We are extremely excited to announce the launch of our first audio walking tour: NoDa Streetwalkers – An Art and History Tour.
The project was set forth by the NoDa Neighborhood and Business Association’s NoDaRioty and Back in the Day committees. The committees started collaborating in early 2019 with the aim of developing a self-guided audio walking tour for NoDa.
NoDa is home to many spectacular murals, metal sculptures, and mosaic artworks. In this tour, the committees wanted to highlight both NoDa’s stunning art culture and the neighborhood’s fascinating history. After all, NoDa can be described as a modern outdoor art gallery, so why not create a tour that helps residents and visitors explore its sensational heritage.
The walking route encompasses 13 distinctive stops, navigating you through the neighborhood using GPS coordinates. The stops include The Dog Bar, Johnston/Mecklenburg Mills, the water tower, Salud/Mercury, Neighborhood Theatre, Smelly Cat, Company Store, Osiris murals, Center of the Earth, the No. 7 fire station, Jack Beagle’s/Stu’s, Solstice, and Sunshine Daydreams/The Evening Muse. The route layout was designed with the intention of visitors coming to NoDa via light rail and starting their art journey from the corner of 36th and N. Davidson streets, exploring the sights car-free. Each stop along the route is uniquely narrated by NoDa locals Eric Hoenes and Osiris Rain, and layered with music tracks best representing that stop’s theme.
The project was produced through the help of various volunteers – consistent of both board and committee members – ranging from script writers, editors, illustrators, narrators, audio editors, and app developers. Additionally, one of our volunteers kindly provided the project with music tracks (licensed in perpetuity) from SoundStripe.
In order to create a user-friendly walking tour, the NoDa NBA partnered with VoiceMap, a mobile app. VoiceMap is known for creating immersive GPS audio tours around the globe and taking stories beyond the screen. NoDa Streetwalkers is the first VoiceMap in Charlotte and guides the user through GPS coordinates to walk along audio tracks. The app, VoiceMap, can easily be downloaded from Google Play and Apple stores and, yes, both the app and tour are FREE! Just put on your headphones and explore our amazing neighborhood.
We hope you enjoy our tour!
NoDaRioty and Back in the Day