HKonJ | North Carolina NAACP on crowd size at Moral March in Raleigh | News & Observer

N&O reporter Will Doran took a stab at estimating crowd size, rightfully pointing out that Fayetteville Street isn’t long enough to hold the 80,000 demonstrators some claimed were at Saturday’s HKonJ rally.

Blending the Howard Jacobs-method of estimating crowd size that Doran used with the National Park Service’s official SWAG method (“scientific wild-ass guess”), I’ve done my own calculations, based on the drone shot I took and shared in the previous blog post and measuring streets and spaces using Google Maps.

Here’s what I came up with:
South Street area between Salisbury and Wilmington, curb to curb: 600 x 33 ft = 19,800 sq. ft.
Wilmington between South and Davie: 1224 x 34 ft. = 41,616 sq. ft.
Davie between Wilmington and Fayetteville: 300 x 38 ft. = 11,400 sq. ft.
Fayetteville St. between Davie and Morgan: 1429 x 99 ft. = 141,471 sq. ft.

Now, based on my drone photo there is a huge crowd still in front of Memorial Auditorium at 10:35 AM. The area they’re in totals 71,500 sq. ft, give or take. It looks packed.

Going by the 5 sq. ft. per person Jacobs model and assuming all of these areas are that full, I get a high-end guesstimate of 57,157 people. The low-end estimate assuming the 10 sq. ft model (and that Memorial is 5-level full) is 35,729 people. A middle estimate that assumes Fayetteville was closer to slightly half-full gives me 44,168 people.

So, did the rally attract 80,000? Not even close. Still, the numbers it did attract are still quite impressive by any measure.

Supporters of Saturday’s protest march in downtown Raleigh, the 11th annual HKonJ, said more than 80,000 people attended.Organizers including the N.C. NAACP announced the massive crowd size, then it began circulating on social media and was picked up and repeated by several national news outlets covering the event.

The march was held to oppose President Donald Trump and to voice support for a laundry list of causes, ranging from supporting Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act to opposing gerrymandering. HKonJ stands for Historic Thousands on Jones Street.

But many questioned whether the crowd was really as big as organizers and attendees claimed, and some asked PolitiFact North Carolina to look into it.

Crowd size estimates are a handy way of gauging people’s interest – or lack thereof – in the big topics of the day.So understandably, estimates often inspire emotional reactions from both sides – especially in highly politicized contexts like this weekend’s HKonJ.

Source: HKonJ | North Carolina NAACP on crowd size at Moral March in Raleigh | News & Observer

Huge crowd for HKonJ rally Saturday

HKonJ brings a huge crowd to downtown Raleigh, Feb 2017..

This past Saturday was the day of the annual HKonJ rally and march (#HKonJ #MoralMarch hashtags). HKonJ stands for Historic Thousands on Jones Street. It was one of several HKonJ marches I’ve attended. Previous marches sometimes seemed overly optimistic calling themselves “thousands” as there didn’t seem to be a lot of interest. That certainly wasn’t the case Saturday as there was arguably the biggest demonstration I’ve ever seen in Raleigh.

Kelly, Hallie, and I attended but we were running late due to all the other things that happen in the Turner household on weekends. By the time we had made our signs and were in the car, it was close to 10:30 AM. We parked the car in the parking deck at Blount and Cabarrus and snapped a quick photo before heading off. Kelly and Hallie took their signs and joined the crowd marching towards Fayetteville Street, while I took advantage of the empty parking deck to launch my drone for some aerial footage of the crowd.
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Google Fiber debuts in Raleigh, opens home on Glenwood South | News & Observer

Here’s the full N&O article about the Google Fiber Space grand opening.

RALEIGH – After months of building hype for its services, Google Fiber is offering high-speed internet to its first Raleigh customers and opening a retail office in the city.The tech giant is now offering its fiber services to homes in the area around North Hills known as Midtown, mostly along Six Forks Road and the Beltline. In doing so it provides those residents a high-speed alternative to AT&T, which already offers the same speeds for the same price in Raleigh.

As part of the rollout, Google Fiber is opening its regional office in the former 518 West restaurant space at the corner of Jones Street and Glenwood Avenue in downtown Raleigh.

“This will be a place where people can come experience the future of the internet,” said Erik Garr, Google Fiber’s regional manger in the Southeastern United States.

Source: Google Fiber debuts in Raleigh, opens home on Glenwood South | News & Observer

Google Fiber Space Grand Opening

I attended the grand opening of Raleigh’s Google Fiber Space today on my lunch break. It was a good chance to check things out for myself and to say hi to some of the Googlers (and other techies) I know.

While I was there, N&O photojournalist Travis Long interviewed me about what Google Fiber means. I didn’t go there expecting to be interviewed but I always enjoy talking about the wonders of broadband.

Over 1,000 rally at Raleigh-Durham International Airport to protest Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from mostly Muslim countries | News & Observer

Glad to see that the Triangle represented. There will be more demonstrations.

LinkedIn Google+ Pinterest Reddit Print Order Reprint of this StoryRaleighProtesters at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Sunday joined other demonstrators across the nation expressing opposition to President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning many Muslims from entering the United States.

Trump’s order targets refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, but demonstrators at RDU pledged Sunday that Muslims and refugees were welcome in the Triangle.

“I’m hoping protests across the country will show solidarity to immigrants, especially Muslim immigrants,” said Phaedra Kelly of Carrboro. “I hope it sends a message to the Democrats in Congress that they need to speak out fervently and maybe get a couple GOP to speak out as well. Because the ban is unconstitutional.”

Source: Over 1,000 rally at Raleigh-Durham International Airport to protest Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from mostly Muslim countries | News & Observer

Cheap Thoughts: Rethinking sidewalks

An unusable sidewalk

On my way back from dropping the kids off from school last week, I waited at a Hargett Street intersection while a man in a motorized wheelchair passed by me, riding in the street. I wondered why this man chose not to ride on the sidewalk, which seemed much safer. He had no lights nor reflectors and seemed an easy target for an inattentive driver.

I’ve also seen several disabled people in wheelchairs riding in Johnson Street between Glenwood and Boylan Avenues, probably residents of Glenwood Towers. Why do they choose to ride in the road when there’s a perfectly good sidewalk right there?
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Police pay letter to the editor

I sent this letter to the editor to the N&O last week when I saw the paper was recirculating the video Jill Knight shot of Hallie and Travis pounding our neighborhood officer, Officer Boyd, with snowballs. This past fall, Officer Boyd broke the news to me that he was leaving and announced his replacement at the November 21st East CAC meeting. I am sorry to see Raleigh lose such a talented officer and wanted to do something about it.

It was bittersweet to see the N&O reshare Jill Knight’s video of my kids pummeling Raleigh Police Officer J.D. Boyd in a snowball fight. Sadly, there will be no rematch: Officer Boyd has quietly left RPD for another area police department. Unfortunately, he is one of many.

Retaining first responders with deep knowledge of the areas and people they serve is critical to our safety. It’s time for the City of Raleigh to offer truly competitive pay and benefits for our men and women in uniform.

The N&O hasn’t run it yet and I don’t know if I am thankful for that or not. With this week’s dismal snow and ice only now melting around the city, few people would’ve seen it had it been run. But will it see the light of day? Who knows? I hope so, though, because I think city leaders need to hear it.

The paper might also not be thrilled with me for loudly tweeting that they missed four days’ worth of deliveries to me to start off the year. I did get my paper the day but have been paperless due to the storm up until today. I hope the N&O and I are still BFFs, though, because I think what they do is important.

Jessica Holmes and the Wake Commissioners

Jessica Holmes

The new Wake County Board of Commissioners were sworn in last night and got to the business of picking its chair and vice-chair positions. Sig Hutchinson got unanimous support for Wake Chair while Matt Calabria won a split vote for vice-chair over Jessica Holmes. Jessica, apparently caught up in the moment, then announced she was resigning from the board.

This was a real shame and a shocker. Jessica has pushed some awesome initiatives during her two years on the board and her energy and enthusiasm made you want to cheer for her. Fortunately for all of us, she rescinded her resignation today and will continue to serve.
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Raleigh quietly pulled the plug on Camp Ranoca. Why?

We met Kelly’s family at a Virginia state park for our new “Cabin Thanksgiving” tradition. Standing around the campfire Friday night, we were close to exhausting our measly repertoire of camp songs when Hallie and Travis giddily led the others through several zany camp songs they had picked up from their summers at Raleigh’s Camp Ranoca. Anything that gets both of my kids to happily cooperate gets my attention and it was obvious they both looked back fondly on their Camp Ranoca experiences.

Hallie was greatly looking forward to the chance to be a camp counselor this summer at Camp Ranoca. She is excellent with kids and loves the camp experience. Goofiness runs in the family (if you couldn’t tell). She would’ve been great. I was probably as crushed as she was when we found out at the beginning of the year that Raleigh had quietly discontinued Camp Ranoca.
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Need Photos of Raleigh? Mark Turner Says Use His for Free, Please. – Raleigh Agenda

Raleigh Agenda wrote about my public domain photos of Raleigh today.

I first met Mark Turner on the corner of McDowell and Hargett streets for a mysterious “field trip,” as he had called it.

“C’mon, there’s something I want to show you,” he told me, motioning up the street toward DECO. He seemed eager to push past the handshakes and how-do-you-dos, so the adventure could begin. Inside the gift shop, he directed me toward a little basket filled with postcards.

“See that?” he asked, holding up a pack of cards that featured a colorful, sketch-like rendering of the Raleigh skyline. “These are based on the picture of Raleigh that I uploaded to Wikipedia. All the streets line up.”

Sure enough, the skyline sketch—captured from the Western Boulevard overpass, looking northeast in 2008—employed the same angle and details as the picture that accompanies the Raleigh, North Carolina Wikipedia entry. Even a red minivan was echoed on the postcard, eternally stuck in traffic. That’s Turner’s shot, free to anyone who wants to use it.

Source: Need Photos of Raleigh? Mark Turner Says Use His for Free, Please. – Raleigh Agenda