Moore Square, Raleigh’s ‘four-acre playground,’ reopens
Moore Square showed off the results of its two-year face-lift Saturday, inviting the downtown crowd to splash in its fountains, scarf down its $6 hamburgers and roll on its carpet of fresh grass.
Dating to 1792, the four-acre plot transformed from a meeting place for Baptists to a billet for Union soldiers to a festival square where Joan Jett and the Violent Femmes played for free. Then in 2017, it took a long nap as a $13-million construction site, closed off by chain-link fences.
For its official return, the city rolled out a troupe of break dancers, a photo booth inside a Volkswagen bus, hula hoop jugglers and a chess board with pieces bigger than the children moving them. Three months from now, officials promise, the square will be just as busy.
“A smaller version of this,” said Amanda Fletcher, events and programs manager. “Children’s stories, art classes, master classes, yoga ... Every day has a thing to do.”
She suggested visitors check the calendar at raleighnc.gov/mooresquare.
Before they closed it, Raleigh officials acknowledged Moore Square had become a gathering place for the down and out, its park benches occupied by visitors with nowhere else to go. They insisted at the time that the goal was not to push those people away but to attract a wider demographic.
Every day, a cart will arrive carrying either yoga mats and other fitness supplies, games to spread out on the grass or a book to borrow. The breakdancing trouple Raleigh Rockers will perform every Wednesday at 6 p.m. History gets a nod with a stone-carved description of Raleigh’s “Black Main Street,” the onetime business district nearby
With Moore Square’s center completely cleared out for the lawn, it offers no shade on an August day. But benches remain in the park’s leafy corners and patio tables are spread out around Square Burger, which also sells beer. Also, for the first time in recent memory, Moore Square offers a public restroom.
“I love the set-up,” said Maurice Melvin, a freelance photographer shooting pictures of people dancing Saturday. “The stage and the water, all set up for family-oriented you-name-it.”
Named for Alfred Moore, the 18th-century N.C. Attorney General and a U.S. Supreme Court justice, the square was conceived as part of surveyor William Christmas’ original plans for Raleigh.
“It is a four-acre playground and rest cure,” says a 1907 quotation from The News & Observer, chiseled on a corner sidewalk, “bursting on the vision as one turns the corner of Martin and Blount, green and inviting.”
Bordered by Hargett, Blount, Martin and Person streets, the square faces Marbles Kids Museum, Brewery Bhavana, The Pour House and the cobblestones of City Market. After two years of being blocked off, it connects those downtown elements again.
This story was originally published August 3, 2019 at 3:39 PM.