{"id":445,"date":"2026-05-18T12:37:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=445"},"modified":"2026-05-18T12:37:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:37:42","slug":"mysterious-world-war-i-mannequin-turns-up-downtown-fun-with-how-and-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious World War I mannequin turns up downtown. Fun with how and why."},"content":{"rendered":"

AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.<\/p>\n

Read our AI Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

Down West Cabarrus Street, for reasons yet unclear, some mischief-maker propped up a life-sized World War I soldier \u2014 crisp in his olive-drab coat, off to face Hell in the trenches.<\/p>\n

Read more What happens next in the Comey \u201886 47\u2019 case? The key dates and decisions ahead<\/a><\/p>\n

Even more intriguing, this surprise installation on the sidewalk is lacking a face, inviting anyone downtown to walk around behind his 6-foot display, stick their face in a hole and come out smiling under his flat Doughboy helmet.<\/p>\n

I tried this myself, channeling my grandfather, who shipped off for the Western Front at 16, just in time for war\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

But the fun here comes in asking how this Doughboy in brass buttons ended up out behind the Berkeley Cafe.<\/p>\n

Some clues:<\/p>\n

Case in point, Berkeley bartender Justin Sorrell guesses that a contractor friend, who is a regular there, must have picked up the jaunty fighter between doing work at the museum and the new Legends Nightclub<\/a> down the street.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy best guess is that they were going to get rid of it,\u201d Sorrell said, \u201cand he realized he knew a perfect place for it. Kind of goes along with a lot of the decorations at the Berkeley. It just ended up here and somehow fits. Could say the same for some of our regulars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Anderson Cooper Signs Off ’60 Minutes’ After 20 Years as Correspondent<\/a><\/p>\n

So did the museum offload all of its exhibits?<\/p>\n

Certainly not, said Mary Huntley, director of communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she wrote me, \u201cthe museum did not get rid of its old exhibits due to storage costs. Since the building\u2019s interior is being completely redone, we\u2019re also taking the opportunity to redesign our exhibition spaces and create updated exhibits that take full advantage of the new layout. While the renovation is underway, our collection of roughly 150,000 artifacts is safely housed in secure, climate-controlled storage.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t explain Yankee Doodle on Cabarrus Street.<\/p>\n

Still waiting for an explanation there.<\/p>\n

Until I hear different, our soldier friend represents an invitation to wander through history.<\/p>\n

Looking at him, I see my grandfather Franklin Roosevelt Shaffer lying about his age and enlisting in the Army at 16 \u2014 anything to escape an oppressive father and the bleak Pennsylvania coal mining village he called home in 1918.<\/p>\n

I can picture him steaming across the Atlantic, his first glimpse of the ocean, his first chance at adventure, arriving in France just in time for the Armistice, never firing a shot.<\/p>\n

Lucky.<\/p>\n

So spared the carnage, I imagine he walked the streets of Paris in search of baguettes and beer. Thus inspired, I\u2019ll do the same.<\/p>\n

Read more Cary spent $85K to send town officials to courses at Harvard, other schools<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Downtown Raleigh walkers are left to guess why the image of a World War I soldier in full uniform, with his face cut away for novelty photographs, is here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-todays-edition"],"yoast_head":"\nMysterious World War I mannequin turns up downtown. 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