By Susan Moffat-Thomas, retired Swiss Bear Executive Director
In the mid-1980s, under the leadership of Swiss Bear, Inc., the downtown community joined together in a strong grassroots effort to revive a dying downtown. Shop owners and members of the Downtown Merchants Association, volunteers, and Swiss Bear created a multitude of activities and events that would attract people back downtown; little princess talent shows, antique car shows, the Swiss Bear Festival (now MUMfest), and the Spring Arts Festival, to name a few. It was a time of people joining together to devise creative strategies to brighten the bleak, treeless streetscape dominated by a jumble of overhead wires, broken and patched concrete sidewalks, hit-and-miss signage, and vacant and deteriorating buildings.
In the spring of 1986, Swiss Bear merchants and volunteers decided to line the sidewalks with American flags to celebrate Flag Day since some sidewalks had holes near the curb that were receptacles for flags in years past. We asked Charlie Kimbrel, Director of Public Works, if his department could drill three-inch holes in the sidewalks near the curb and clean out the existing ones to hold flag poles. In O. Marks, the newly rehabbed Belk building, the shop owners of the nine new retail shops on the mall’s perimeter were excited to participate. Catherine Hadnot, owner of Berne Emporium, came up with the idea of joining together to buy 75 twelve-foot by three-inch closet poles for $12.85 each and attach the flags to them. Charles Blythe of Branch’s Furniture furnished the flags at cost. In early June, a large group of volunteers and shop owners gathered together for several evenings in the O. Marks Mall to assemble the flags in time for National Flag Day on June 14.
On the morning of June 14, when merchants put the flags out in front of their respective businesses, the street looked glorious. The best part, citizens flocked downtown to see the new attraction and attend the special Flag Day ceremony in Bear Plaza, where Troop 13 Scouts staffed the State, City, American, and Swiss Bear flags that included a presentation on the history of the American flag by Elks Lodge #764.
The rich colors of the American flags added life to the drab streetscape, and along with the newly created events, people were beginning to come back downtown. In July, over the Independence Day holiday weekend, Fred Tracey emceed a similar ceremony in Bear Plaza while the costumed Uncle Sam and Swiss Bear’s Bernie roamed at large. O. Marks had movies for the kids and an antique toy show, and merchants had sidewalk sales. It was a grand 4th of July holiday, and we were all ecstatic … slowly but surely, the pedestrian traffic was growing.
Merchants continued to put the flags out every morning that year. However, some began to see it as a nuisance, and when it became a hit-and-miss situation, we asked the city to use Municipal Service District tax money and purchase hardware that could be affixed to the street poles to hold banners and flags. From that point on, American flags adorned the streets and major corridors on national holidays.
Since improving the streetscape was still a goal, Swiss Bear initiated the Plant Your Roots in Downtown New Bern fundraising campaign. The city agreed to maintain trees if we raised the funds to buy them. The Department of Public Works cut openings in the sidewalks to accommodate the root systems of twelve-to-fifteen-foot trees. The campaign raised $12,000, and a landscape firm planted them in the spaces. The trees significantly improved the streetscape and remained until they were replaced in the mid-1990s. The 1990s Urban Design Plan also included improvements to underground utilities, new sidewalks, trees, streetlights, and street furniture.
The Flag Day and tree project are just a few examples of how the private sector and the city worked together over the past 40 years on many big and small projects. What was once a battered and beaten downtown is now recognized as one of the state’s most charming small towns and historically rich places.