiate my surrender. then i got back and they said i was a flight risk (after i just drove 5 days) and they fucking killed me with the bond. lucky for me im a pimp

3/7/2008 8:04:05 AM

Honda Hill motherfuckers

3/7/2008 8:06:55 AM

Cary never was and never will be a place that deserves this much stupid fuckin nostalgia.

3/7/2008 8:19:50 AM

and as the magistrate sets the 50,000 bond, the officers smirk, knowing they finally got him. until he casually says "i'd like to take care of that now and be on my way home".

they look at each other and laugh, sure he's joking. then they watch in pure horror, as they see him motion to his attorney on the other side of the glass, and a team of 6 hand picked professionals enter and begin their pre-planned duties... spring the man who knew he was being lied to

and 15 minutes later, the man they just lied about to keep in jail until trial walks out before they get back to their cars and leave.

i should be a writer!!1

3/7/2008 8:23:31 AM

Quote :

"Honda Hill motherfuckers "

Quentessential example of Cary taking something unique, and turning it into another place for fat suburbanites to drive 1 mile so they can walk 5 miles on the indoor treadmill

That place did kick ass.

Quote :

"Cary never was and never will be a place that deserves this much stupid fuckin nostalgia."

True. I think most of us are mourning those places which were infected by the virus that is Cary, not Cary itself.

3/7/2008 8:36:31 AM

I used to lifeguard at the Kildaire pool. Water Basketball and the 4th of July beer dive FTW

3/7/2008 9:58:05 AM

ahhh kildaire pool

i forgot i used to go there

harrassing the deep end lifeguard chick like the kids in sandlot

3/7/2008 9:59:19 AM

Quote :

"also for the entrace to 64N from cary parkway (one exit down) i kept wanting to turn left"

3/7/2008 10:01:33 AM

that changed like last year

3/7/2008 10:05:33 AM

Hrm, things I remember:

The Ragazzi's at Cary Towne Center was a Golden Corral.

Waverly under construction (and actually had business there) (that was the first thing at that intersection).

Tryon road being 2-lane. All of it.

Only remaining original stores at crossroads: Toys R Us, Remington Grill, REI, Office Max, Optometrist. Dick's was a Home Quarters Warehouse (oldschool Home Depot/Lowes type store that had 2-3 locations in the area).

Quote :

"They've done SOOOO much work to that school, it looks almost nothing like it once did. "

Yeah, I went there for K only - my dad helped with a bunch of others to build that wooden boat that used to be out there. The noise stoplight in the cafeteria pissed me off nonstop.

3/7/2008 10:18:45 AM