TOMS AND HICKS WAREHOUSES

The Toms and Hicks warehouses of Liggett and Myers were built in 1903 and 1900 respectively. Like other tobacco manufacturing company warehouses, such as Liggett's Walker Warehouse or Watts and Yuille Warehouses, the Toms and Hicks Warehouses were primarily used for the storage and drying of tobacco. The "chimneys" common to all of these warehouses were installed for ventilation purposes.


Toms and Hicks warehouses, looking northeast around 1910 from Durham's first playground
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection)


Toms and Hicks Warehouses, looking east from ~Gregson St., 1948
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper


Toms and Hicks Warehouses, looking east from ~Gregson St., 1950s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper


Toms and Hicks Warehouses, looking north from ~the railroad tracks., 1950s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper

The Toms and Hicks warehouses continued in their original function until Liggett began to considerably scale back manufacturing operations in Durham in the 1970s.


Toms warehouse, looking northeast from Morgan and N. Duke, 1981.
(Courtesy Robby Delius)

Although a 'first wave' of renovation had transformed the area around West Main, N. Duke, and N. Gregson in the early 1980s - with the renovation of the Watts and Yuille warehouses into Brightleaf Square, and the conversion of the Carmichael and Bullington warehouses into offices and condominiums, the momentum from these original renovations was not sustained in any meaningful way through the mid 1980s to the mid-1990s.

And indeed, when rumors surfaced that the partnership of former Duke basketball players Brian Davis and Christian Laettner and developer Tom Niemann had decided to pass on the American Tobacco complex, but would instead develop apartments in a subset of former Liggett warehouses, the conventional wisdom was that such a development was foolhardy.

Because it was accepted to some degree that no one wanted to live downtown. Sure, there were many people who wanted to see this kind of development, and there was a clutch of people living upstairs of mostly empty storefronts in-the-loop. But I don't think anyone in real estate really thought there was a market for this sort of thing.

Which was sort of odd, given that when people had built quality space downtown - such as the Bullington Warehouse - it had remained successful.

Fortunately, the naysayers were wrong - and when the first phase of the West Village development (which included Toms and Hicks as well as the Flowers Warehouse, Cooper Garage and Power Plant) opened in 2000, it turned out to be quite popular, and has remained so.


Looking northwest, June 2007.


Looking northwest from near Fuller St. at the Toms Warehouse, 05.25.08

One thing I particularly like about the Liggett plant and the West Village redevelopment is that, because it is spread across several city streets, it has more of an urban feel to me than, say American Tobacco - which feels so self-contained. With the height of the new parking garage across Morgan St., walking on Morgan and Fuller and over to West Main on Fuller has about the most 'city' feel to me of any part of downtown Durham.

And much of that is due to the fact that there is a oh-so-welcome dearth of empty space in these few blocks. It's just amazing to walk anywhere in downtown Durham where the landscape isn't dominated by vacant lots and surface parking.

To that end, though, I hope that, long-term, the West Village folks re-open Fuller St. between Morgan and Fernway to pedestrians. Although the landscape to the north is part of the aforementioned Durham Asphalt Aesthetic, Fuller and Fernway are the potential pedestrian connector streets to the old DAP / Central Park / Farmer's Market.



36.000501,-78.906845

209-215 NORTH GREGSON

(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

Constructed in 1927-1929, The building at 209-215 N. Gregson St. sat, and sits at the transition between the Trinity Park neighborhood and the business district on West Main Street that intermingled with the Liggett-Myers tobacco factories.

The building first appears in the 1929 city directories, with three of the four bays vacant. From 1930 to 1940, the building housed The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (which would soon become known by its much more pedestrian name, A&P), Servall Dry Cleaning & Pressing, Earley B. Ragland (listed in the city directories as a soft drinks store), Bob’s Confectionary, and (possibly the best Durham business name ever) the Rocket Shop Confectionary.


(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

The Great A & P Tea Company was the largest of three groceries in the district, and the soda shop and confectionary benefited from their proximity to the Julian S. Carr Junior High School across the street.


(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

The building was constructed of brick laid in a common bond pattern and features four storefronts along a bowed façade, each with a stepped parapet. The facade displays decorative brickwork in a rectangular pattern formed by rowlock and header courses with a square masonry piece at each corner.

Three of the four storefronts (bays 211, 213, and 215) remain largely intact. These bays retain their original plate-glass windows encased with metal frames, tiled aprons and entry floors, and glass doors with wood frames. Bay 209 was removed entirely (likely in the 1980s) after a fire damaged the end bay. A plywood entry with a poured concrete side-entry was constructed in its place.

The building appeared to have limited, if any, tenants over the past decade. Although there were signs in some of the storefronts, the businesses never appeared to be functioning/open, from what I could tell.

Trinity Design+Build purchased the building last year and began a complete restoration of the structure, which will house their offices along with other storefronts. I'm thrilled to see them restore this type of structure, which helps reinforce street-level activity at the northern extent of the Brightleaf commercial area.


Looking northwest, 12.09.07.

Many thanks to Trinity Design+Build for providing much of the building history


36.00127,-78.908453

ALDRIDGE MOTORS/ DURHAM HUDSON CO / CLEAR-VUE

As the area near Gregson and Duke became increasingly commercialized during the 1920s, several auto related businesses established themselves here, including the Nash, Dodge, and Studebaker dealerships near Duke St., and service stations such as Griggs and Couch and the Pure Oil Station at Main and Morgan. The Aldridge Motors service station, on the southwest corner of N. Gregson and Morgan was another of these early service stations. Like many of the service stations of its era, there was an emphasis on architectural details that is, well, completely absent in the modern gas station. Tile overhangs, supported by decorative brackets, projected off the northeasterly facades.

Below, a snippet of the movie from which the above spliced still frames were taken, showing a brief pan over the station (at about 50 seconds in.)



By the late 1940s, this had become "Durham Hudson Motor Co", a car dealership.


Aerial view, looking northwest, 1950s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

After Hudson Motor Co. went out of business in the late 1950s, the building was occupied by Clear-Vue glass in 1962. The business seemed to focus on auto-related glass early on, but has become much more of a custom applications shop now.


Clear-Vue, looking south, 1985.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

It is a very well-preserved set of buildings - a rarity for these early 20th century service stations.


Looking southwest, 12.09.07


36.000812,-78.908868

LAKEWOOD DAIRY

Note:
This website is no longer being maintained - please see the entry (with any new comments) at this website's successor, Open Durham:

Lakewood Dairy (on Open Durham)

The history of Lakewood Dairy extends back to the early 20th century, when the Ward family had farmland extending from present-day Ward and James Streets to Chapel Hill Boulevard. A large two-story house was located on James St. with barns and other frame buildings to the west-southwest.


From "Images of America: Durham" by Steve Massengill

FA Ward delivered milk in horse-drawn wagons throughout the neighborhood, and contributed generously to Lakewood Baptist Church. After his death in the 1920s, his sons sold the Lakewood Dairy to the Pet Dairy Company, which tore down the frame structures associated with the dairy and built the still-extant office building on James Street. In 1940, a group of 162 'dairymen' affiliated with the Central Carolina Farmers' Exchange on Gilbert St. purchased the dairy from Pet Dairy Co. Another source states that Long Meadow Dairy acquired Pet Dairy in 1947, and then "modernized the plant on James St." The same source says that in January 1950, a cooperative of dairy farmers purchased Long Meadow Dairy, become Long Meadow Farms Cooperative, operated by "134 member-producers in the Durham milkshed."


"Long Meadow Farms Milk Truck" - 06.22.57


"Long Meadow Farms Milk Truck" - 06.22.57
During the mid-20th century, parcels of former farmland were sold off and developed, becoming single family homes and apartment complexes.


1920s era building from James St., 1980.

The dairy moved into the hands of Flav-o-Rich at some point, and had shut down by the 1990s. In 1996, TROSA (Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers) purchased the dairy site, which by that time was composed of a 13-acre site with 3 buildings, 6 automotive bays, office space, and 100,000 sq. ft. of storage. TROSA operated their moving services out of this facility for several years, but they are currently in the midst of converting the buildings into a residential campus.


Looking northeast from James St., 05.25.08


35.979053,-78.926642

MAPLEWOOD CEMETERY

Note:
This website is no longer being maintained - please see the entry (with any new comments) at this website's successor, Open Durham:

Maplewood Cemetery (on Open Durham)

-------


(Courtesy University of North Carolina Library, North Carolina Collection)

Maplewood Cemetery was established in 1872 by the purchase of an empty field of land to the west of the city limits. William H. Willard was paid $1500 for the land. Prior to establishment of the cemetery, people had been buried in the churchyards of their particular church. Some were exhumed from the churchyards and reburied in the cemetery.

The cemetery was established at what is now Kent St. and Morehead Ave. - essentially, at the time, a ways out of town on the road to Chapel Hill. While some minimal development already existed in the West End, the town grew around the cemetery. The cemetery was located on high ground, and while the high ground developed early, the ravines to the south and east developed more slowly. The city at some point established a separate, adjacent cemetery for Jewish burials.

During the 20th century, the cemetery expanded to the west along Duke University Road. Oddly, in 1934 the city made the decision to locate Bartlett Durham's body - buried in a metal casket at the Antioch Church in Orange County. They did so by means of plunging crowbars into the ground until they hit something metal. They exhumed the casket, which had a glass 'window' through which they could see Dr. Durham's gold-rimmed glasses. He evidently 'lay in state' at Hall-Wynne funeral home before being buried in Maplewood with a new marker (which errs on his middle name, birth date, and death date.)

Allen Dew's excellent cemetery census reference site has a seemingly comprehensive list, and notes 22,000 burials in Maplewood. The cemetery is surprisingly large - 120 acres in the middle of the city.

The old part of the cemetery today is a peaceful and, to my mind, beautiful and strangely under appreciated place. While due to demolition, there are few extant houses associated with the people whose names appear repeatedly in any study of Durham history, the old part of the cemetery is a veritable Who's Who of movers and shakers in Durham's past. Amongst big oaks, magnolias, and cedars are monuments large and small - statuary, crypts, even big guns.


Grave of John Sprunt Hill


George W. Watts


The Mangum crypt


A cluster of CSA graves complete with a large gun.


Examples of statuary.


James Southgate


Julian S. Carr


EJ Parrish


Eugene Morehead


Richard Wright


WT Blackwell


The Duke mausoleum. (Washington, Ben, and Buck were exhumed from this grave and interred in the crypt of Duke Chapel, but other family members remain.)


The entrance to the 'Hebrew Cemetery' off of Morehead.

In a bit of dark humor, Wyatt Dixon related the story in a few of his Morning Herald newspaper columns that the first man to be buried in the cemetery opposed its purchase. Louis Austin - who evidently held some role in the city that gave him a voice in this decision - opined that the city needed a baseball field far more than it did a cemetery. He was overruled. Soon afterward, though, he participated in a celebration of a Democratic victory (Carr over Duke for ? State Senator) by repeatedly firing a cannon that was located at the Old Bull Factory. The cannon exploded, killing Austin, and removing limbs from his fellow celebrants. He is therefore buried at grave #1.

I'm not sure why more people don't seem to venture into Maplewood - maybe not everyone finds cemeteries to be beautiful places. But I highly recommend a walk-through on a pretty day.


Aerial of Maplewood - the older section is outlined in red, the newer, more car-centric and minimally treed portion is outlined in yellow.


35.992643,-78.919543

Good Show of Support for Alternatives at Alston

Aidil Collins of Uplift East Durham delivered a well-crafted and succinct argument against the widening at Alston Avenue during yesterday's city council work session - approximately 40 people came out and stood in support of her statement for a better roadway design.

The council, with Mark Ahrendsen, explained that they were in negotiations with NCDOT. A few council members then tried to make the case that the decision to build or not build the road is out of their hands. I'm sure that they would like that to be the case. I sympathize with the council on this vote, even as I strongly advocate for a better design - they will catch hell from some of the community if they turn their back on $28 million from the NCDOT (no matter what it's buying) and catch just as much hell from some of the community if they allow this road to be built as is, and this highway through East Durham becomes their legacy.

All the more reason to push as hard as possible on NCDOT to make design changes. It isn't clear what will happen if this issue is brought to a vote. (It was not yesterday.)

The conventional wisdom has been that Brown, Catotti, and Woodard would vote against the widening, and that Ali, Bell, Clement, and Cole-McFadden would vote for it. I would hope that the ever-growing support for design changes might change these numbers. But that it also, at the very least, should motivate council to do everything in their power to find a win-win - by using every political tool in their armamentarium to push NCDOT to a design that we can, literally, live with.

SIDNEY ROCHELLE HOUSE

Sidney E. Rochelle and his wife in their 1714 Chapel Hill Road front yard, 1920s 1713 Chapel Hill is in the background. From a brief bit of internet research, I believe this is a V-Twin Harley.

(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

Sidney Rochelle is one of my favorite Durham historical characters. He was born in 1878 in Durham County and attended Durham's first public graded school, located in the Wright Factory on West Main St. He served in the Spanish-American War, and fighting in the Philippines, he survived a battle that saw 80% of his company killed. He returned to Durham in 1901.

He took over his deceased father's fish stand at an old city market located at the south end of Church St. - later the location of Union Station. When the city market moved to the new municipal building/Academy of Music Rochelle decided that the rent was too high and left the business.

He then began working with a man named HA Gaskins, who ran a phonograph, music, bicycle, lock and gun store. By 1910, he decided to strike out on his own, opening a gun, bicycle, battery and motorcycle shop at the northeast corner of Corcoran and Parrish Sts. In 1912, Rochelle and his wife moved into their new house at 1714 Chapel Hill Road.

Rochelle became the first Harley-Davidson dealer in North Carolina and organized an early motorcycle club that traveled all over the United States (see one picture in Durham here.) I don't know much about the history of touring motorcycle clubs, but I'd have to imagine that this was pretty unique in the 1910s. Rochelle supplied motorcycles to local businesses for their deliveries, and organized bicycle outings for Durham youth.

He collected antique guns and phonographs, and had in his possession for many years a phonograph that had belonged to Washington Duke.

His store moved to Mangum St., and had several different locations before settling on a location in the 300 block of North Mangum St.

He retired around 1954, and intended to turn his house into a museum of sorts to house his artifacts.


SE Rochelle and his wife in front of 1714 Chapel Hill Road, 1950s.

(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

I'm not sure what happened to that notion - I know most of Rochelle's artifacts were donated to the NC Museum of History (see comments,) including his Spanish-American War uniform. Rochelle died in 1960.

By the 1970s, the Rochelle house was converted to a commercial use - an interior decorating store.



It appears to be quite a bit more downtrodden at this point, and I'm not sure whether there is any active business in the house at this point or not.




35.991268,-78.923452

Alston Avenue Fixin' to Stay on Today's Council Agenda

It appears that the Alston Avenue morass will remain on today's City Council work session agenda at 4pm. At issue: pushing the council to continue to pressure NCDOT to make design changes to mitigate the road's most disastrous qualities. This has primarily come down to dedicated right turn lanes - many of the intersections on the Alston Avenue corridor have 6 lanes (comprised of 4 lanes + 2 lanes.) The dedicated right turn lanes add unnecessary width and present the greatest threat to pedestrians beginning their long slog across the intersection.

A group of East Durham stakeholders met last week to discuss the plan, including representatives from Uplift East Durham, NECD, PAC 1, Golden Belt Neighborhood Association, Cleveland-Holloway Neighborhood Asssociation, and Scientific Properties. The consensus of the group was to eliminate dedicated right turn lanes, stripe bike lanes, and that the road should "match design elements of other city street improvements." The group also was in agreement that the city should continue to pursue funding from NCDOT to rebuild a grocery store, as the the neighborhood grocery - Los Primos - is slated for demolition by the widening. The group was unable to reach unanimity on the addition of street parking.

At this point NCDOT has agreed to eliminate dedicated right turns at Holloway and Liberty, but they have refused at Main and Angier.

The notion - promulgated by a vocal few - that the community needs to 'compromise' from this position is ludicrous. Even entertaining these design changes is compromise- killing the road would be a lack of compromise. Unfortunately that vocal few seem to have captivated the attention of the Mayor and His Other Vote. While Howard Clement and Farad Ali seem a bit more on the fence about this, they too seem swept up in the erroneous notion that a giant road in the inner city will bring economic development.

To summarize the major East Durham stakeholders that oppose the current design of the road.

Uplift East Durham Neighborhood Assoc.
Cleveland-Holloway Neighborhood Assoc
Golden Belt Historic District/Neighborhood Group
The city's economic development staff
The city's transportation staff
Scientific Properties

Aidil Collins of Uplift East Durham will speak at the work session. If you have time, please come and support a better alternative. There is no good reason for NCDOT not to reduce the scale of this roadway by the requested amount - it's purely stubbornness, and counter to their own context-sensitive design guidelines. To be clear, it will still be a massive road without the dedicated rights ~ ~70 feet wide versus ~80 feet wide with the dedicated rights. The requested changes may seem like nothing more than a bit of lipstick on a pig of a road - but they stand a good chance of saving some lives down the line.

ORIGINAL LAKEWOOD METHODIST / MASONIC LODGE

Thanks to Steve Rankin for most of today's information about the original Lakewood Methodist Church/later Masonic Hall



The ‘Lakewood Park Methodist Church’ officially opened April 6, 1913, with Bishop John C. Kilgo (previous president of Trinity College) preaching the first service.

The Lakewood congregation traces its roots back to the fall of 1907, when an interdenominational Sunday School was first held at the Lakewood Park roller-skating rink by Reverends W. V. McRae and C. B. Culbreth. The Lakewood Church officially came into being in the summer of 1909, beginning with a founding congregation of less than 20 members, with T. M. Grant as the preacher. The church was 'officially' founded after a local successful revival conducted by Harry M. North (a teacher at Trinity Park School) occurred in early 1909. T. M. Grant was appointed the first pastor of LPMC. The church’s first building was apparently the "old Lakewood school building.”

During E. C. Durham’s tenure as pastor of the church, the church building was erected on Palmer Street, at a cost of between $4,500 and $5,000 (the debt was paid off in full by 1916).

Lakewood Methodist Church built a new structure at2317 Chapel Hill Road in the early 1950s, and sold their original church building to the Durham (Masonic) Lodge Number 352 in 1953. The Masons had used various temporary quarters for their meetings after leaving the Eligibility Building in 1938.

Members soon began renovating the former church into a Masonic temple, removing the steeple, removing interior walls, removing the floor and joists (and installing a concrete pad, which lowered the floor by approximately a foot), and adding a second story and two-story flat-roofed addition to the rear. They also removed the original arched windows and installed small 1/1 sash windows and added a brick façade.

In September 2006, Legacy Research Associates (a cultural resources management firm) purchased the building and the adjoining structure at 1807 Palmer, to renovate for its offices; it is also the home tothe ‘Lakewood History Center,’ a non-profit that deals with local history and preservation.


35.987429,-78.925243

WA-WA-YONDA FARM

A mysterious little tidbit of Durham History involves Julian Carr's farm, Wa-Wa-Yonda (also called Wa-Wa-Yanda or Wa-Wa Yonder.) This farm is referenced only a few times, and appears on a single map.


Chapel Hill Road, 1910.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

The farm was built on the east side of the Chapel Hill Road in the area of Tuscaloosa Forest. Carr also owned land on the west side of the road. I've found no information about the farm or its workings, despite a plethora of material on Carr's later Occoneechee Farm - located near Hillsborough.

The farm appears to have disappeared/been subdivided by the 1920s. Evidence of it survives only in a street name (Wa-Wa Avenue.) This area also has curiously early serpentine/topography-respecting streets (Wa-Wa and Huron). I suspect that these must somehow relate to the earlier use of the land, but I can't substantiate that.

BARTLETT MANGUM HOUSE / FOUR SQUARE

One of, if not the most, impressive historic structures remaining in southwest Durham is the house of Bartlett W. Mangum, built in 1908, and once part of a forty-acre tract that included vineyards, as well as a cotton gin, sawmill, and brickyard on the opposite side of Chapel Hill Road. The house was designed and built by William Albert Wilkerson. The farm, along with Julian Carr's Wa-Wa-Yonda farm immediately to the north, were built in the area known as Tuscaloosa Forest.


1910 Map of Durham County, showing predominant landowners along Chapel Hill Road.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

Mangum lived in the house until his death in 1927; his farm was subdivided and parcels other than an area immediately surrounding the main house were sold off as individual building lots.

From here on out, I'll quote directly from the Four Square website, which may have the best history page of any local restaurant.

"Mangum’s daughters Bessie and Inez lived in the house until 1956 when, at advanced ages, they were moved to a nursing home. It is said that the ghost of one of the sisters still haunts one of the upstairs rooms. The property was then sold at auction and rented for residential purposes until the early 1960’s. From 1960 to 1963, Arthur D. Thomas, who operated a politically ‘alternative’ bookstore in town, used the first floor for a racially integrated, non-denominational church that counted Duke University faculty and area civil rights leaders among its congregants. After Thomas left the area, the house was named ‘Freedom House’ and rented for a time by a civil rights organization. It was used as temporary housing for transient civil rights activists. From 1968 to 1974 the house was operated as a woman’s consignment clothing store called ‘Victoria’s Closet’."


BW Mangum house, late 1970s.

"The house was first used as a restaurant in 1976. Nina Parrish, a Durham native, operated the Old House Restaurant until 1980. From 1981 to 1982 a Chinese restaurant called The Twin Dragon occupied the house. In 1983, the Pless family bought the building and operated it as Claire’s Café until the early 1990’s. The family then leased the building for a number of years before deciding to sell the property in 1999."

Shane Ingram and Elizabeth Woodhouse bought the Mangum house in 1999 and renovated it to open Four Square restaurant. In doing so, they continued/provided a pleasure that isn't common in the Triangle (but was in my native New Orleans) - the restaurant-in-an-old-house. I wish it were more common here as an adaptive reuse for houses that people didn't want to live in; it's part of a broader question as to why old houses weren't converted to retail establishments rather than, for the most part, simply torn down. A row of houses converted to funky retail presents one of the more entertaining and interesting types of streetscapes I've encountered.


BW Mangum House / Four Square, 05.18.08 (Should have captured it during the winter!)


35.97682,-78.935667

LAKEWOOD SCHOOL / LAKEWOOD YMCA

Original Lakewood School, 1910s

The original Lakewood School was likely built around 1910. There is some evidence that a school on the site may have been run as more of a country schoolhouse by JW Proctor and his wife Julia prior to the school becoming part of the county system ~1910. The similarity of the above school to other county schools at the time gives credence to the idea that the school was built around the time of induction as a county school.

The below photo was found by the homeowner at 2207 Chapel Hill Road - in his wall during renovations. The writing on the back indicates that the woman in the center is Julia Proctor; her husband is likely in the back row in front of the doors.


(Courtesy M. Ouchakof)

Between 1918 and 1922, the original school was demolished and replaced by a brick masonry structure - it remained a county school.


1926

In 1925, though, Lakewood and other areas that we consider part of Durham's inner neighborhoods were annexed by the city. In 1927, the city wrote about the school:

"The school has 11 classrooms with 332 pupils in 10 grades. The Lakewood Park School in 1919 had an enrollment of only 196 pupils. Its growth has therefore been rapid. The school, although recently built, appears to have been cheaply constructed and is already giving evidence of wear. It is centrally located in a rapidly-growing residential district."

The new city planning commission, writing the above, was not a fan of the location either, finding it "objectionable on account of being on one of the principal thoroughfares."

Despite the sour tone of the city planners, the school continued to be a central focus of the community through the mid-20th century. As one resident told me last week - kids growing up in the community had their whole world within a few blocks.


A posed shot for the opening of school, 09.05.56
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

On March 2, 1960, a big snowstorm blanketed North Carolina, dumping 9 inches of snow on Durham. School was canceled on March 3rd, which was a very fortunate decision. Around 8:30 am, when kids would have been in the auditorium at Lakewood School (had school been in session) the roof collapsed under the weight of the snow.

Reports at the time noted that the school would likely have been "torn down anyway" due to recently passed bond money for school construction. The children were temporarily bused to EK Powe school for several years until the new Lakewood School was completed further to the southwest.

The old school sat empty for several years, and evidently was available for sale - attracting no buyers. In 1964, the school was torn down.


Demolition of the old school, 01.10.64
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Demolition of the old school, 01.10.64
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

In 1966, the Boys' Club of Durham built a new facility on the site. This remained a Boys Club until sometime in the early 1970s, when the YMCA purchased the building for a branch YMCA - complimenting the main Y on Trinity Avenue. After that YMCA closed, the Lakewood Y became for many years the only Y in Durham, until the downtown Y was built in 1997.

Thus ensued ongoing troubles for the Y in Durham, including the Lakewood Y. The troubled child that was the downtown Y seemed to absorb the attention (i.e. $) of the Durham Y organization, and anecdotally, the Lakewood Y suffered.

The consolidation of Triangle YMCAs seemed to spell some relief, bringing an infusion of cash into the Durham system. However, the Board soon decided that the Lakewood Y was superfluous.

Residents of Tuscaloosa-Lakewood felt differently, and advocated for the preservation of a central hub for the community. Led by Chuck Clifton, they formed the Committee to Save the Lakewood YMCA and made clear to the broader community, and the Triangle Y Board, what was at stake for the neighborhood.

And the explicit question in this argument was - what is the effect of a vacant building on our community? What else is this building useful for, and, should it be torn down, what gets built in its place?

I'll admit, I thought the residents had a very tough mountain to climb with this fight, but they prevailed - the county announced in April 2008 that they would purchase the building and 7.4 acre parcel and spend $8 million renovating the facility to house a Montessori middle school as well as the YMCA, bringing this site back to its historic use.


Looking east, 04.26.08.


35.984696,-78.928823