Happy Holidays

(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Safe and happy holidays to everyone, and best wishes for a wonderful new year -

Gary

1005 MORNING GLORY

Sometime ~1920, the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. expanded the original mill village with the construction of 6 bungalows on land, as seen on the above 1913 Sanborn map, that had been left vacant during the original mill village construction.

The reasons for leaving this land vacant during the original construction are unclear; perhaps because it was the low land between the factory and the higher ground moving towards Alston and East Main, perhaps because the company originally planned more of a buffer between the factory and the housing (this seems unlikely - our obsession with such buffers is a distinctly post-automobile innovation,) and perhaps because they did not originally own this land. The deeds are a mess to figure out - because the entire mill village and factory were essentially one parcel until 1954, and the deed metes and bounds from the early 20th century are wont to use descriptions such as "from the iron stake next to where Miss Valinda Venable's cow was standing on Saturday east 20 degrees south 100 feet to Mr. Rigsbee's large rock, thence...." - I'm at a loss to figure out whether parcels acquired in the 1910s and in 1930 by GBMC match these.


1913 Sanborn Map, showing vacant land between the mill village and the factory.


1937 Sanborn map, showing houses moved from the construction of Building 6 at Golden Belt (blue) and 6 new bungalows.

The bungalows were identical, but distinctive in character. Each had 12 over 1 windows, a dormer with 12 pane casement windows, large shingled columns and a shingled wall/rail surrounding the front porch.

I spent awhile trying to find other representative examples of these houses in architecture books, websites, etc. before realizing that there was another batch right here in Durham; they are identical (in floor plan as well) to the houses at 1001 and 1003 W. Trinity, 1002 W. Trinity, 1004 W. Trinity, and 1002 Minerva.

1005 Morning Glory was the southernmost of the bungalows - from the 1920s through at least mid-century, it was home to the Ives family

Above, left-to-right, Winston Ives with twins Jacqueline and Pauline in 1929, Frank Ives with adult children and first grandchild early 1920s, and Brittie Ives in ~1940.
(Courtesy Paula Walters via the Golden Belt Neighborhood Website)

Below, a bird's eye view of the neighborhood from 1957 showing the 6 bungalows.

(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

The bungalows stayed fairly well-preserved through the late 20th century; likely in the 1970s, 1009 Franklin was torn down to expand the parking lot for Golden Belt, but in the early 1990s, the others were reasonably intact.


1000 block of Franklin Street, looking southeast, early 1990s - 1006 and 1008 Franklin are to the right.


1000 block of Worth Street, looking east, early 1990s. The second house in on the left (north) side is 1005 Worth, the second house in on the right (south) side is 1006 Worth.


1005 Morning Glory, early 1990s.

The Morning Glory / Golden Belt neighborhood, buoyed by the presence of the Golden Belt Manufacturing Company until 1994, fell precipitously onto hard times after the closure of the company. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw the rapid progression of teardowns, fires, and general house abuse from escalating crime. Both 1006 Franklin and 1005 Worth were severely vinylized - and 1005 Worth, at least, was done in the name of lead abatement.

A short aside on this. I don't minimize the deleterious effects of lead on human health, particularly that of children. But like any issue that becomes a source of government grant funding, it is sometimes distorted/magnified in ways that serves the interests of those that seek to take advantage of the funding. Having used the city's lead abatement program on one occasion, I can attest that the work done was ridiculously shoddy for the amount of the city's money spent - through no fault of the city, which simply had to spend way too much money to have a "certified contractor" do just about the most minimal scraping job/bad priming job I've ever seen. I think their preference would have been to rip everything off and replace it with vinyl.

Lead frequently seems to be raised as a convenient way to excuse house demolition - or at least, it's a way to purposely steer the argument towards an unassailable rationale. I'm always curious about the disconnect on this when lead is invoked as the reason to destroy a house - what do people think happens to all that paint when you bulldoze a house? Or it goes to the landfill?

Anyway - 1005 Morning Glory survived much of that, had some vinyl applied and its casement windows taken out, and went through a tax foreclosure auction in 2003, when it was purchased for ~$10,000. It was rented as a duplex until ~2005, when it suffered a fire and abandoned.

When I first encountered the five remaining bungalows in 2007, 3 were owner-occupied and 2 (1005 Morning Glory and 1008 Franklin) had suffered fires and were abandoned.


1005 Worth St., 01.03.08


1006 Worth St., 01.03.08


1006 Franklin, 01.03.08


1008 Franklin - the other fire damaged, abandoned structure - 01.03.08

And 1005 Morning Glory:


01.03.08


1005 Morning Glory, winter 2009. You can see the fire damage, including the melted vinyl siding.

In my day job role at Scientific Properties, I began talking to the owner of this house, who told me that it was worth $150,000 because of the way the neighborhood was going to come back. I cannot tell you how many people I've talked to like this over the ~10 years I've been involved in historic preservation work in Durham. I explained that the neighborhood couldn't come back if everyone with an abandoned, fire-damaged house was going to wait around for someone to pay $150,000 for a $20,000 house.

It took me ~ a year and half of calling her to get her to agree to sell the house to Scientific Properties for $40,000. We proceeded to do what I call a 'shell renovation' of the house, done by Jon Fish and Acanthus Construction. We/he rebuilt the porch, replaced the roof, replaced the fire damaged siding/framing, rebuilt the windows, pulled off the metal siding, replaced the front door, gutted fire damaged floor and sheetrock from the interior, and painted the exterior.


Construction, 06.29.09


Construction, Summer 2009.


Construction, Summer 2009.


Near the end of construction.

We spent ~$30,000 and left the interior like this:



We sold the house at a little bit under break even for us to John Martin, whose house-saving exploits I've previously featured. John took on a full restoration of the interior, which is now beautiful.




1005 Morning Glory, 09.22.10

SInce that renovation, and after 2 1/2 years of conversations (and - to give credit where credit is due - with the help of Burt Rauch at NIS,) we finally managed to purchase 1008 Franklin, have undertaken a similar "shell" renovation on it as well, and hope to sell it to an owner-occupant soon.


1008 Franklin, 10.22.10


1008 Franklin, 12.18.10 - ready for paint whenever it warms up...


1008 Franklin, 01.15.11

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35.989338,-78.889316

1003 WORTH STREET

Three houses were built along the 900 block of Morning Glory Avenue (the 100 block in the above picture) near the entry to the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. around 1901. Somewhat more specialized than the mill houses to the east, I speculate that they might have been built for managerial types, or may have been built by private contractors.


~1915 view of Golden Belt from the Durham Hosiery Mill tower. The western facade of one of the houses is visible to the right.


Postcard view of Golden Belt showing "105 Morning Glory" to the right.

Based only on what seems likely from circumstantial evidence, I believe these three houses were moved to 1003 Morning Glory, 1004 Worth St., and 1003 Worth St. in 1930 when Building 6 was constructed at Golden Belt. I deduce this because 1) the land was vacant in 1913. 2) 1003 Morning Glory, 1004 Worth St., and 1003 Worth were clearly of earlier construction than the bungalows built on this land, to their east, after 1913.


1937 Sanborn shows the three houses lining Belt Street, north to south, and the presence of Building 6 where they had been.


1957 view of the neighborhood shows the peaked roofs of the houses adjacent to the Golden Belt Mfg. Co. across Belt St.


1990s view of Worth Street from Belt Street, looking east, 1003 Worth is to the left, and 1004 Worth to its right.

Unfortunately, time and the city were not kind to these houses. 1003 Morning Glory appears to have been torn down by the early 1990s, and 1004 Worth was torn down by NIS sometime in the early 2000s.

1003 Worth Street, covered (as many of the houses in the neighborhood were) with asphalt siding,) persevered.


1003 Worth, 1990s.

Writing about this neighborhood is particularly fun for me, as I've been immersed in its revitalization over the last 3 years. In early 2007, Scientific Properties (the company I run as my day job) bought the abandoned 1003 Worth.


1003 Worth 01.08.08.

It was in terrible shape, although it retained many wonderful original features. a roof failure had meant a persistent roof leak, and the center hall had collapsed.

We undertook a 'shell renovation' of the property, fixing the roof, doing a basic framing repair of the hallway, removing asphalt and vinyl from the exterior and repainting, reparging the foundation, and reconstructing the front porch.


1003 Worth, 11.05.08.


1003 Worth, 01.21.09.

In Spring of 2009, Scientific Properties sold it to new homeowners, who have done a wonderful job completing the renovation of the house.


1003 Worth, 09.22.10

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35.989859,-78.889232

FREE WILL BAPTIST CHURCH - 1004 MORNING GLORY

"The Lord House" at 1004 Morning Glory started life as the Free Will Baptist Church, built sometime between 1913 and 1937. It appears that, although both Edgemont and Morning Glory were, during the early to mid 20th century, predominantly white communities, the congregation of the Free Will Baptist Church has always been predominantly African-American.


Aerial looking east, late 1950s. A steeple is evident atop the small church.

Charlie Gibbs once related to me that he and his friends would sneak away and around the block from the square dances held on the second floor of 952 East Main Street to hear the rockin' music emanating from the Baptist Church, which they much preferred.

Sometime in the 1980s, the church lost its original steeple; the church continues to house an active congregation.

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35.989096,-78.889602

MILL PARK TEXACO SERVICE STATION - 950 EAST MAIN

12.05.10

The Mill Park Texaco Service Station was built on the corner of the Durham Hosiery Mill Park in ~1937. By the 1950s, it had been converted from a stand-and-awning filling station to a more 'cottage style' service station, then known as Mill Park Texaco.


Station on the corner of Mill Park, looking north from over the Golden Belt mill village.


Station on the corner of S. Elm and E. Main, after the conversion of Mill Park / Edgemont Park to a Colonial Stores supermarket.

The Mill Park 'brand' extended eastward to the cottage style Mill Park Pure Oil station, ~ two blocks east of this at the southeast corner of S. Alston Ave. and East Main St.

The station has been modified, filled in, added on to, and potentially veneered over the years - I don't have a good original picture of it, but it appears that its character was more in keeping with the chimney still evident protruding from the roof and the cool hipped roof over the east-west wing. I hope this character is revealed again someday.

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35.988679,-78.890155

951-953 EAST MAIN ST.

951-953 East Main, September 2007

951-953 was built in the mid-1920s; like many of the structures to its west, it replaced earlier frame mercantile structures.

1928
951 Brown Brothers and Holt
953 Edgemont Market

1933
953 Edgemont Market

1937
Vacant

1944
951: JE Gunter Hosiery Mill
953: Scott and Roberts dry cleaners

1952
951-3: Triangle Electric Motor Co, Inc. (repairs)

1955
951-3: Triangle Electric Motor Co, Inc. (repairs)
953 1/2: Union Hall - American Federation of Hosiery Workers (Branches 31 and 31-A), United Textile Workers of America (local 602), Textile Union of America (Locals 248A and 248B), Woodmen of the World (Highland Grove Auxiliary No. 267.)

1960:
951-953: Triangle Electric Motor Co, Inc. (repairs)

Of late, it primarily seems to incubate storefront churches; I don't think "Philly Fashions" is still around. As with its neighbors, I would love to see the return of storefront retail to this strip; however, one thing I've learned through experience (and shattering of my previous illusions) is that retailers - no matter how progressive the product or mission, how start-up-ish or cutting edge the entrepreneurs may be - are quite conservative when it comes down to their money and their business, which translates into location preferences that highly favor the west side of town, combined with parking desires that would do a Wal-Mart proud.

I don't blame them - there is a lot of rhetoric about transit and reducing the size of parking lots out there, but much of it evaporates in the moment a parent is trying to find a spot for their minivan full of progeny. Personally, I think people are more resourceful about parking than retailers give them credit for, but nobody wants to be the odd-store-out on parking availability.

It only particularly bothers me when the business rhetoric doesn't match the location - i.e., the Sustainability Store whose mission is to save the planet, care earnestly about their employees' pets, and to never stop being Concerned about the under-everythinged folks in Durham - as long as they can do it from somewhere south and west of ~Mangum St. - or wherever the latest Acceptability Line is in downtown Durham. At least the big grocery chains, etc. are somewhat more honest about it - just show them a census tract map to ID where the wealthy folk are, and that's where they'll be.


953 East Main, 11.13.10

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35.988684,-78.889463

943-949 EAST MAIN

943-947 East Main, 05.07.07

943-949 East Main appears to have been built in the mid-1920s, replacing earlier frame stores that stood on the site. The tenants varied significantly over the course of the mid 20th century.

1928
945 Edgemont Mercantile Co.
947 Crown Cafe
949 Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company

1933
943 Edward D. Glenn, Grocer
945 Parker's Drug Store
947 William Bros. Grocers

1937
943 Sham's Lunch
945 Parker's Drugstore
947-49 Edgemont Market, grocers

1944
943 Vacant
945 Durham Music Company (storage)
947-49 Edgemont Market, Grocers

1952
943 Hasco Company
945 Blue Flame gas co.
947-949 Edgemont Market

1955:
943 Hasco Company
945 Blue Flame gas co.
947-9: Vacant

1960:
943: Vacant
945: Porterfield Hardware
947-949: Triangle Electric Motor Co.

Although it is a single building composed of four bays, the leftmost (westernmost) 2 bays are subdivided parcels owned by two different owners. The rightmost (easternmost) 2 bays are owned by a single owner.

943-947 East Main, 11.13.10

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35.988813,-78.889599

933 EAST MAIN

11.13.10

933 East Main in 1919 housed Parker's Drug Store, run by Roland H. Parker. By 1923, it housed the Edgemont Candy Kitchen, run by either "GL Orthanos" or "Augustus L Orphanos", depending upon which page of the city directory you believe; he lived at 520 1/2 East Pettigrew St.

1933: Reeves Square Deal Cafe

1937: Lipscomb Bros. Barbers
1944: Lipscomb Bros. Barbers
1952: Vacant
1955: Vacant
1960: Kale Drug Co.

By the early 1990s, it served as offices for the Hayti Development Corporation, which I wrote a bit about here.


931-933 East Main, 03.28.03

In one of those try-devine-what-is-happening-from-the-tax-records, the building is now owned by DRJR Properties, i.e. John Runge and Darius Robustelli, who own "Carmine's Ristorane & Pizzeria" in Chapel Hill. They leased it in 2008 to Daniel Sams and Keith Yokley, for a total term of 5 years.

Nothing outwardly appears to be happening with the building.

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35.989033,-78.889976

931 EAST MAIN

931 East Main housed "The Morris Company" in 1919-1923, a "dry goods store" (which likely means that it primarily sold clothing) run by "Misses Ola and Valeria Morris."

1933: Harrington & Parker Grocers.

1952: Durham Forge and Welding
1955: "
1960: "

It currently houses Park West Barber School, which has been a welcome addition to the 900 block of East Main since ~2006. The presence of students and an active retail frontage help to enliven what is otherwise a too-quiet block face.

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35.989087,-78.890069

915-927 EAST MAIN

The Edgemont/Morning Glory commercial strip along the 900 block of East Main Street was actually subdivided into a commercial node at Elm Street and a commercial node at Morning Glory Ave., with 4 residential structures between the two.


1950s aerial, highly magnified, showing the 3 commercial buildings at the west end of the block, the 4 houses in the middle of the block, and the commercial structures at the east end of the block.

These residential structures - 915, 919, 923, and 927 East Main were probably built privately, rather than by either of the adjacent mills. Whether the larger structures were built as single family structures is not clear, but by the 1920s, they were clearly being used as rooming houses and apartments. Below, a sampling of residents from 1919-1960.

915:CC May | Mary Warren | Emma Godwin | Mary Warren | "Apartments" | "
919:GH Hux | AD Ezzell | Roxie Chappell | Roxie Chapell | Zora Evans | Andrew and Ella Ivey | "
923:Emily Hartsoe | GL Lipscomb | Maggie Scoggins | Magie Scoggins | Paul Dean | Sudie Tyndall | Sally Moore
927:None | GM O'Neal | Multiple | Katie Lee | Helen Self | "

The "Boarding House" or "Rooming House" is an interesting piece of 'shelter history' that, once common, seems to have mostly disappeared, other than the one-off room-to-rent in the back of someone's house. The differentiation, if it's unclear, from apartment houses is that the rooms would be private, but the common areas of the house would be shared in a boarding/rooming house. A boarding house may also have provided meals.

From having looked at many Durham city directories and photos, tracking the evolution and demise of the many large historic houses on the periphery of downtown, I can tell you that this seems to have been the most common evolution of the large Victorian single-family home in the period from 1910-1950, where the next generation of wealth had moved out to Duke Park, Forest Hills, and Hope Valley. I can speculate that this was simply an era of smaller town, higher trust, etc., that would have made people more comfortable with living in a house with long term renters (the owner often lived in the house and rented out the rooms.) These also appear to have been viewed as a scourge by many; one can imagine the temptation by an owner/landlord to squeeze as many people into such a house as possible, leading to overcrowding and poor living conditions. These were the genesis of various laws limiting the number of unrelated people that could live in a single home.

For many houses, this was an evolutionary step in their eventual economic obsolescence. Clearly with these houses, there was a demand for housing by mill workers and growth in the commercial character of the block that may have pushed these houses towards an apartment/rooming function earlier.

In later evolutions of this sort, we see the old large houses physically subdivided into multiple apartments. Even when done cheaply, as it almost always is, this is more expensive for the landlord (providing and maintaining separate plumbing, mechanical, electrical and fixtures for each apt.), and thus raises the rent need for each apartment versus a room. This was more typical of large house conversions in Old North Durham, Trinity Park, Trinity Heights, and Cleveland-Holloway.

By the 1960s, with the decline of the socioeconomic conditions in Edgemont, the houses had reached a point of economic decline that led to their demolition. In this 1960s photo, 923 is featured prominently. 927, which would have been to its right, has been demolished; a portion of 919, to its left, is visible.


(Courtesy Durham County Library)

919 and 923 were gone by 1993, and 915 soon after that point.


Bird's Eye view of 900 East Main St., undated, but likely early 1990s.

The city, having wrought particular destruction of its historic infrastructure in the 1960s and 70s, compounded its errors in the 1980s and 1990s by funding incompetent organizations to try to revitalize economically depressed areas. Thankfully, the city has largely moved away from this model, after these organizations failed repeatedly, squandering moderate to immense amounts of money. My opinion is that, when this was well-intended, it resulted from a desire to try to get 'two wins' out of one pot of money. Meaning, rather than hiring private sector experts to revitalize socioeconomically depressed areas - an immense challenge - the city hired inexperienced non-profits/private companies that were headed by politically well-connected owners/directors, in an effort to create economic development and jobs in the communities that lived in these neighborhoods.

With this inexperience, and an incredibly challenging problem, you can imagine the results, or lack thereof. Between 1995 and 2001, Hayti Development Corporation received $886,000 from the city to create economic development through construction of housing and retail businesses in Edgemont. They rented an office, put up some signs, touted development of grocery stores and various office/retail complexes along this strip, all of which amounted to - nothing. The money disappeared, and although HDC is still listed as the owner of some lots along this strip, the organization has been defunct for years.


915-923 East Main, 01.09.01


915-923 East Main, 01.09.01


915-923 East Main, 01.09.01

As a developer, I've certainly learned that development is very challenging - it costs a lot of other people's money (who expect to get it back,) and it is high risk for even the most experienced developers. I think it's, unfortunately, one of those things that a lot of people think they understand, because it is so tangible and seems so straightforward - just spend some money and build a building, right? - which leads to overconfidence, or a false sense of comfort on the part of both new developers and the public sector.

I think after these misadventures, the city loan scandal, Rolling Hills, etc. the sense that we can do job training for major development in economically-challenging neighborhoods by giving money to new developers that are underrepresented in the 'developer community' has been largely repudiated at this point - with the city approaching Rolling Hills and other economic development tasks in a far more prudent fashion than in the past.

But this itch still arises at times - because we would of course, like to see a more diverse population of developers, contractors, architects, CEOs, etc., and it's tempting to think we can kill two birds with one stone. Combined with an ongoing misperception that non-profits are somehow inherently more about the public good vs. private enrichment than the private sector is, we end up with a lot of public funds expended for very little end result. (When non-profits do what they are supposed to do and break out compensation for their directors/officers on their public record tax returns, the resulting information can be very helpful in dispelling the notion that non-profits are something more than just businesses.)

So this land remains vacant; the other HDC target, across the street (the former Colonial Stores/Goodwill parcel,) has been redeveloped by DHA. I hope that someday this land will see storefront retail and office/residential above, creating a truly architecturally double-sided urban street in Durham - a rarity.


915-927 East Main, 05.09.07


915-927 East Main, 11.13.10

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35.989404,-78.890609