200 NORTH CHURCH - WEST

(Courtesy Duke Archives)

The buildings along the west side of the 200 block of North Church St. are a very-well preserved block of early 20th century structures. The Hicks building, on the northwest corner of North Church and East Parrish, and its immediate 3 neighbors to the north were constructed around 1910. 209-211 North Church, at the northern end of the row, was constructed somewhat later, likely during the early 1920s.

The Hicks Building housed the May and Page grocers; 203, with beautifuly corbelled brick, housed Piedmont Furnitue; 205 housed the Model Cleaners; 207 housed the Durham Laundry. I believe that 209 also housed the Durham Laundry, and later, the Dillon Supply Co.



The row of buildings in the early 1970s.


The Hicks building, 1977.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)



The 200 block of North Church St., 2007.

These buildings are a great cluster of contiguous historic structures - they are just too isolated with the desolate landscape to the east and southeast. Some great renovation has happened here over the past few years, though - notably at 209-211, at the north end of the block - a really impressive interior re-do.


Looking southwest, 2007.

117-121 EAST PARRISH

117-119-121 East Parrish Street was contstructed during the late 1910s-early 1920s.


Looking northwest, 1924. 117-121 East Parrish is the lighter, 2-story building between Public Hardware and the May and Page corner building
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

O'Brient's Music was a tenant of 121 East Parrish during the 1970s - and it seems that the "Durham Notion Company" - ? was a one-time tenant of 117-119. I have no idea how one sells notions.


Looking northwest, 1977.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

117-119 was demolished during the late 1970s for surface parking.


Looking northeast, 1983.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

During the 1980s, the front was stripped off of 121 East Parrish and a new one put on. It houses law offices today.



Windows are so important in determining how a building looks to a pedestrian on the street - these looked wrong to me, and it took me a minute to figure out why - it's the first floor windows. They just look too low to me, given the height of the door opening and the height of the first floor.

Rail in Durham: Early 20th Century

Durham's trolley system seems to have come up in several unique questions posed to me lately, so I thought I would put together a map of Durham's trolley system ~1920s. Then I decided to add the other rail lines in Durham, since I thought they helped provide a sense of Durham's ridges (although the Beltline clearly does not follow a ridge, as it is pretty far below grade as it crosss from west to east through Old North Durham.)

Note: I don't actually know how far west the trolley went on W. Club Blvd., as the maps I used for sources showed the trolley line to the edge of the map, which did not extend all the way to the western end of the neighborhood. I am assuming that, since the reservoir was used a recreational area (boating was allowed) that Durham Light and Traction would have followed the same logic as the Lakewood Park line to the southwest.

A Book Recommendation for the City

Bringing Buildings Back: Turning Abandoned Properties into Community Assets by Allan Mallach

I haven't read this book, which was just released*, but my own views on the utility of sustainable preservation of existing buildings have been shaped by the research that supports the improved economic and social outcomes of reuse versus demolition. Allan Mallach is one of the preeminent researchers in the field, and based on his previous work, I have no hesitation to recommend this book, text unseen.

*My error: I trusted the text of the post where I read about it rather than checking the publication date myself. It was published in 7/2006.

113-115 EAST PARRISH: PUBLIC HARDWARE

Looking north at 113-115 East Parrish St., 1910
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

There aren't many homegrown Durham businesses from the very early 20th century that you can still patronize today, but Public Hardware is one of them. It's first location was at 113-115 East Parrish St.


Looking northwest, 1924. Public Hardware is located in the 3-story building in the middle of the block.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

Public Hardware, and this block, survived Urban Renewal and the 1960s.


Looking northwest, 1977.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

But the 1970s were not kind to this block.


Looking northeast, 1978.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

It's unclear to me when Public Hardware was torn down, but the business relocated to the west side of the 500 block of North Mangum, where it continues to provide the most quirky, genuine, non-Home Depot experience in town.

This building was transformed into a lovely batch of surface parking. This particular hole in downtown is brought to you by Trinity Methodist Church.

107 EAST PARRISH

Looking northeast from the corner of Parrish St. and N. Mangum St., 1890s

The north side of the 100 block of East Parrish St. was the site of the Second Parrish warehouse, which was torn down sometime around 1910. Soon thereafter, the building that would later house Rogers' Drugstore and and 107 East Parrish were built on the site.


107 East Parrish, the second building facade from the left (next to the corner building).
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

Like many buildings during the 1950s-1960s, this one had its windows filled in, as you can see in the below picture from 1977.

Looking west-northwest, 1977.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

However, soon thereafter, this building was renovated.


Looking northeast, 1978.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Most recently, it has been purchased by Greenfire, and is part of their "historic triangle" renovation of this building, Fire Station no. 1, and the Rogers' Drugstore. (Though I'm not sure why they are referring to this particular set of buildings as historic - versus the other buildings?).

Several years ago, the old advertisements on the side of this building were restored - I like them, sort of, although I'm embarassed to say that they make me think of Southpoint.


Looking northwest, 2007.

INTERSTATE TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH SWITCHING STATION - 104 CITY HALL PL. (HOLLOWAY)

The fourth and last of the main telephone exchange buildings established downtown, and the only one dedicated to the purpose, was the building at 104 Holloway St. The telephone exchange had begun on the southwest corner of Church and East Main Sts. in 1895, then moved to the First National Bank Building, then in 1904 to the northeast corner of N. Church St. and East Main St. Ongoing expansion of telephone service
led to the Interstate Telephone and Telegraph Co. building a new telephone exchange structure at 104 Holloway St. around 1920. In the clear-as-mud language from the 1953 Herald-Sun that describes the development of this building:

"The exchange was moved to its present location in 1920, occupying part of what is now but half of the present building. The second half of the present building was constructed in 1931."

I hope future readers find my writing about development easier to follow than this. In 1933, the nterstate Telephone and Telegraph Co. changed its name to the Durham Telephone Company.


Looking southwest, 1950s
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Below, a view showing the windows on the east side, and the addition extending east from the rear of the building towards Trinity Methodist.

Looking west, 1953
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)

In 1953, it was noted that the Durham telephone company provided service to 29,300 stations from three exchange buildings in Durham. This building, the main exchange, housed 6600 lines of central office equipment, and a $0.5 million addition was about to add another 8800 lines. 104 Holloway housed general offices and the commercial department on the first floor, switching equipment (and the offices of the vice-president and repair department) on the second floor, and accounting, billing and information departments on the third floor.

And a blurry view from the other side, looking southeast, 1966.


(Courtesy Durham County Library)

This shows a simple building with nice-appearing Italianate windows.

In 1967, General Telephone built an adjacent addition on the east side of the building, and, at sometime soon thereafter, the entire front of the original building was covered with the aforementioned yellow nastiness.


Looking west, 08.09.67
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)


Looking southeast, 1975.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

(These dates don't quite add up unless they did two separate construction projects on the addition.)

Which is still on it today, in 2007.



This building is actually available on the commercial real estate market currently. They must expect some silly sum of money for Greenfire (which owns three adjacent buildings) not to have snapped it up. I contacted the company to find out the asking price. "We don't have an asking price" was the answer. Oh really. My bit of (free) real estate advice. 1) Peel off the yellow junk, and 2) you're not selling the Burj Dubai - get a price.

Update 2008:

So Greenfire did eventually buy the building, and peeled off the nasty facade material, revealing the nice brick underneath.


104-106 City Hall Place, 04.14.08.

I've heard it mentioned as a part of their Rogers Alley re-development, which includes the Fire Station No. 1, Rogers Drug Store, and 107 East Parrish. I haven't heard anything in particular about intended use for this building, though.

Find this spot on a Google Map

Quick Update: 7 Story Chancellory dead.

After Trinity Park decided not to support a compromise proposal by the developer, it was no surprise that the original, 7-story plan failed before the Board of Adjustment.

As Kevin rightly notes in his post today over at BCR, the development team shot themselves in the foot, knee, thigh, etc. by either grossly mishandling or engaging in information gamesmanship regarding the hotel portion of the project. And things never recovered after that. If the hotel had been the project on the table, I would cheer the BoA decision.

Preservation Durham president Ellen Dagenhart stated that the defeat of this project, a urban infill condominium project on a surface parking lot, was a victory for the protection of "the fragile neighborhood" of Trinity Park.

We'll see. I think this is far from over, and we'll see what the developer does with this land at this point. I hope for Trinity Park and, more importantly, Durham, that the end result is not a worse project, shoe-horned into the development envelope and designed to spite the neighborhood.

103-111 HOLLOWAY (CITY HALL PLACE) / 302-308 NORTH MANGUM

Looking north from Fire Station #1, 09.20.54.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


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 corner building above, with its unique brickwork at the cornice must have been built by the same contractor who built the Bittman Apartments - directly to its east on Holloway.


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)

These buildings held on for a few years 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.


302-308 N. Mangum demolition, 02.12.64


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

This area was being developed 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.

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.

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.


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 don't know who designed this building, but yikes. As I've said before, 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

PLANTERS WAREHOUSE

The interior of the Planters Warehouse, 1905.

The Planters Warehouse was one of the earliest brick tobacco warehouses in Durham, built in 1876. As the tobacco trade grew in and around Durham, the need for an active tobacco market in Durham - where farmers would come with their crop and auction to the highest bidder - became increasingly necessary. The Planters, Reams, Parrish, and Banner warehouses were among the first - large buildings that had roofs stippled with dozens of skylights that allowed buyers to inspect the tobacco leave


Probable view of the Planters Warehouse - looking east from Mangum St., 1905.
(Duke Archives - Wyatt Dixon Collection)

The above picture does not resemble the version in 1920s and later photographs, but is labelled as the view east on East Chapel Hill St. from Mangum St. The warehouse may have been remodeled in the early 20th century. The windows on the building at the right extreme do match the building that was adjacent to the warehouse.

As the central area of downtown grew (in large part due to all of that tobacco money) many of the early warehouses, such as the Reams and Parrish, were torn down to make way for other commercial buildings. The next generation of warehouses grew along Rigsbee Avenue, near the Banner Warehouse.

The Planters warehouse remained, however - a bit closer to the heart of downtown than the district north of Morgan.


The Planters warehouse roof, looking northwest (the current sanctuary of Trinity Methodist is under construction) 1924.




Looking northeast, ~1960.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)



Looking east-southeast down East Chapel Hill St. from North Mangum. ~1960.


Looking south, from N. Mangum, 1961.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

In 1962, the Planters warehouse burned to the ground.


Looking northeast from the site, with the Fuller School and First Baptist Church in the background.

After the city bulldozed the buildings at the southeast corner of North Mangum and East Chapel Hill, the remainder of the site became surface parking.


Looking north-northwest.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Some of the land formerly occupied by the Planters warehouse was taken over by a new roadway connecting Holloway St. with East Chapel Hill St. - a roadway that was a precursor to the Loop.


Looking northwest, 1963

You can see the McGhee Furniture building at the southeast corner of N Mangum and East Chapel Hill is still standing in the above picture.


Looking northwest, 1963

Soon thereafter, the remainder of the buildings on this side of the block were demolished.


Looking west towards the remainder of downtown.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)



Above, the new roadway, dividing the block. The eastern portion of the block would become the new fire station #1. The western portion would become a new police station.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)



The police station under construction, looking north-northeast, 1964
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


Nearly complete, looking north-northeast, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


A grainy but fascinating aerial shot, 1972, showing the halfway-done urban renewal on the east side, the pre-loop new connector between Holloway and East Chapel Hill, and the police station.


Looking southwest from East Chapel Hill, 1978.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)



The police station is currently City Hall Annex, silently rebuking East Chapel Hill St.