06.07.08

609 Foster Street was built in 1938 as a tobacco prizery and warehouse for the RJ Reynolds Company. Presumably, given the size of the Durham auction market, Reynolds wanted a presence convenient to the auction warehouses to press and store tobacco for shipping to their factories. 

1937 plat. Note the reference to the "Big Bull Warehouse" that stood on W. Corporation until replaced by the Nu-Tread Tire Co.

1950 Sanborn map.

The property was later owned by the Ray family, owners of Nu-Tread. Sam Ray sold the property on 11.19.07 to 609 Foster, LLC, a Greenfire entity, for $900,000.

From the National Register listing:

The eleven-bay-wide building is built of one-to-five common bond brick, on top of a poured concrete foundation, with parapet walls with terra cotta coping. The east-facing façade contains one service bay with a shed-roof porch and, at the lower north end, a group of three service bays sheltered by another shed-roof porch. Two of these bays contain original paneled doors with diagonal batten construction, and one of the door surrounds has an unusual peaked top. The other two have replacement metal doors. Both of the porches are constructed of steel frames, with corrugated metal roofs. Windows are large metal ones, each with thirty glass panes, with heavy metal screens. Several are infilled with brick. Side elevations, with stepped parapets, are eight bays wide. The south side contains two pedestrian doors. At the rear bay of the north side is a service door and an adjacent metal loading platform. The rear wall is painted “Durham Bulls” blue.

It's been pretty moribund since that time. I don't pretend to know Greenfire's plans, although it seems a shame that this and the Uzzle Cadillac dealership remain in underdeveloped shape while the Geer/Foster district has burgeoned around them (along with the sad rotting of the Liberty Warehouse.) I assume that the long term plan was to tear them down.

Which, as of 2007, was the long term plan for much of the Central Park area. It's one instance in which I can be really happy about the crash of the real estate market - it occurred before ambition led to demolition in this area - as a result we have Motorco, and King's, and Fullsteam, and the Trotter building, etc. It's really where these buildings should head as well.

But, like with a lot of Greenfire's buildings, the basis is too high - ~$100/sf for acquisition - to make a rehab make sense. Rough numbers, let's say it costs $140/sf to fully renovate this building. That + the acquisition cost = ~$2.15M. Let's say you get a mini perm loan, 30 year am, 5% fixed on that amount. The debt service is ~$140K per year. A bank is going to want at least a 1.25 debt service coverage ratio, so that mean you need to net $175K on rent. That = a rate of $17.75/sf, triple net. Let's say $7/sf for operating expenses, and that's $24.75 full service / sf to break even, with no positive cash flow (return.) That's very, very tough right now. Market for this is probably $12-$14 triple net once renovated right now. 

(This property isn't on the national register, but historic tax credits would certainly help.)

The numbers make sense with a bigger project, but that's not financeable right now.

So whither this building? As long as Greenfire can support their current basis on the building (i.e., pay their debt,) nothing will happen other than as-is rentals, which are unlikely to fully support the current debt on the building. Eventually, they may have to sell the building, and it won't be for $100/sf. Which may bring the basis down to a point that renovating the building makes sense for someone else. But until someone has to absorb the loss from resetting the high acquisition price, there it'll sit - at least until the economy recovers enough and rents get high enough to either make a renovation generate a return, or a larger project financeable. 

___

Update August 2013

The Herald Sun reported on 08.10.2013:

Craft distilling is seeing a resurgence, says Tyler Huntington, founder of a chain of restaurants and bars in the Triangle who plans to open a distillery in Durham focused on whiskey and rum production.

Huntington, 47, is the founder of Tyler’s Restaurant & Taproom, with locations in Carrboro, Durham, Apex and Raleigh. In late July, he and his partners purchased a former tobacco warehouse at 609 Foster St. in Durham where they plan to open an event space, a commercial kitchen for catering or other food preparation needs and a distillery.

They bought the property for $691,000 from a limited liability company connected to Greenfire Development.

He said they plan to renovate the building and to add an 1,800-square-foot deck on the back that would overlook the Durham Athletic Park.

“We want this to be a very Durham-like place with the great exposed ceilings, the beam work, the flooring, and taking all the views that this building has and the interior beauty, and just kind of enhancing that with the copper distilling equipment,” Huntington said.

They want to start construction to allow for the event space to open in no more than eight months, he said. The opening of the distillery may be at least a year away because of the time it will take to get the needed equipment and permits.

He said they envision setting up the distillery in about 4,000 square feet of space and using it as a backdrop for the event space, which he said will be in about 6,000 square feet.

Their plan initially is to focus on whiskey and rum production, but he said they also could make gin and possibly vodka.

07.28.14 (G. Kueber)

07.28.14 (G. Kueber)

07.28.14 (G. Kueber)

07.26.15 (G. Kueber)

06.07.08

UPDATE 10.10.13: Napa/Walker Auto parts vacated 709 Washington St. in November 2012 (moved to 802 E. Geer in a new building) and the owner thereafter listed the property for sale. The property sold to a private developer in May 2013 for at least $450,000. There are many rumors swirling around the future use of this property given its sales price, but the latest guess is a possible restaurant and blues music bar. To be determined. NOTE: The 715 Washington parcel is separate (though attached) and still owned by developer Alex Washburn, and currently rented to an art troupe as well as the Durham Bike Co-Op.

07.26.15 (G. Kueber)

07.26.15 (G. Kueber)

I keep being struck by the sense that the new Aloft hotel kinda looks like a Federal Government building from the 1960s. Maybe they should lose the flags.

McPherson hospital, 1920s.

For the first ~40 years of its existence, Durham made do without a hospital. This was not unusual, particularly for a town of Durham's size. Medical care, when available, was provided in the home by visiting physicians.

Dr. Albert G. Carr, brother of Julian Carr became an early proponent for the construction of a hospital in Durham. When his brother and the Duke family brought Trinity College to Durham in 1892, Carr hoped to establish a medical school at the college. With Dr. John Franklin Crowell, president of Trinity College, they devised a plan and curriculum. However, the state medical board and General Assembly would not certify the school.

However, Carr continued to find a receptive ear with his patient George Watts. Watts had experienced 'modern' hospital care in Baltimore - for both himself and his wife, and felt that Durham needed a similar facility.

Watts consulted with AG Carr on the appropriate location for a hospital, and he hired Boston architects Rand and Taylor to design the hospital structures. The firm designed a 'cottage hospital' - very similar to the hospital in Cambridge, MA. Watts chose a four acre site, described as "a barren heath just outside the Town of Durham" at the corner of Guess Road and West Main Street, adjacent to the new location of Trinity College. The hospital opened for business on February 21, 1895 - for men and for women, but for white patients only. Watts donated the hospital to the city that day at a city council meeting at Stokes Hall. The hospital cost ~$30,000 to build ($26,732.48 for land and construction, and $2325.24 for furnishings.)

Just after completion - the main administration building and 'surgery' is in the center, flanked by wards on either side that were connected by breezeways. One ward was for women, the other for men.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Floor Plan of the hospital
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Posed scene in the hospital with George Watts as physician.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

View of the hospital with two wards, 1906. Note the tower of the main building of Trinity College at the left edge of the picture.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

Watts was very concerned with providing charity care, and 19 of the 22 beds at the hospital were to be provided to patients regardless of their ability to pay. Unless they were African-American, of course. Nonetheless, Watts supported the facility, providing a $20,000 endowment and ongoing support for operating costs.

Watts also established a nursing school at Watts Hospital, the second to be established in North Carolina. The first class consisted of one person, who graduated in 1897.

Rates for private-pay patients were $6 a week on the large wards, $10 a week for private rooms, and $12.50 a week for surgical ward beds. The "indigent of Durham County" were not charged.

By 1909, the hospital was insufficient for the growth of Durham, and new facility was built at Club Blvd. and Broad St. (now the NC School of Science and Math) on a 56 acre site chosen by architects Rand and Taylor, away from the "smoke, noise, and trains."

The original hospital administration building and surgery was moved to 302 Watts St., where it was converted to a residence by Dr. NN Johnson, a director of the County Health Department. A remarkably similar structure was built on the site, which became the house of Dr. Hunter Sweaney.

Original Hospital and administration building at 302 Watts, late 1970s.

In 1913, George Watts constructed the Beverly Apartments (Durham's first apartment building) on the eastern portion of the site (at the corner of Watts and Main St, facing Watts St.) It's reported that it contained 10 5-room apartments. Revenue from the apartments evidently went to supplement the finances of Watts Hospital.

Taken from the corner of Watts and Main, looking northwest.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Trinity Park was developing at this same time. The Sanborn map from 1913 shows the hospital and the apartment building in this block, but no other houses. Morgan Street terminated at Jones St. (now Albemarle) and the blocks between Main and Lamond are developed with sizable residential structures.

(Copyright Sanborn Company)
Note that Guess Rd. in this picture was later renamed Buchanan Blvd (south of Club) and a slice of Trinity College (now East Campus) was taken to connect this road with Milton Ave (now also Buchanan). This is why there is a bifurcated roadway at Buchanan and Main Sts.

In 1926, Dr. Samuel D. McPherson built an eye, ear, nose, and throat hospital on land between Sweaney's house and the Beverly Apartments.

McPherson hospital, 1920s.

By 1937, the Sanborn maps show the construction of McPherson, and filling in of the residential structures. Morgan has been extended through the block where it previously ended, creating an intersection with Watts and Main.

McPherson, with the Beverly Apartments in the background, 1950s.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

The hospital took over the Sweaney house at some point, coverterting it to hospital use (I've heard it referred to as the 'nurse's quarters', but I don't know why there would be such a thing at an EENT hospital).

Sweaney House, 05.07.66
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Sweaney House from Buchanan Blvd., 05.07.66
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

The Beverly Apartments were torn down in 1968 to make way for an addition to the hospital.

Looking north, 08.01..68
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Many of the houses in the block bounded by Lamond, Watts, Albemarle and Morgan, including the house directly adjacent to the Beverly Apartments, were torn down in that era as well to make way for parking.

McPherson hospital, 1979.

McPherson hospital building, 2007

1969 addition and former site of the Beverly Apartments, 2007.

McPherson hospital became North Carolina Eye and Ear and the North Carolina Specialty Hospital. The hospital moved in stages to the medical disneyland of Independence Park (near Durham Regional in north Durham), completing the move in spring of 2005.

By that time, the site was already under contract with Lou Goetz's Park City Development, who tossed about various ideas about what they might like to do with the site in 2004-2005. A prominent feature in the early discussion was the idea of turning the old McPherson hospital building into a 'boutique hotel' - however that's actually defined. The 1969 addition would be torn down, and the Sweaney house would be... well, it was clearly not part of the plan. The hospital surface parking lot betwen Lamond, Watts, and Morgan would be redeveloped with infill, 'upscale' condominiums.

Trinity Park lobbied Park City to, at a minimum, save the Sweaney house by moving it to another site, which the developer agreed to do.

The Sweaney House, disassembled prior to moving, 2006.

The Sweaney house was moved to a site across from the Beth-El Synagogue on Watts St. (1005 Watts St.,) where it was reassembled.

Sweaney House, 2006)

That left the Main St. site open for development.

Former Watts/McPherson site, 2006.

The development plans initially called for 76 'boutique' hotel rooms on the 'Phase One' (McPherson/Watts Hospital) site and 36 condominiums on the parking lot site.

Here is the site plan that the developers presented to the community in order to garner support for a rezoning.

Early rendering of 'Phase One' (hotel) seen from the corner of Watts and Main, looking northwest. (transittime.org)
(Note that this is no longer an accurate rendering of the site, having changed dramatically after the sale detailed below).

My version of a 'new' area plan. - the purple arrow connotes the viewing direction of the Phase Two rendering, from somewhere in the air above Lamond and Watts, looking southeast.

Last year, after acheiving support of the neighborhood and the necessary rezoning, Park City sold the 'Phase One' portion of the site to Concord, who increased the number of hotel rooms from 76 to 101 and added a proposed parking deck to the back of the former hospital property. They also changed the language they were using about the hotel from 'boutique' to 'extended-stay'. I think Temporary Quarters was an extended-stay hotel as well, so this doesn't exactly conjure up images that put neighborhood residents at ease. Per some residents, the parking garage will also jut out into the streetscape on Buchanan Blvd. as well, disrupting the line of facades. ( I have not seen a site plan for phase one of the project to confirm this.) The new architecture is a significant departure from the contextual rendering of Phase I above - a suburban, out-of-scale behemoth.

It also bears no resemblance whatsoever to what was presented to the community to gain support for a rezoning.

From Main St. - notice how the development completely disrespects McPherson Hospital - dominating the scale such that the original building is 'lost'.

Blank walls at the streetscape level are supposed to be improved by some brick 'recesses'

Hard to tell how this actually interacts with the corner, but it's a jumble of uncoordinated elements.

I admit I don't quite understand what this is supposed to show, but I think it shows the garage from the rear - nice thing to see from your backyard, eh?

Pretty awful architecture - clearly something one would expect down by Southpoint, and a rebuke to the entire context of the neighborhood and the historic hospital building.

More broadly, and with regard to the entire project, I tend to think that the majority of problems that arise in eventually contentious development scenarios result from slippery, misleading, or shifting information that the residents receive from the developer. I believe that a lack of forthright dealing was the major problem in the Central Campus scenario rather than retail per se. It is difficult for a neighborhood to have confidence in a project such as this when, according some of the residents, the developer objects to a development plan because it would be "unncessarily binding" and then, after rezoning, sells the hotel portion of the project to an Applebee's developer, who increases the number of hotel rooms by 1/3 and adds a large parking deck along the back of the property, and then says it will be an 'extended stay hotel' rather than a 'boutique hotel'. No rendering is available to the public - and the elevations aren't easily available. The development changes from an attractive, contextual redendering of a hotel that addresses the entire street and neighborhod to something out of the knee-jerk suburban playbook.

I think the Phase Two portion of the project is an interesting project, and I'm in favor of the higher density - although seven stories is a tall building. It bothers me that the developers present what I consider a disingenuous figure for the density of that portion of the project by utilizing the acreage from this site as well to calculate the residential density. Thus the density is calculated as 20 dwelling units/acre rather than the more accurate 60 (48 on 0.8 acres). I'm not against the density, just presenting numbers that provide a misleading picture. This is a high-density project, not a medium-density project; own up to it and defend it honestly.

How much the changes that occur result from shifting market conditions versus a pre-meditated shift once approvals are in hand, I don't know. But the appearance to the residents is that the developer has been trying to slip something by them all along - which, of course, makes everyone dig in their heels. Padding profit margins through increased neighborhood nuisance is not an acceptable strategy.

As a result of some of the changes that have occurred, there's a mixed reception to this project in Trinity Park (and development changes do always seem to move towards more/bigger buildings, more parking, less amenities). I know that some neighbors plan to oppose the project height and density at a Board of Adjustment hearing this month. Because I believe in the high-density infill development represented by Phase Two, I hope that a compromise can be reached to allow this project to move forward with honest brokering and the minimum nuisance to the neighbors. I know there is a Development Review Board hearing for the Phase One/ hotel portion as well, and I hope that residents manage to sink the project as proposed. Durham deserves better.

Further, I hope this will help spur Trinity Park to do the right thing by seeking local historic district designation. Perhaps with encroachment from the north (destruction of the DC May house on Club Blvd) and the south, the neighborhood residents will see their individual interests in designation, even if they have been unable to see the community interest to this point.

Update 2008:
Construction fencing has gone up, and demolition of the 1968 addition has begun:

Demolition of the 1968 addition, 09.04.08

Update 2009:
The 1969 addition to McPherson Hospital, former site of the Beverly Apartments, has been demolished, and the 1940s era additions to the hospital on the west side of the building have been demolished as well. It has sat this way for a year as of August 2009, so I don't know what has happened to the hotel developer in the broader economic failure.

Watts/McPherson site, looking northeast from Peabody, 10.03.09

Beverly Apartments and former site of the later 1968 addition looking west, 10.03.09 - McPherson stripped of the addition is in the background.

Update 2014:

For all intensive purposes, the McPherson Hospital building has been demolished.

(Courtesy Leon Grodski De Barrera)

I think the pitiful remnant that they are going to attach to the front of their budget motel is ridiculous. I do not know why they bothered - I truly think it's an insult to preservation.

03.31.14

03.31.14 (G. Kueber)

Well, this thing is done, and the best I can say about it is that there's a lot of building built up to the sidewalk. Hurray for urbanism. But it's really best viewed through squinty eyes from about 250 feet away. (Or as far as you can get.)

07.26.15 (G. Kueber)

They don't really even seem to have been able to figure out how to re-case the little shameful chunk of McPherson that they kept. It's all weird copper flashing, no casing, fake muntins. Somebody pass the pepto....

The Cary Lumber Company was established in 1894 and moved to Durham ~1900, originally locating at 101-107 West Chapel Hill St. at Five Points. In 1913, the company moved to the 'edge of town' near Milton Avenue and the railroad tracks to "get out of the congested area."

The company built a sizable complex of buildings, including a mill and large dry kiln.

Cary Lumber complex, 1937

Throughout the 20th century, the company continued to purchase timber lands in North Carolina to log and brought felled trees to Durham. The company was run by several generations of the Satterfield family.

The woodworking warehouse, looking southeast from Milton Ave. (S. Buchanan Blvd.), ~1930.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Chamber of Commerce Collection)

Cary Lumber Office, from Milton Ave/Buchanan Blvd., probably facing northeast, likely 1950s
(Courtesy Robby Delius)

Aerial view, 1959. The office building is closer to the railroad tracks, the woodworking warehouse is the longer north-south oriented building.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

Bird's Eye aerial view, looking east, 1950s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)

The main office for the company stood on the west side of the street, on the northwest corner of Milton and Spring St. (now Rome Avenue.)

Looking northwest, 1950s. I'm quite amused by the big virgin cypress log with a sign pointing out all of the historic events it lived through in its 1100 years before being felled and placed in the front yard of a lumber company office with a toy house on top of it.
(Courtesy the Forest History Society)

Cary Lumber shut down in 1956 and the buildings became a Lowes in 1957. Lowes was here until the late 1960s. By the late 1970s, the buildings, including a tobacco warehouse to the southeast, had been acquired by Duke University.

The northernmost frame structures, late 1970s - looking southeast.

The northernmost buildings were demolished at some point after the warehouses were purchased by Duke University. By the 1990s, part of the facility had become the Duke Surplus store. This venture later moved to the former Center theater at Lakewood Shopping Center, and the Lumber Company buildings became part of the Duke Transit complex.

Former Cary Lumber Company warehouse, 03.18.08

Site of the Cary Lumber Company Office, 07.19.08

There's a cool building behind the bricked in windows of the warehouse, as well as what appears to be a currently-enclosed monitor roof. In keeping with my sentiment about the Smith warehouse next-door, I'd like to see a higher-and-better use of this land and the buildings between the railroad tracks and the freeway through this area, particularly to reconnect West Pettigrew near the Center for Documentary Studies with West Pettigrew just west of South Gregson St. In an area where the connectivity between neighborhoods is severely limited by the freeway, creating a usable and pleasant corridor between West Durham and West End, near the CDS, and West End and Brightleaf/West Downtown - from Buchanan to S. Duke would diminish the present barriers.

04.29.12

As of 2014-15, Triangle Transit had rather shamelessly shunted the proposed Durham-Chapel Hill light rail through the middle of this warehouse (and no, I don't mean in a cool depot kind of way.) Who knows if that will happen, but TT seems rather intent on demolishing historic buildings along their path. (I'm still not over the dumbness of the Graybar building demolition.)

07.26.15 (G. Kueber)

The first recorded business at 101-107 West Chapel Hill St. is the Cary Lumber Company, constructed sometime between 1898 and 1902.

In 1913, the company moved west to Milton Ave. and West Main. Soon afterwards, a 3 story masonry building was constructed on the site. The eastern portion initially contained a 'garage' and the western portion a paint store.

Around 1925.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

After Five Points Auto moved to East Main Street in 1926 and became the Johnson Motor Company, the 101-103 storefronts of the building had become the Montgomery Ward Department store. The 105 storefront was occupied by the Claude May decorating company, and 103 appears in the picture below to sell "Red Top Ale".

(Courtesy Duke RBMC - Wyatt Dixon Collection)

Kimbrell's had been located on the north side of West Parrish St., near Corcoran, until their building burned in 1955. They were in 101-103 by the 1960s. The 101-103 half of the building was bricked up and painted white.

101-107 West Chapel Hill St., 05.07.64

107 became home to the Book Exchange by the early 1960s - one of the few downtown businesses to span pre-urban renewal days in downtown to the 2000s. The "BookEx" became famous for their catering to the student textbook market - law students in particular.

"Line at Book Exchange"
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

(Isn't it rather eerily familiar to see the streets dug up this way, ironically to create the streetscape that we are now undoing?)
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Apparently prone to tragedy, Kimbrell's (in the eastern portion of the building) burned again in the new location during the early 1980s.

Front of 101 West Chapel Hill, early 1980s.
(Courtesy Robby Delius)

Rear of 101 West Chapel Hill, early 1980s.
(Courtesy Robby Delius)

The 101-103 half of the building was torn down and replaced with the current structure - which is nothing too distinguished, but it could be worse. The windows on the 105-107 half are unfortunately bricked up with dramatically undersized windows in the remaining openings, but the attractive cornice line remains intact. The Book Exchange occupies the first floor of the building.

101-107 West Chapel Hill, 2007.

From the Triangle Business Journal, 12.29.2014:

"The Kimbrell's Furniture store, a fixture in downtown Durham for the past 70 years, will be moving outside of downtown by next spring in favor of a more "convenient" location inside the city limits, confirms store manager Mark Underwood.

In mid-December, Kimbrell's sold the adjoining three-story buildings it occupies at 101 W. Chapel Hill St. in Durham to an investor group led by Alston Gardner of Chapel Hill and his sister, Lucy Stokes of Durham.

The Gardner siblings paid $2.05 million for the property, according to county deed records, and Gardner says they plan to renovate the buildings for new restaurant, retail and office tenants.

Gardner says Kimbrell's plans to vacate by March, but that it could stay longer if its plans to relocate are delayed. "I know they are active in finding a new location," he says. The convenience store tenant that was next to the neighboring Mateo Bar de Tapas restaurant has already closed.

Underwood says Kimbrell's has "a few" new locations it is considering, all of which are outside of the downtown district.

"Downtown is not real conducive to a lot of the things we need, like parking and truck deliveries," Underwood says. "On average we have two tractor-trailer trucks a day making deliveries, and it's difficult to get them in here and keep everybody happy with the city and our neighbors.

"We feel we can do better business in a new location."

The Kimbrell's Furniture store in Durham was among the first seven locations to open for the Charlotte-based furniture sales company, which now has more than 50 stores in the Carolinas and in Georgia. Corporate documents show Kimbrell's of Durham opened in 1944."

03.24.15 (Photo by C. Harkrader.)

07.26.15 (G. Kueber)

06.16.58
Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Asphalt goodness, ~2007

Find this spot on a Google Map.

35.996476,-78.916636

When it was completed, later-mayor Charlie Markham called the 1970s-era Durham City Hall building "utterly depressing - a pollutant to the visual environment of Durham."

10.30.11

Before this "pollutant" stood on the site, several commercial structures, an old apartment building, and the Planters' Warehouse stood on the site.

Bittman Apts, with the Planters Warehouse and Fuller school in the background - looking northeast from the 100 block of Holloway, 1963?

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Looking west on Holloway St., 1950s (Courtesy Bob Blake)

Looking northeast from North Mangum and Holloway St., 1963?
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The east side of the 300 block of North Mangum St. and the north side of the 100 block of Holloway St. developed as a residential area during the late 1800s, which was supplanted by commercial buildings and apartments during the late 1910s / early 1920s. The Bittman Apartments, with its unique brickwork at the cornice must have been built by the same contractor who built 302 North Mangum, the building at the corner of North Mangum St. and Holloway St.

This area was slated for redevelopment per the grand vision of the Tarrant plan, which envisioned a giant government complex on this site, with green space stretching westward. These ideas were picked up by the Durham Civic-Convention Center Commission, the Downtown Revitalization Foundation, and the Bell Design Group, which endorsed a new City Hall, a new Courthouse, and a new convention center to be built at Roney, Chapel Hill and Foster Sts. 

George Watts Carr's firm, with Frank DePasquale as the project architect, took the lead in designing a new police department, a new fire station, and a new city hall.

02.26.64

02.26.64

Demolition and construction of the Fire Station and Police Department got underway; the funding for a new city wasn't present, and thus the buildings most directly in its way held on briefly after the Planter's warehouse and northern portion of the block were demolished.

Looking east, 1964.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

In 1964, they were demolished as well.

Looking northeast at the corner of Holloway and North Mangum, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

For about 10 years, this land remained solely surface parking. However, through a Federal revenue sharing program (that I don't completely understand) Durham somehow managed to "get $25.4 million value out of an $11 million gift." This financed all of these buildings, and a slew of other infrastructure projects. DePasquale's design, with it's grand entrance off Mangum to a glass-domed council chamber, was tossed in favor of John Latimer's firm, with politically-connected project architect John L. Atkins, III as lead. 

The city hall was begun in 1975.

Looking northeast, 1975.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Looking southeast 1975.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Looking west, 1975.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

And was completed by 1978. The postmodern design obliterated the connection between city hall and the other two government center buildings, making the pedestrian access inscrutable, and obscuring the neoclassically-inspired facade of the police station, which soon ceased to be a police station and became "City Hall Annex."

Looking northeast, 1978.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The old city hall on Morris St. was decommissioned, and became the home of the arts council. This remains the main city hall building.

Looking northeast, 2006.

And man, it is a tough building to try to appreciate.  I do give them points for trying to make it interesting. But the strange facade, the metal railings, the tower, the round thing on the side that I assume was a parking exit - it's an odd silliness paired with an intensely imposing building. Frankly, looking at the pictures above, I can find some appreciation for the design. But the experience of walking by it is a completely different story. Ugh.

People have accused me of being anti-modern, or even anti-post modern (which is what I would call this.) I'm really not; but it seems that modernism and post-modernism have a greater capacity for sheer ugly to me than classical forms. Perhaps the greater freedom to design anything without rules can allow you to reach both great heights and dark depths of design.

I'm always cautious about wishing for a building's demise - am I making the same judgment that my predecessors did 50 years ago about the buildings I think were beautiful? It's hard to imagine with City Hall, simply because, whimsy aside, it is so out of scale to the area. Perhaps on a street full of skyscrapers it would be interesting (and, to be fair, I know that's how they envisioned the future Durham in the early 70s - all LeCorbusier.) Here, it's monstrously outsized and awkward.

Standing near the former northwest corner of Holloway and Cleveland Sts., looking northwest, 2007

10.30.11

Durham appears to be attempting to de-uglify city hall circa 2015. I think they picked the wrong shade of lipstick for this pig.

07.26.15 (G. Kueber)

07.26.15 (G. Kueber)

1937 (Courtesy Rod Mullen)

(Below in italics is from the 2004 East Durham National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

Leon J. Kirkland Jr. House. Pyramidal cottage with a front gable wing, 1-over-1 sash windows, and a hipped Craftsman porch with a replacement railing. Alterations include vinyl siding and an added front picture window. 1920 CD: Leon J. Kirkland Jr. occupant (foreman). 1937 SM.

Bull City Barber College, 1970.

EZ Food Mart, 2014.

same architect that made the Hill Building VA hospital bro watts hospital bro wg person bro east end school bro nccu bulidings bro. Its endangered of demolition in 2019 we need to save this historic building.

Brogen Middle School was built in the late 1950s, opening in 1959. An unidentified homesite stood on the land prior to the construction of the school.

"Ruins on Site of Brogden High School", 12.10.47
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

"Ruins on Site of Brogden High School", 12.10.47
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

"Ruins on Site of Brogden High School", 12.10.47
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Although perhaps anticipated to be a High School (per the Herald-Sun story titles) it appears (from comments below) that Brogden was never such - serving as a Junior High / Middle School, which it still is today.

Brogden under construction, mid-1950s
(Courtesy Bob Blake)

Aerial north, 1960 - looking across the cleared site for Northgate Mall and the 4-laning of the US 70 bypass
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Brogden Middle, 06.13.10

Find this spot on a Google Map.

36.024729,-78.908966

The Freeland Markham house, built ~1905, was one of three houses belonging to members of the Markham family on Cleveland Street, and the only one still standing. It is the most architecturally impressive house remaining on Cleveland Street, with copious neoclassical Victorian detail.

Late 1960s - Urban Renewal comp photo (Durham County Library)

The Freeland Markham house, built ~1905, was one of three houses belonging to members of the Markham family on Cleveland Street, and the only one still standing. It is the most architecturally impressive house remaining on Cleveland Street, with copious neoclassical Victorian detail.

Many of the houses along Cleveland Street were built by small business owners. 

Constructed some time between 1907 and 1910, this two-story frame house is a distinguishable example of the late Victorian neoclassical styling popular at that time. On the side elevations,two-story, three-sided bays extend from the large boxy core with a steeply- pitched hipped roof and tall interior chimneys with corbelled stacks. The most striking feature of the house is the one-story wraparound porch with a second pedimented tier at the entrance bay; throughout both tiers, the supports are finely detailed Corinthian columns on brick plinths. Leaded glass transoms, sidelights and rondels embellish the front entrances. Although the house is somewhat deteriorated, its exterior is completely intact and the interior is little altered. Matthew Freeland Markham, a partner in the Sneed-Markham-Taylor Company men's clothing store, had the house built and lived in it until his death in 1948.Today [1984] the house is operated as a haven for derelicts.

(I appreciate Claudia Roberts' candor - I'm not sure how one operates a haven for derelicts, but the point is clear)

Above, 1913 Sanborn Map (the house is listed as 707)

1950 Sanborn Map (appears the same on the 1937 map) - now listed as 801.

Freeland Markham House 1980 (State Historic Preservation Office.)

Freeland Markham House 2006
(Photo by Gary Kueber)

801 Cleveland and the house across the street, 802 Cleveland, are both owned by Oscar Hicks of Creedmoor. It appears, as of 2006, to be a rooming house.

01.12.13

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

As of 2013, the house has been purchased by a homeowner who intends to renovate the entire house - what a win for Durham; this house deserves a full and loving renovation.

Front stairwell, 07.28.13

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

Front mantel, 07.28.13

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

One of many spacious rooms on the first floor, 07.28.13

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

Another amazing mantel and variegated tile surround, 07.28.13

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

Door and sidelights to second-story porch, 07.28.13

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

Yet another (second story) beautiful mantel, 07.28.13

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

Fascinting chimney brickwork in the attic, 07.28.13 (yes, it twists.)

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

Spacious upstairs room - 16 feet from door to end of the bay,  07.28.13.

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

Small 'house' in the backyard with patterned tin roof shingles, 07.28.13

(Photo by Gary Kueber)

Stairwell after plaster restoration and painting.

(photo by Natalie Spring)

The Carpenter family firm started in 1893, when James E., John W. and Duane Carpenter formed a partnership to sell 'heavy groceries', feed, and buggies on Parrish St. In 1910, the firm began to sell Metz automobiles and Kohler trucks out of a catalog. In 1912, the Carpenter brothers established the first Ford and Dodge dealership in Durham. In 1915, they switched their allegiance to Chevrolet, and remained a Chevrolet dealership from that point forward.

In 1923, Marcus Carpenter, James E. Carpenter's son, built a new dealership building in the 600 block of East Main St.

Above, seen from the Bus garage on the north side of the street, looking southwest.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Above, looking east on East Main St.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

In 1928, they built a second 3-story structure at 616 East Main St. In 1932, they built a single-story masonry garage addition to the eastern end of the original building, facing Walker Street.

A truck garage and adjacent service wing were built just to the south of the original dealership on South Elizabeth Street in 1948.

Truck Garage, 1950s
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

The original building originally had a drive in filling station on the first floor corner. Per William Dula, in 1950 the original building was "modernized for show room and office space," which is likely when this was enclosed and the tiles added to the exterior; this is likely when the large 24 pane windows (with an 8 pane operable window in the center) were replaced.

Dula notes that in 1950, the officers of the company were: Marcus G. Carpenter, president; John W. Carpenter, vice-president; and Stanley M. Carpenter, secretary-treasurer. He also notes that "Mr. Carpenter" (presumably James) served on the Durham city council from 1908 until his death in 1939.

In 1969, a large steel frame garage sheathed in sheet metal was built to the east of the truck garage, along Hood Street.

Bird's Eye aerial looking south, 1970s.
(Courtesy Mark and Sheila Carpenter)

Oblique shot of the dealership, looking north on South Elizabeth, prior to the urban renewal demolition of the structures on the north side of East Main., 1970
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Looking southeast, 1970s. (Durham Historic and Architectural Inventory)

The Carpenter family sold the dealership to Sonny Hancock in 1989, who sold the dealership to Rick Hendrick. ~4 years later, Hendrick would build a new dealership at the intersection of Dillard St. and South Roxboro St.

The buildings remain owned by the Carpenter family, and are occupied by multiple tenants, including Marcus Carpenter Jr.'s Carpenter Water Treatment Company.

Looking south, 2007 (Photo by Gary Kueber)

As of 2013, the great complex of buildings forming the Carpenter site were under serious threat of demolition as the probable preferred choice for a relocation of the City of Durham police department.

City of Durham 'test fit' for the site, 2013.

06.25.13 (Photo by Gary Kueber)

06.25.13 - Rear of the old building, with a few of the original windows (painted over) still visible. (Photo by Gary Kueber)

06.25.13 - 1928 addition, with skylights and steel frame hopper windows. (Photo by Gary Kueber)

"Chevy Land" on the 1928 addition - 06.25.13 (Photo by Gary Kueber)

1969 garage addition- 06.25.13 (Photo by Gary Kueber)

04.08.69 - looking south along Alston Avenue from East Pettigrew.

01.05.67 - looking west/northwest 

01.05.67 - same picture as above, uncropped wider view of the intersection of Glenn Street and Alston Avenue, looking west.

02.12.12

Demolished in 2015, presumably for the widening of Alston Avenue.

07.28.15 (G. Kueber)

Looking northeast from Proctor and S. Duke - site of the old George Watts home / Durham Academy, 01.01.08

Eugene Morehead and George Watts were pioneers in the area that would become Morehead Hill when they built their houses on the western side of Lee (later Duke) St. in 1880. As the activity in the neighborhood increased, WT Blackwell sought to purchase the land on the eastern side of Duke St., directly across from their houses, to build worker housing for employees of Blackwell's Durham Tobacco Co. Evidently this was too close to the common folk for Watts, who purchased the land to avert this sale.

(Courtesy Duke Archives)

The George Watts house was originally built by George W. Watts in 1890, at the northwest corner of Lee St. (now South Duke) and Proctor St.

In the late 1890s, George Watts moved his original house across the street, to the northeast corner of West Proctor and S. Duke, in order to make way for his larger mansion, Harwood Hall. The house was renovated and used by John Sprunt Hill and his wife Annie when they returned to Durham from New York in 1903, before they built their own house in 1911.

The use of the old George Watts house from 1911 to 1937 is unknown, but it evidently stayed in the family.

By the 1930s George Watts Hill, Sr., and his wife Ann and were disappointed by the quality of the education George Watts Hill, Jr. was receiving at Morehead Hill Elementary - per Watts Hill, Sr., the only thing his son had learned to do at Morehead Elementary "[was] to 'cuss'."

Ann Hill's family was replete with teachers, and she tapped their information for another solution. This pointed her towards the Calvert School of Baltimore, which had been founded by an educator named Virgil Mores Hillyer. Hillyer had designed a homeschooling program for children of parents living outside of the county, and thus without access to US schools. He had produced an entire curriculum, including books and supplies.

In the summer of 1933, Ann Hill and the mothers of six other children arranged for the use of the Forest Hills clubhouse, which had bought by her father-in-law along with the old golf course 3 years prior, for the school, which they called the Calvert Method School. They began with a single teacher and slowly grew. By 1937, they had outgrown the Forest Hills Clubhouse with 19 students; George and Ann Watts arranged for the school to take over the old George Watts house at 815 S. Duke; Watts Hill set up a $15,000 mortgage for the school through Durham Bank and Trust and paid for a $9000 renovation of the house.

The school had grown to 210 students by 1950 and 16 teachers.

Looking southeast, 1950.

The Calvert School in 1960, looking northeast from Proctor and S. Duke.

The school purchased the Lyon house (also known as the Williams house) in 1957, and constructed a modern kindergarten building between the two structures.

Williams House, 1960.

Modern kindergarten building, 1960.

Kids playing in the playground behind the buildings, overlooking Willard St. and American Tobacco, ~early 1960s.

Aerial photo of the whole complex, 1959.

In 1967, the school moved out to 751 (the eponymous Academy Rd.) and expanded to a high school, changing its name to Durham Academy. These houses / buildings were abandoned.

The old Watts house, abandoned, early 1970s.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Interior shot, early 1970s.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Interior shot, early 1970s.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Below, the old Lyon house at 803 S. Duke St., also abandoned.

Looking east from S. Duke St.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

These houses were demolished by Durham in the mid-1970s to construct public housing - the JJ Henderson towers.

Under construction, July 1976.

Under construction, July 1976.

JJ Henderson Housing Center

The danger of housing the elderly and disabled in high-rise apartment buildings was emphasized back in 2006 when a fire broke out in the JJ Henderson Tower, forcing the evacuation of over a hundred residents. The potential for serious injury as one tries to get elderly and disabled residents down stairs in an emergency situation is immense. As the News and Observer noted, Oldham Towers does not have sprinkler systems, and JJ Henderson only has sprinkler systems in the common areas.

The failure of high-rise public housing is well-documented, and many cities have gone about the business of demolishing these buildings (most notably Chicago, which is about to complete the demolition of the Robert Taylor homes as part of a $1.6 billion demolition/construction program.) However, housing elderly and disabled in this housing is particularly unhealthy. From an architectural standpoint, high-rises are very ill-suited to the accessibility needs of seniors.

In addition, because these towers were constructed in areas 'improved' by urban renewal, the surrounding area/infrastructure is further isolating for residents who do not drive. There is a park and the American Tobacco Trail nearby, but if a senior wanted to walk north on Duke St. from JJ Henderson - say, to go to the Methodist Church three blocks away, this is what he/she would face.

I'm not sure what anyone, of any age, is supposed to do when you get to the end of that point in the picture on the right. The cars come off the freeway at ~50-60 mph, and accelerate as they come up the ramp. I've never see a police officer giving speeding tickets on Duke Street, despite headquarters being a block away.

As the city/DHA will contemplate building/expanding sprinkler systems, perhaps they can contemplate an alternative to these towers - such as 1-story, ADA accessbile housing in a complimentary community. Another DHA property, Forest Hill Heights, is just a few blocks away. It wastes an enormous amount of land by clustering 55 apartments in the center of a 15 acre block (3.7 units/acre). Infill development on this land would be an excellent plan for decommissioning the towers and making better use of the space at Forest Hill Heights.

I wish I would see folks who live in this building be able to make it one long block down the hill to American Tobacco, which seems a much more convivial environment than this stark grey slab.

Looking northeast from Proctor and S. Duke - site of the old George Watts home / Durham Academy, 01.01.08

Looking southeast from S. Duke and Morehead Ave., site of the old George Lyon house, 01.01.08.

Hickstown derived its name from Hawkins Hicks, who lived on Mulberry Street (the western extension of West Main Street beyond Ninth St.) Hicks arrived at ownership of the property in 1863 after her common-law husband Jefferson Browning left all of his property to their three sons: James, Payton, and Dudley. Hicks sued, and was awarded ownership of the land (not sure how her sons felt about that.)

Although Hicks was the primary landowner, and white, the settlers of the community were primarily African-American. The impetus for initial settlement in this area is unclear, although given the topography, we can surmise that the land was cheap and available to African-Americans due to its relative undesirability - as occurred in Brookstown, the western portion of Hayti, the Bottoms, and Smoky Hollow. This community coalesced around the New Bethel Baptist Church, organized by Rev. John Scales, in 1879; the church had formed out of a Sunday School established in the area in 1877 in the home of Rebecca Lyon. The church was initially located just to the south of where the West Durham Lumber Company was later established, on land donated by Jerry Walker.

Hickstown was incorporated in 1887 - which seemed to be, primarily, a response to prohibition in the city of Durham, enacted that same year. As it goes with vice, displacement occurred from the city proper, but settled at its fringes - Smoky Hollow (an outgrowth of the former vice haven Prattsburg) to the east, and Hickstown to the west (a bit further to the west than another one-time Pratt libation location, Pinhook.) Part of Durham's rowdy reputation - the one that scared Meredith College to Raleigh, rested on its downtown taverns - Carrington's, on the corner of Peabody and Mangum St. and Mangum's Tavern, on the northeast corner of Mangum and Main Sts., were two that relocated to Hickstown after the Drying of Durham.

This engendered a good bit of consternation from the more well-to-do members of the West Durham community, who lived on the high ground between ~Anderson St., Erwin Road, and the railroad tracks (along Erwin and West Pettigrew) - an area known as Caswell Heights. Pharmacist Richard Blacknall, JW Brooks, and JW Swift protested the incorporation of Hickstown to the state legislature.

The community continued to grow because/in spite of this, depending on your perspective. The establishment of Erwin Mills on the north side of the railroad tracks, to the east-northeast of Hickstown, in 1892-3 provided a nearby source of employment, although given Erwin's reputation as an abstemious sort who would fire those arrested for public intoxication, I wonder how he felt about hiring residents of Hickstown. Several streets were named for the circuses that visited nearby (Barnum, Bailey, Ringling,) encamped west of the city limits and north of the railroad tracks (around the location of the shopping center on the south side of Hillsborough Road, west of Lasalle St.)

In 1921, a frame schoolhouse built on Crest St., evidently on the site of a previous, undersized schoolhouse of undetermined age. The school was built at least in part with Rosenwald funds, and called the Hickstown School. It replaced an earlier school on the same site that had become overcrowded. In the late 1920s , the New Bethel Baptist Church moved from its original location to land purchased from JK Mason on Crest Street just to the east of the school. The proximity and growth of the West Durham Lumber Company adjacent to the original site was one impetus for that move.

An overlay map of Hickstown in 1937 atop 2007 satellite imagery.

Bird's eye view of Hickstown, looking northeast, mid-1950s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Hickstown School was demolished and replaced with a new Hickstown School in 1957.

Hickstown School being demolished, 06.22.56
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

The replacement Hickstown School - Hickstown Elementary, late 1950s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

From 1959, the pathway of the Durham Freeway was set by the NCDOT and an exuberant Durham business community. From RTP, this highway would run northwest - mostly following the northwest-southeast transportation ridgeline that had defined Durham, via the Hillborough-Raleigh Road and the North Carolina railroad. The right-of-way would swing southward as it approached downtown to avoid large industrial sites such as the former Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company, American Tobacco, and Liggett and Myers. Once downtown, the freeway would swing northward again to follow the line of the railroad right-of-way to the Highway 70 bypass/15-501 bypass on the west side of Durham.

The Hickstown School was shuttered by the mid-1960s - I don't know if this was in anticipation of the Freeway or not, but I have to suspect so. The New Bethel Baptist Church, though, replaced its frame structure on Crest Street with a brick structure in 1964.

The freeway was constructed as far as West Chapel Hill Street by 1969, where it was oriented north-south before it would make its turn to the northwest by the time it reached Swift Avenue. This completed the initial phase of the project, and for several years, the southeast-bound freeway was accessed from West Chapel Hill St.

The pause in construction occurred in a different climate than when the freeway began. Only the booster-y types still were spreading the sunshine about what a great place Durham was becoming through urban renewal and highway-izing. The national climate had changed as well; the passage of landmark environmental legislation in the late 1960s-1970 created some counterbalance to the dreams of the pave-everything crowd. Notably, NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, would require that an Environmental Impact Statement be completed for great earth-moving projects such as the Durham Freeway.

NCDOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) took the position, predictably, that an EIS was not required for the remainder of the Durham Freeway, as it had been on the books since long before the passage of NEPA. Hickstown residents, primarily affiliated with the New Bethel Baptist Church worked in conjunction with ECOS, a group of Duke University students opposed to the extension of the freeway, to obtain a court order in 1973 that required FHWA and NCDOT to prepare an EIS for the remainder of the Durham Freeway. It appears that it was during this time that the neighborhood became more identified by "Crest Street" - the location of the New Bethel Baptist Church - than Hickstown.

The freeway construction through Hickstown/Crest St. became a galvanizing moment that would become the genesis of several still extant organizations. My understanding is that the People's Alliance grew out of the Crest St. fight, and that Steve Schewel founded The Independent during and subsequent to his involvement in the fight for the neighborhood while at Duke. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about these repeated anecdotes.)

The work of these community groups with the neighborhood helped forge a coalition that could stand up to the foregone conclusions of NCDOT and the business community. The People's Alliance printed "Stop the Expressway" T-Shirts which helped to fund the opposition.

Image courtesy John Schelp / designed by Brown (Griffith) Little.

The initial plan for the neighborhood called for provision of housing relocation funds to the residents; i.e., residents are given funds with which to move somewhere else. This plan was actively opposed by the neighborhood. In 1977, the neighborhood received legal aid from the North-Central Legal Assistance Program. These attorneys filed a Title VI administrative complaint with the United States DOT attesting that the planning of the route of NC147 was racially discriminatory. The USDOT Office of Civil Rights concurred in 1980.

The neighborhood subsequently was able to retain a traffic engineer to present counter-arguments to those proffered by NCDOT, and in 1978, a group of Duke students conducted a sociological survey which documented the highly cohesive nature of the community, a survey which was validated with follow-up studies in 1980.

Corner of Neal and Shirley Streets, 1979.

A representative sample of houses in 1979:

106 Neal St.	2401 West Pettigrew
306 Fulton St.	201 Beacon St.
Nunn's Store - Crest St.	2302 Crest St.

At this point, NCDOT began to acknowledge that there might be alternative viewpoints to their own that held a modicum of validity. In concert with Washington DC representatives from FHWA, a collaborative process between stakeholders was outlined to plan subsequent steps. Per a case study of the process:

"Objectives and structure were established, including a technical operating committee (the "Task Force") composed of representatives from the Crest Street Community Council and the principal public agencies and private organizations involved in the project, including FHWA; and a Steering Committee composed of Task Force members, top government officials, and private interest groups. Although the process was interrupted for 11 months to resolve a zoning dispute in the Crest Street neighborhood, the basic structure help up and resulted in completion of a comprehensive mitigation and enhancement plan in 1982."

This plan involved the relocation of the entire neighborhood, except for the New Bethel Church, and the former Hickstown School, which would become the WI Patterson Community Center. The entire New Bethel cemetery, located to the west of the church, was disinterred and reinterred in New Bethel Memorial Gardens, 2619 West Pettigrew Street; Glenview Cemetery at intersection of NC 55 and Riddle Road; and Beechwood Cemetery at intersection of Fayetteville Street and Cornwallis Road. The case study notes that this was necessary in part because the City of Durham rezoned part of the target land during the process to allow a health club (the later Metrosport) to be constructed, reducing that available for relocation.

Prior to relocation, 22% of dwelling units were owner-occupied. Sixty-Five houses were moved from their existing locations to open land to the southwest, and multiple new single family and apartment units were constructed. At project completion, 56% were owner-occupied.

Per the case study:

"The Federal 'housing-of-last-resort' provision of the Uniform Relocation and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970 provided the flexibility FHWA needed to commit Federal funds to construct replacement dwellings for the new community configuration. However, because the State of North Carolina had not previously enacted legislation commensurate with the Federal Act (including housing of last resort), an act of the North Carolina Legislature was required to make State matching funds available. The community successfully argued that replacement housing should be provided as a means of preserving the family relationships and social fabric of the Crest Street neighborhood. This reasoning permitted the neighborhood to be treated as a whole and enabled some Crest Street residents outside the highway footprint to be included as part of the mitigation. In addition, based on 23 U.S.C. 109(h) of the 1970 Federal-aid Highway Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and NEPA, FHWA is required to consider fully not only the direct impacts but also secondary and cumulative impacts of proposed Federal-aid highway projects. This further buttressed the idea that the entire Crest Street neighborhood, not just that portion of it within the project footprint, should be included in the mitigation and enhancement plan."

The Crest Street neighborhood feels a bit like a place apart today, at least to my perception. Given its easy-to-overlook entrance off of Fulton St. or Douglas St., many folks in Durham likely don't even know that the neighborhood exists.

I struggle a bit with how to feel about what has transpired with Hickstown/Crest St. Certainly, it's the best outcome that could have happened with the Freeway a foregone conclusion. Should it be bothersome that the neighborhood feels more like an aging 1980s era subdivision, complete with tons of vinyl and cul-de-sacs, rather than a community that dates to 1887? Or is this just my aesthetic and regret, when in reality, most of the existing housing stock in 1980 was in poor condition and the roads were dirt. Could more of the houses been moved and renovated sensitively, rather than vinyl-ized? But is the latter exactly, I would suspect, what the residents wanted?

New Bethel Baptist Church, at the former corner of Ashley St. and Crest St., 04.12.09

The former Hickstown School, now the Community Center, 04.12.09

Part of Crest St. Park, looking southeast from near New Bethel Baptist. This vista - the baseball diamond ringed by large buildings oddly gives me the sense of a more urban setting than I usually feel in Durham.

The mid-80s vintage neighborhood, looking west on Crest St., 04.12.09

It nags me, but I have to simply return to how incredibly difficult it is to move NCDOT away from a stupid plan. The immense work and legal action invoked by the community and allies just to get NCDOT to do the basic, right thing is astounding. Despite the number of times this example has been written up, I don't think the culture of NCDOT has changed markedly since then. The burden is still on the community to prove why NCDOT's plans are wrong-headed. The community's victory in this case is depressingly impressive - because it simply should not have been this hard.

Find this spot on a Google Map.

36.012094,-78.93846

Part of the Durham Hosiery Mills Co. evolution away from cotton hosiery, the silk hosiery mill was built on the former site of the Hotel Carrolina and Pandora's Box, and remained viable throughout mid-century - unlike the cotton mills. The silk hosiery mill shut down by the 1960s, and, most unfortunately, it was demolished. It would be an extraordinary addition to the adaptive reuse landscape of downtown Durham today.

The corner of Ramseur St. and Corcoran St. is a historically significant corner - can't you tell? 

(Workers are installing new sidewalk around city-owned parking lot) On the property between Main St. and the railroad tracks, east of Corcoran St., stood Dr. Bartlett Durham's house, "Pandora's Box", a two-story frame structure in which Dr. Durham lived until his death in 1858.

Original 1854 NC railroad survey, showing the future location of Durham's Station (Courtesy David Southern/Steve Rankin) As most folks are aware, Durham's raison d'etre came with the North Carolina railroad in 1854, and the desire to establish a train depot between Hillsborough and Raleigh. I've written previously about Mr. Pratt's high price / fear for his horses (arguably making him the first in a very long line of recalcitrant Durham-area landowners with an overly optimistic view of the value of their land/suspect improvements theron) that led the NCRR to seek out Dr. Bartlett Durham for land upon which to locate their depot. Dr. Durham sold 4 acres of land to the railroad for the establishment of a depot between Raleigh and Hillsborough - Durham Station. Some have concluded from the railroad survey above that Pandora's Box was located on the southern side of the tracks - I think not. I believe the house and tavern are the two buildings shown to the north of the tracks on the survey above. Louis Blount's 1923 map of Durham in 1865 confirms as much. Blount's map of Durham in 1865 - #17 is "RF Morris Home and Hotel" #21 is "Annex to hotel. Known as 'Pandora's Box' 4 rooms and attic (Logs), #10 is the depot. (Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection. Scanned by Digital Durham) Durham reportedly used his house was used as a hotel/guest house, and it continued to be used as such after his death. RF Morris evidently established a hotel of some additional significance to its west, on Depot Street - later Corcoran. This was supplanted by the Hotel Claiborn, which possibly incorporated Pandora's Box. On the 1881 map of Durham, this is simply noted as "Grand Central Hotel".

A view of the Hotel Claiborn from Depot (later Corcoran) and Peabody (later Ramseur) Streets

From the corner of Mangum and Peabody, looking west, during the 1880s- the far structure is the Hotel Claiborn. (From "Durham: A Pictorial History" by J. Kostyu)

Picture of the Durham Band at the rear of the Hotel Claiborn, 1887 (mis-labeled Carrolina.) (Courtesy The Herald-Sun) In 1891, Julian Carr replaced the Hotel Claiborn with the "Hotel Carrolina" (yes, Carr-o-lina) on this site, which may have also incorporated the two earlier structures. The Hotel Carrolina was a large, ornate Queen Anne Victorian building which the Historic Inventory calls "Durham's first luxury hotel"

View From Corcoran and Peabody (now Ramseur), looking northeast (from Durham Historic Inventory)

From the railroad tracks looking north across Peabody (now Ramseur), showing reunion of veterans of the Spanish-American War (Courtesy Durham County Library)

Fire destroyed the Hotel Carrolina in 1907, and the corner was vacant until 1919, when the Durham Silk Hosiery Mill was constructed to produce silk stockings.

The mill was named after Marvin Carr, the son of Julian S. Carr who died during time the mill was being constructed. It seems that this name fell into disuse later, when it was simply called the Silk Hosiery Mill.

Below, Carrington Bar, looking a bit worse for wear, with the Silk Hosiery Mill in the background, likely early 1920s. Note how close these structures were to the railroad tracks - Peabody St. did run sporadically between the tracks and buildings north of the tracks, but it was no more than a small-ish two-lane street.

(Courtesy Duke Archives)

By the 1950s, the company had taken the unfortunate step of removing the windows and bricking in the openings - not uncommonly done as a part of 'modernizing' (which seemed to involve an anti-window aesthetic for some reason). I would speculate that increasing automation led to fewer people on the mill floor as well, and when coupled with air conditioning/ac costs, bye-bye windows.

Silk Hosiery Mill, 1950s (Courtesy the Herald-Sun)

Knitting machinery, interior, 1950s. (Courtesy the Herald-Sun)

I love the below picture:

Executives at the DSHM, 1950s (Courtesy the Herald-Sun)

Looking west, 1959 (Courtesy Bob Blake.)

Late 1960s (Durham County Library)

Silk Hosiery Mill after the construction of the parking deck across Corcoran - (Photo by George Pyne, courtesy Milo Pyne)

The Durham Silk Hosiery mill operated until 1969, when the plant shut down. The building was demolished very quickly thereafter. Evidently, the building was so well-built, implosion of the building was unsuccessful and had to be followed up by wrecking-ball demolition.

1969 (Courtesy Durham County Library) 

09.09.69

09.09.69

09.09.69

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Demolition (Photo by George Pyne, courtesy Milo Pyne)

This wonderful building and historic site were repurposed to the use that would be the savior of downtown: parking, parking parking. 

~1970 (Courtesy Durham Herald-Sun)

The birthplace of Durham remains, perhaps fittingly, a city-owned parking lot. If we can spend $44,000,000 on a 'performing arts center', maybe we can spare a hundred dollars for a plaque? How about a building to attach it to? There's a lot of real estate in downtown at its lowest-and-worst use, and the site of Dr. Durham's house may be the worst.

Durham's often-noted rough-around-the-edges reputation is nothing new - in the mid-to-late 19th century, the town was well known for its multiple saloons - the place where students from the University of North Carolina would come for some less-than-genteel entertainment (many of them would disembark from the train in Durham and head onward to Chapel Hill by other means.)

The Carrington bar, located at the northwest corner of S. Mangum and Peabody (now Ramseur), was one of these early establishments. This picture, from the 1880s, looking northwest, shows the Hotel Claiborn in the background.

By 1902, the Women's Christian Temperance Union had succeeded in prodding the city to pass prohibition, and the saloons were no more.

Below, Same view of the former Carrington Bar, looking a bit worse for wear, with the Durham Silk Hoisery Mill in the background, likely early 1920s. Note how close these structures were to the railroad tracks - Peabody St. did run sporadically between the tracks and buildings north of the tracks, but it was no more than a small-ish two-lane street.

(Courtesy Duke Archives)

By the later 1920s, the old bar had been renovated, and we see the other commercial structures between the bar and Main St., including the back of the Sneed-Markham-Taylor building, profiled yesterday.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

And I felt the need to blow up this shot more to show two things: one, the awesome snake, and two, the 2-story commercial structure at the right, just behind the SMT building. The writing surrounding the windows on the second floor looks oddly like hieroglyphics to me from this angle - but I can make out "Tailoring".

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

My hieroglyphics building was demolished along with the SMT building to make room for the Kress building in 1933, but the next building to the south remained. I love the shot below; the building is great - the brick detailing at the cornice is amazing. But also, the guy out front is just cool. And third, it's "The Lincoln Cafe" - which, all put together, just makes me wish I could walk down Main St., take a turn at Mangum and end up at this place.

Looking northwest from S. Mangum St., 1963

Below, the other buildings to the south of the Lincoln Cafe. The Silk Hosiery Mills Building looms behind them.

Looking northwest from Peabody (now Ramseur), 1963.

These buildings were taken by Urban Renewal and demolished for the Loop and surface parking.

Looking northwest from Ramseur and Mangum, 2007.

The Snow Building was one of a 'second wave' of more impressive commercial structures to be built at Five Points. Situated between the core of downtown (Main between Church and Corcoran) and the Duke Factory, the Five Points area initially consisted of more modest, single-story, often frame commercial structures, as well as residences.

(Courtesy Duke Archives)

A view west from the Trust Building, 1905 shows Five Points early in transition - the older, modest, single-story structures and residences are beginning to be supplanted by larger buildings, such as the Kronheimer Department Store (the building with "Grocery" on the side) at the left side of the picture.

Beginning at the turn of the century and continuing into the 1930s, almost all of these structures were replaced. The Snow Building was one of the last of these 'second wave' structures to be constructed. The picture below shows the south side of Five Points, prior to the construction of the Snow Building. The one first-generation commercial structure in the picture - towards the left and set back a bit from the sidewalk with a front overhang/awning - would be replaced with the Snow Building not long after this picture.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The Snow Building, one of Durham's two most elaborate Art-Deco buildings (along with the Kress building) was constructed in 1930. George W. Kane was the general contractor. The Snow Building contained multiple offices as well as first floor retail.

The 1963 shot below shows an oblique angle of the building in relation to Five Points and the Piedmont Building as well as the jewelry store that occupied the first floor retail space.

The Snow Building continues to provide office space today, retail storefronts and even a penthouse apartment on the top floor. I don't know if this is how the building was designed, or whether that was an adaptation of office space. The lobby is intact, including the orginal, manually-operated elevators (very cool.)

Looking south, 2007.

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