500 Block of East Main about to come down.
Demolition is underway in the two blocks between South Dillard, South Elizabeth, Ramseur, and East Main Sts. This is a battle I've been fighting for over two years, and I'm afraid I've lost it. You can read my original post here.
All of these buildings will be demolished by Durham County for a massive surface parking lot. I've put a picture of my favorite of the buildings above, documented in the Library of Congress as one of the first drive-up service restaurants in Durham.
I beseeched the county to spare this one, to no avail.
Very, very frustrating to see this much history, tax credits, redevelopment opportunities just thrown away. For parking. We really never learn.
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9 comments:
Can we now change our motto to "Durham: City of Parking Lots"?
As with many Acts of Government, I don't think it's so much that we don't learn (I've certainly learned a great deal from your posts, and would have been against any kind of buildings-to-parking conversion even before that) as that they have their own set of motivations for doing what they do, and those motivations aren't affected by the lesson.
Someone's making money off this, and they don't give a fig about Durham's long-term health or what Durham's citizens think. I don't know the process well enough to point a finger at anyone in particular, but that's what this ongoing process smells like to me, more and more.
WOW!!! I was driving through there yesterday and wondered what they were doing there...A freaking parking lot though!!! Dammit!! Don't we have enough of those?? I mean, it's sad that these buildings are being torn down but at least out something cool in replacement of it. Who or what is the parking lot for??? Do they realize how many parking lots there are within that 2 mile radius of Main Street in Downtown???
If there are no businesses why does Durham need parking lots? How about saving money and the planet and plant some grass for a park?
Sheesh! Freakin' unbelievable.
This parking lot will be for the Human Services complex
http://endangereddurham.blogspot.com/2006/08/health-departmentsears.html
which will be built across S. Dillard St., replacing the 1947 former Sears and Roebuck/current health department that will be torn down.
GK
Gary:
Wild idea and I have no idea how it would get funded, but how about putting weatherproof signs of the original buildings (from your archive) at various selected locations around Durham to show people a) what they've lost at that location and b) what could have been with restoration? Some cities have done that. Boston comes immediately to mind.
Yep, I'm dreaming!
All right. Although my natural tendency is to resort to invective and sarcasm, I'm going to try to make my point as calmly as I can.
Please read Gary's article, "Landmarks, Tax Revenue, and the County," posted on this site on October 7, and please read the comments. Durham County Commissioner Ellen Reckhow wrote to say, among other things, that : "Over the years, the county has been a strong supporter of historic preservation by joint venturing with the Preservation Society to preserve a number of historic structures." When I challenged her to name a single example of a joint venture, she did not respond.
Ah, but Preservation Durham did. The current President and a former employee listed three buildings that the County helped Preservation Durham sell to private owners with protective covenants. All three of these were buildings that a) the County owned and wanted to get rid of and b) the County had allowed to deteriorate in the first place. I guess we are supposed to be grateful that the County didn't bulldoze them.
In my comment, I also documented how Ellen Reckhow had been not only willing, but positively eager, to tear down the the former Russel/Astor/State Theatre on East Main St. The President of Preservation Durham ignored this and went on to congratulate Ellen Reckhow (and Becky Heron) for their "leadership."
Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to congratulate either of them for anything. Let me be blunt. Neither the County government as a whole or Ellen Reckhow as a Commissioner has done anything to seriously promote historic preservation. The "joint venturing" was nothing more than a way to dispose of unwanted property. I can accept the fact that the County doesn't do anything positive for historic preservation. But is it too much to ask that they take the equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath: "first do no harm?"
In other words: stop tearing down historic buildings, dammit. But why should Ellen Reckhow care? She can advocate the removal of the Russel Theatre, she can support the destruction of the 500 block of East Main, and she'll get praised for her "leadership."
We shouldn't be surprised at the destruction of historic buildings when the people who do it suffer no political consequences except . . . praise.
It really doesn't make sense... i've seen so many empty parking lots i thought it was a ghost town when i moved here. I had a feeling there was a battle for land happening, but I definitely didn't think these developers were putting in parking lots. Downtown is practically empty at night... what's the point of another lot? The lot on Fuller for the West Village is 95% empty most of the time. The American Tobacco Campus lot seems to be 40% empty alot of the time too. Is it because they aren't sharing space, or that ppl are too lazy to walk 6 blocks?
How do we stop this kind of destruction to a city that has great potential, but definitely not the kind of big city money to support uber expensive lofts? I saw this happen in Houston, and the developers didn't think about how little money ppl were willing to spend on their new buildings. They had alot of trouble renting/selling the spaces.
Anon - agreed. This is being done by the Durham County Government. Your tax dollars at work.
GK
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