Eyesore or art? Raleigh hauls away scrap creation after neighbors’ complaints
For at least a decade, the house at 1602 Oakwood Ave. stood surrounded by an 8-foot wall of white lattice hung with antique mirrors, a rainbow pinwheel, a Batman cape and a choir of ceramic angels — all daring anyone to ignore the spectacle.
Depending on your taste, the Southeast Raleigh landmark qualified either as the world’s most eccentric trinket collection or a prize-winning pile of junk. On special mornings, you’d see the artist himself, sweeping the sidewalk out front while curious commuters drove past, startled out of their ordinary Tuesdays.
But on the Friday before last, the city ruled decisively in favor of the “junk” faction, hauling it all away as a public nuisance.
The scrapyard-art creation had drawn three complaints in the last six months, and it blocked the sidewalk, having at least partially collapsed. City spokeswoman Julia Milstead said Raleigh offered chances to move some of the stuff.
“At the end of the day,” she said, “this boiled down to a safety issue.”
A St. Augustine’s University neighbor
But neighbors on the streets around St. Augustine’s University see a sinister lack of tolerance and willingness to coexist in a part of Raleigh that has seen the old and crumbling rapidly replaced by the new and expensive.
As the wall at 1602 Oakwood grew higher, adding a carousel horse and a Starbucks umbrella, a steady migration of newcomers arrived in far-larger houses, sparking a tear-down trend that ruffles the old-timers’ feathers.
Having participated in this migration, albeit 20 years ago, I stand as a witness to how quickly the definition of eyesore can change.
So around the Oakwood Avenue house, the faithful lament a familiar loss of character:
“RIP to a true Raleigh landmark,” said a disappointed fan, swansonthecanal, on an Instagram post from raleighdowntown. “This is what it is to watch a living city die.”
And:
“Don’t move in a historical neighborhood and demand that its quirkiness leave,” echoed a post from Nail Yeah!, a salon down nearby Hill Street. “The city hasn’t been concerned about the neighborhood until this new wave of people started moving in.”
Ken’s Smell Goods
I knocked on the door at 1602 Oakwood four times last week and never got an answer, even though the occupant and artist were clearly at home to hear the knocking. I’m guessing he didn’t feel like speaking to anybody else wearing an ID badge on a lanyard.
So I walked around the corner onto Hill Street and found Ken Evans, who owns and operates a business called Ken’s Smell Goods and Fashion Wear.
As you might guess, Evans sells both fragrances and second-hand clothing. Before he operated this store, he drove a truck for Macy’s, and he would buy all the damaged boxes of clothes at a discount. Nobody in this neighborhood cares, he told me, if a North Face jacket or a pair of Nikes comes in a banged-up box.
As to the junk-art around the corner, he and his longtime neighbors are steaming.
Blocking the sidewalk?
“Then they should have pushed it,” Evans said. “It looked like Fred Sanford over there. That’s how I told people to find my store.”
People complained?
“Maybe one or two complained,” he said, “but that don’t trump the whole neighborhood. That don’t trump what’s been there 20 years. He had stuff you and I can’t get no more. Captain America. Superman. Big Wheels. I told him ‘You got the last Big Wheel.’ Members Only jackets. I told him, ‘You’re the last member.’ “
Rant warning
As a migrant myself, I deeply understand the appeal of life around downtown: restaurants and bars in walking distance; historic houses with plaques out front; neighbors that vary by age, race, income status and tendency to tell long stories while you’ve got an arm full of groceries.
But this place isn’t for everybody.
A lot of people around here drive rusted pickup trucks with junk in the back, and they might park them near your house.
On some evenings, a stranger might knock on your door and tell you he’s homeless, then offer to weed your garden for cash.
Inconceivable as it may sound, I’ve seen people hang their wash on a clothesline.
Honestly, I can recall a few moments when I thought of ratting somebody out on see-click-fix, or even worse, that gathering of paranoid outrage addicts who inhabit Nextdoor.
But I always stop myself, not wanting to be that guy, not wanting to live on that street.
Uniquely NC is a News & Observer subscriber collection of moments, landmarks and personalities that define the uniqueness (and pride) of why we live in the Triangle and North Carolina.
This story was originally published May 5, 2025 at 5:40 AM.