It was part street art, part political theater - a giant wall of pro-Kerry and anti-Bush pumpkins that became a rallying spot for Democratic partisans in a Republican city at the climax of last year's presidential campaign.
A year later, the Great Pumpkin Wall is back - a block of 400 pumpkins set on eight levels of shelving, reaching 12 feet into the sky and stretching 50 feet wide.
After last year's fervor, organizer Jeff Dalzell said, the aim this year is to make the wall a tradition in the Elizabeth neighborhood just south of downtown Charlotte.
As twilight fell Friday, parents and children swarmed around the wall and a set of tables set up for carving in the driveway of Sen. Dan Clodfelter, who gamely cut into his 20th pumpkin of the day.
Clodfelter is responsible for just about the only political touch on this year's wall - a row of a dozen pumpkins, each carved with a different letter to form the phrase "VOTE YES BONDS" - a reference to a package of bond proposals on the county's Nov. 8 ballot.
Otherwise, most of the jack-o'-lanterns decorating this year's wall aimed for artistry or spookiness. Organizers strung Christmas lights inside the pumpkins to light them without having to burn candles.
There were ghoulish grins and a cutout of a coyote howling at the moon. There was a two-pumpkin tribute to Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans: one with a cutout of the state of Louisiana, the other carved with the letters NOLA in a stacked pattern similar to the famous "LOVE" sculpture.
One pumpkin featured a peace sign, another a question mark, a third the letters "JENNA." There was a "W" pumpkin, but that was a reference to the first letter in young Will Cuthbertson's name.
A year ago, any "W" pumpkin on the wall was liable to have a slash mark through it. The display also featured glowing orange protests against the war in Iraq.
Dalzell, a designer and architect whom friends credit with dreaming up the wall, said he was trying to create "the city's biggest yard sign." He is no stranger to such statements, having gained local notoriety in 2000 for painting a giant Al Gore sign on the roof of his home in another Charlotte neighborhood.
Dalzell moved in 2002 to Elizabeth, home to some of the city's most reliably Democratic precincts. Last year, he and some friends invested $1,500 to design and construct the wooden pumpkin wall structure. They spent another $600 on pumpkins to fill it.
Elizabeth's pumpkin display is nowhere near a record-holder. Residents of Keene, N.H., have been doing something similar since the early 1990s; two years ago, they set a Guinness record with a display of nearly 29,000 lit jack-o'-lanterns.
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