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Originally Posted by Cirrus
To the west, the tiny triangular Pritchard Park is a big part of what makes Asheville unique in North Carolina. The plaza itself has a Colorado-esque vibe, with a mountain-themed layout and grungy characters straight out of Boulder.
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Fun fact: Pritchard Park used to be the location of the central post office. After that, and until the new ART station was built, it was the city's central transit depot.
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Two blocks east, Pack Square is the more institutional center of town. It's got the government buildings, the bank skyscrapers, the business hotels, and to remind you you're still in the Carolinas, a prominent Confederate memorial.
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Technically, the Confederate monument is down the hill beside the courthouse. Up in Pack Square itself you've got the Vance Monument, which honors Zebulon Vance, who was the governor of North Carolina and who was born near Asheville. You've also got the Robert E. Lee monument, regularly vandalized, at the foot of the Vance Monument.
Fun, morbid fact: There was a mass shooting in downtown Asheville in November, 1906. One of the bullets bounced off the Vance Monument, leaving a nick near one of the V's which is still visible today.
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Two miles south of downtown, near the entrance to Biltmore estate, there's a sort of uptown called Biltmore Village. It's charming in the faux-cute way that New Urbanism is charming, except it's not new. These buildings were built to look old, but they've now become old.
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There are also four other neighborhoods that function a little like Biltmore Village, with their own little historic commercial heart, and all of which are worth visiting. West Asheville, East West Asheville, the River District, and the South Slope... although the South Slope is the span of land that connects downtown to the Medical District at the bottom of the hill around the hospital (whose new tower I'm sure you saw). Technically you could argue that the South Slope is just an extension of downtown, but it's still filling in nicely and has quite a few destination bars and restaurants now when just a decade ago there wasn't squat, not even the name itself, in the South Slope. You could also argue, I suppose, that East West Asheville and West Asheville are just extensions of each other, but I just had to include East West Asheville because it's the best neighborhood name in America.
I also note that you took advantage of the views from the top of the new DSS parking deck. I've had some good times in that deck...
Just kidding. Every time I've had to park in that deck it's been for something awful.