When Jefferson-First Union Center was completed in 1971, the 32-story building was the tallest in Charlotte. Designed by local firm Pease Associates, Inc., it was part of a flurry of commercial construction in the downtown (uptown?) area. Only three years later, NCNB Plaza (Bank of America Plaza, recently renamed One South at the Plaza) would surpass it in height. Today the building is known as Two Wells Fargo Center (and home of the delicious Johnny Burrito, a favorite of my husband’s and much of the COVID-contained uptown work crowd).

A photographer with the Charlotte News took photos from the 30th floor of the newly completed landmark in October of that year. Staff writer Emery Wister described what he saw:

The view from the 30th floor is the next best thing to a helicopter ride over the city. You can see the new construction, the expressways being cut through, the streets being widened and repaved.

You can even see the dormitories and library and the Belk tower of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. And, it must be added, you can see the dull dingy tops of Charlotte’s old downtown buildings, scowling up like small boys with dirty faces.

You can, in a sense, see what you want to see in new, rebuilding Charlotte.

  • There’s lots to take in looking southeast. At the top right, you can see the new CMS Education Center behind the new First Baptist Church. and in the very back, the Cameron-Brown Building is on its way up. All of this is the former Brooklyn neighborhood. At the very top left, you can see the domed top of Bojangles Coliseum poking out of the trees.
  • East Third Street is under construction. The curve is a detour around a bridge being built under the street.
  • 230 South Tryon (the Northwestern Bank Building) was also under construction, designed by Whittington-Brice Architects. The building was later renovated from its modernist look to be neo-traditional, and from commercial to condos.
  • East Second Street under construction. It was renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in 2006.
  • A zoomed-in photo looking east at East Third Street. A pedestrian bridge is under construction over what would be Marshall Park to connect the County Office Building (left) and the CMS Education Center (right out of screen).
  • And here’s an extra view taken on a foggy morning in December 1971 from the building.