500-600 BLOCKS CARR ST.

Looking southwest, 1880s
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

The 500 and 600 blocks of Carr, situated directly across Carr St. from the American Tobacco warehouses, were the early location of company housing - what we'd call 'mill housing' were this a mill; small detached houses with yards that catered to company employees.


A view looking east across the tops of these houses, 1920s.
(Courtesy Duke Archives / Digital Durham)

Below, a view looking north up Carr St. from Morehead Avenue.


(Courtesy Robby Delius)

The picture below gives the best sense of the relative uniformity and quantity of these houses - although it a is broader shot, showing Carr St., Willard coming it at an angle to meet Warren St. and Portland Ave - the short east-west street that intersected Carr and formed the division between the 500 and 600 blocks.


(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

This picture also shows how Morehead Ave., at the right edge of the picture, initially ran by the south end of American Tobacco, along the path of current-day Jackie Robinson, before terminating one block east of the complex.

The storyline here is slightly different than usual, in that the pressure of car commuters took their toll on these houses before urban renewal did.


Looking northeast, 1950s.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Most of these houses were torn down during the late 1950s/early 1960s for surface parking for American Tobacco, leaving only a few structures.


Sandwich shop on the southwest corner of Jackson Street and Carr St., looking southwest. The picture is a bit distorted because I spliced two old pictures together.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


512-528 Carr St., looking northwest, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


600-608 Carr St., looking south, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


612 Carr - a later bungalow, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


614 Carr - one of the small houses that persisted, near the corner of Carr and Morehead, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The remainder of these were torn down by urban renewal.


Looking east-southeast, 1968.

All of the parcels, with many others to the west, were combined into a big parcel and sold off to the Alexander Ford Motor Co., which had moved from its previous location on East Main Street, in 1972.


Looking north-northwest, 1972.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

This later became University Ford, which it remains today.


Looking northwest from Carr and Jackie Robinson, 02.10.08.

This remains among the lowest and least appealing potential uses of this land. I do hope this car dealership will go live with its friends out at Southpoint sometime soon, and that it will be redeveloped into a dense mix of uses, as it originally was. Rumors have abounded about the quantity of cash University Ford wants in order to go elsewhere. While I'm sure they want to maximize their profit, I hope they take something reasonable at some point - I think it's crucial to creating the connectivity with the southwest neighborhoods that will help both those neighborhoods and downtown thrive.

410-414 CARR ST.

The northwest corner of Jackson and Carr Sts. was developed with residential structures in the 1880s, which remained until the late 1920s.


Looking west, 1880s.


Looking northeast at the northwest corner of Jackson and Carr, 1920s.
(Courtesy Duke Archives/ Digital Durham)


Looking southwest at the northwest corner of Jackson and Carr, 1920s.
(Courtesy Duke Archives/ Digital Durham)

By the late 1920s, both corners of Jackson and Carr were developed with commercial buildings serving the employees at American Tobacco and the neighborhood.


410 Carr, northwest, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


412 Carr, northwest, 1965
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


414 Carr, northwest, 1965
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

These buildings were torn down by the city in 1967 by the city redevelopment authority/urban renewal funds. It became a parking lot.

In 2005, this street was closed and the city deck for American Tobacco was built with its southeast corner on the site.


Looking northwest, 02.10.08.

NCCU Expansion Plan Presentation Delayed

The N&O reports today that NCCU's new plan to expand into the College View neighborhood will be delayed pending more information from the community. It seems clear that NCCU officials were a bit taken aback by the reaction to their community presentation of the master plan weeks ago, which met with a chilly reception.

Which shouldn't surprise anyone, although universities seem to feel they have a particular right to expand. Much like churches, their need to expand is usually adorned with self-affirming statements of the noble mission to improve humanity.

Call me more than a bit dubious that tearing down 136 houses to build new buildings and parking will lead to a net increase in community educational attainment.

When Central first started to expand across Fayetteville ~5-6 years ago, they made the decision to tear down several square blocks of houses in the College View community - many of them houses of prominent early to mid 20th century community leaders - as well as the old Hillside High School. I was on the board of Preservation Durham back then, and chairing their Endangered Properties program. We managed to move just one house - the Stanford Warren house - from Brant to Pekoe Street in order to save it from the wrecking ball. I'd characterize NCCU's attitude towards the historic houses as, well, impatient with the impediment.


Old Hillside and the surrounding neighborhood, 1950s. Fayetteville St. and NCCU are at the right side.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

I haven't really forgiven them for hacking into the neighborhood and its history, and destroying the landmark high school.

But I should have realized that their work isn't done - that they intend on dominating the spine of Fayetteville Street by tearing down the residential street frontage, and increasing intrusion into the neighborhood with space for buildings and a lot of parking.


Existing conditions.


Planned expansion.

I hope the city administration doesn't give NC Central a pass on this - they deserve at least the same scrutiny that Duke got for their Central Campus plans. At some point, NCCU will destabilize the College View neighborhood - anecdotally, they already have. We can bet that, when that happens, the solution will be further expansion of the campus.

Other than our enthusiastic approval of higher education bonds that made this (and the flock of construction cranes at UNC) possible, I question what purpose is served by expansion. To be clear, I feel the same way about Duke, UNC or any higher education institution. Is it just an arms race between campuses to provide more and more of what they perceive the Other Place to have? Kevin has more about project growth and the master plan with a typically insightful post at his site.

The question of expansion necessity aside, I give Central some credit for focusing more of their expansion on the Alston Ave corridor this time, which I think would be better served by some addition by subtraction. I think they could do more here. It's a bleak corridor - much of which is attributable to the width and sense of style that NCDOT wants to provide to Alston north of the Freeway. Dense expansion on this corridor would be more appropriate than spilling out to the east and west.

But I'm sure part of NCCU's expansion across Fayetteville is attributable to the fact that College View is just a nicer neighborhood; skinny Fayetteville is a more attractive, pedestrian negotiable street than the depressing, too-wide Alston. Will College View remain that way as its residents and historic housing are displaced?

CORNER W. PETTGREW AND CARR ST. - FIRST JULIAN CARR HOUSE?

The house at the right edge of the above picture, two stories and with two chimneys, presents an interesting conundrum - and that is, whether or not it was Julian Carr's first house when he first moved to Durham in 1870. The evidence for this is conflicting and intriguing. An initial observation is that the house, 402 Carr St., closely resembled WT Blackwell's house, built on the northwest corner of S. Duke St. and W. Chapel Hill St. around the same time. It is certainly larger than any of the houses around it in the above picture. Hiram Paul, Durham's first historian (who published his history in 1884) notes that Carr gave land for the first graded school (eventually the Morehead School one block south of this house) "near his house on Railroad Street" (which was the first name for Pettigrew Street.) There is, of course, the eponymous street as some small measure of circumstantial evidence.



A view of the house from the north side of the tracks, looking southwest, 1920s.


Another view of the back of the house from Carr St., looking north, 1938 (the back of the Snow Building is visible across the tracks.)
(Courtesy Robby Delius)

However, a Durham Sun news article from July 21, 1949, entitled "Carr St. Landmark Torn Down" provides the most direct evidence that Carr lived on the street - but in the small house immediately behind it, at 408 Carr.


408 Carr being torn down, looking southwest.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)


408 Carr being torn down, looking southwest.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

The houses were both razed for a parking lot,


Looking northeast, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

which was eventually paved.


Looking southeast, 1981.

The city took this lot and Carr St. to build a parking deck for American Tobacco, eliminating this corner. I find the closure of Carr St. fairly bizarre and unnecessary, actually. I've heard people claim that it's still sort of a 'street' through the garage - and I drive that route periodically, but c'mon - it's not a street.


Looking southwest, November 2007.

So did Carr live here, where we have a parking deck? (Which provides some continuity with the location of his later mansions, Waverly's Honor and Somerset Villa, about to be converted to 400+ space surface parking lot by Durham County.) I don't know - some sources say Waverly's Honor was built in 1870, the same year Carr joined the WT Blackwell firm. But it's a good, as yet unsolved, mystery.

305 WEST PETTIGREW / PEABODY DRUG COMPANY

305 West Pettigrew was initially one of the small houses built just east of the Blackwell factory in the 1880s. In 1926, this house was torn down for a new building for the Peabody Drug Co., which had started its life in the 100 block of East Peabody Street in 1907. The new structure was referred to as the "Goodall Building," though I don't know why.


Looking southwest, mid-1920s. You can see the new brick structure under construction between the two houses.

A mid-century invoice for the company shows that they were a wholesaler for various pharmcacy goods, including Vaseline, Listerine, bandages, and good ol' Ex-Lax.


June 1957 view of the 300 bock of West Pettigrew, with the brick structure visible to the right of the American Tobacco warehouses. (Notice the pre-loop area behind the buildings on West Main.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)


An August 1957 view - not much of a different view of the building, but it shows the city grading the area behind West Main for a great big parking lot.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)


Peabody Drug Co, looking southeast, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


Peabody Drug Co, looking southwest, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The Peabody Drug Co. was torn down as part of urban renewal. This was a parking lot for American Tobacco, and then just a fairly empty lot for years - until the city built a deck for the American Tobacco renovation on this spot in 2004 (?).


Looking southwest, November 2007.

307-321 WEST PETTIGREW

West Pettigrew Street, neé Railroad St., began as a residential street situated between the Blackwell Factory and the Duke Factory


Looking west from the top of the Blackwell Factory, mid-1880s. Carr St. and an early Blackwell's Durham Tobacco building are in the foreground - the houses to the right face Pettigrew and the railroad tracks. The first wing of the Duke Factory is visible in the right background.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

The western portion of the 300 block (which ran between Carr St. and Ashton Place) remained residential through most of the early to mid 20th century


Looking southwest from the First National Bank Building, 1920s - although a tear in the photograph obscures the western portion of the block, several small two story houses are visible.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection/Digital Durham.)

Below, as seen from the West Chapel Hill St. crossing, looking southeast. Ashton Place is the street entering Pettigrew from the south, straight ahead. (Notice that, prior to the overpass construction, Ashton Pl crossed Pettigrew to intersect with West Chapel Hill St.) A bit of the Morehead School is visible in the background as well.


(Courtesy Durham County Library)

By the mid 1960s, this strip had become entirely commercial - through replacement and conversion of residential structures. Two houses were torn down on the southwest corner of West Pettigrew and Ashton Place to make way for a Tops Service Station.


319-321 West Pettigrew, looking southwest, 1965
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


319-321 West Pettigrew, looking east, 1965
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

317 West Pettigrew remained - but had become an extermination business.


317 West Pettigrew, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

311 West Pettigrew appears to have been a boarding house.


311 West Pettigrew, 1965.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

307-309 West Pettgrew was torn down in 1947 to make was for Carolina Glass, started by Norman Benson in 1929, which had become Pritchard Glass by the 1960s


(Courtesy Durham County Library)


(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Although it had a brick facade, the 'building' actually consisted of two Quonset Huts extending south from the brick facade with some kind of bridging structure in the middle. Given the construction date, I wonder if these were some that the military sold off after WWII. These can be seen to better advantage in this earlier, 1948 aerial photograph.


(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

These structures were torn down by urban renewal in 1967.


Looking east, February 1967. The Tops Service Station and 317 W Pettigrew are still standing in this picture, but wouldn't be for long.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Several other light industrial buildings replaced these structures, most auto and construction.


Looking west from the tracks, 1981.
(Courtesy Robby Delius)

In recent years, these had become Merchants Tire and Ferguson Plumbing Supply. These were purchased by the city several years ago in anticipation of the construction of the new transit station. Demolition of these structures began in September 2007.


Looking southwest, 9.23.07.


Looking southwest, 11.05.07


Looking southwest, 12.16.07

Per a rather old Freelon site plan (2004), this part of the site will be filled with long bus stalls. I don't think this has changed with the RFP, which seems to contemplate private sector development of the Willard/Jackson portion of the site.


(Freelon Group)

All of which means that West Pettigrew is unlikely to be very pleasant walking territory. We can hope this means, however, that Great Jones Street will become more pleasant walking territory, and that future acquisition of the Durham Belt Rail will mean development on the current bus station site adjacent to a walking trail - development that will help link Five Points with the West Village development and Brightleaf.