Tom Bradshaw, Raleigh ‘boy mayor’ who brought Beltline and helped downtown, has died
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Tom Bradshaw led Raleigh’s downtown renewal and secured Beltline funding.
- Elected mayor at 32, he championed civic projects and served one term.
- Raised in public housing, he rose to DOT secretary, Wall Street and politics.
Tom Bradshaw, the “boy mayor” of Raleigh who labored to save its dying downtown, presided over much of its growth and later rose to transportation secretary under Gov. Jim Hunt, has died.
He was 87.
Long past his political career, Bradshaw is likely best known for having his name appear on a portion of Raleigh’s Beltline, the highway for which he helped secure federal funding.
Elected mayor in 1971, Bradshaw was widely considered a liberal and progressive in his growing city, rising to Raleigh’s top job just as Clarence Lightner became mayor pro tem — the first Black man to hold that job.
He was just 32 at the time, thought to be the city’s youngest-ever mayor, and he brought a fresh-faced quality also given to fellow developer Smedes York, who would serve a few years later.
“Bradshaw and York were the city’s golden boys,” News & Observer columnist Rob Christensen wrote in 1994. “They were young, energetic and handsome.”
“All those Yankees”
But unlike York, Bradshaw came from humble beginnings, growing up in public housing with a single mother and never earning a college degree.
His first job, said longtime Raleigh political columnist Gary Pearce, involved selling ads for The News & Observer. But he soon took a position with North Hills Inc., building what would become a city retail landmark.
In the late 1960s, Bradshaw told Pearce, he began developing Raleigh’s North Ridge neighborhood to make space for all the transplants moving South to work for IBM in Research Triangle Park. Durham, roughly the same size at the time, “didn’t want all those Yankees” living there, Bradshaw told Pearce.
While rising to North Hills’ vice president, he would develop North Ridge Country Club, which welcomed Black and Jewish members — even Northerners, Pearce said.
“He’s a Raleigh boy who helped make Raleigh what it is today,” Pearce said Thursday. “He was just a great guy. One of my favorite people.”
“Pinball-like mind”
As mayor, Bradshaw served as Raleigh’s downtown began to seriously wane, especially after Crabtree Valley Mall opened in 1972, and he pushed for a civic center to draw people back.
The plans hatched during his term as mayor would eventually turn Fayetteville Street into a pedestrian mall — a lunchtime picnic spot, empty after dark — until future Raleigh leaders tore out the mall in 2006. But it was heralded as a bold if not desperate move at the time.
Bradshaw would serve just one term as mayor, then take the DOT secretary job four years later. He worked on Wall Street following that stint, then reemerged in 2014 for an unsuccessful run for NC Senate.
In an N&O column at the time, Christensen quizzed the former “boy mayor” about his attempt at a political comeback at age 75, to which he replied that he did not mind sitting in the General Assembly’s back benches as long as he could have a civil conversation.
“Bradshaw was among the first political figures that I covered as a reporter 41 years ago — a tall, fast-talking, Raleigh-bred, high-energy salesman with a pinball-like mind,” Christensen wrote. “If you let your thoughts wander 20 seconds, you would miss three important points and two good stories. The fact that he made it from a Raleigh public housing project to a top job on Wall Street says everything about his smarts and his drive.”
A memorial service will be held at Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh on a day not yet announced.