Plaza Midwood

Central Avenue and the Plaza: dive bars next to wine bars, thrift stores next to new apartments, and a bungalow grid behind all of it. Walkable, dense and loud in the best way.

Plaza Midwood is the eclectic neighborhood two miles east of Uptown along Central Avenue and The Plaza. It was built between the 1910s and the 1950s as a streetcar suburb of bungalows, Tudor cottages and a few grand houses along The Plaza. It fought harder than any Charlotte neighborhood to stay odd, and mostly won.

Where it is

• Central Avenue between Pecan and The Plaza, the strip of bars, tattoo shops, record stores and restaurants
• The Plaza, with the grand houses
• Midwood, north of Central, the quieter grid
• Midwood Park and Veterans Park
• Chantilly and Commonwealth to the east

If you’re moving here

Houses are expensive now and the infill since 2010 is tall, but the bars are still the bars and the porch culture survived. It suits someone who wants character over polish, a walk to a bar and a bike ride to Uptown on the greenway. Midwood’s streets north of Central are the quiet option; the blocks off the strip are the loud one. Halloween here draws crowds from across the county, which tells you what kind of neighbors you’ll have.

If you’re visiting

• Do the Central Avenue strip on a Friday night; the nightlife guide has the bars
• Dig at the record store from the vinyl guide
• Keep going east on Central for the taco guide, which starts a mile past the strip
• Walk The Plaza for the houses and the murals