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Looking north up Willard St., 1950s. The unnuanced view of urban renewal was that it was perpetrated by one group or another for a singular reason - a racist motive, a profit motive - all recognizable themes that are easy to believe.

Looking northeast, 1937. The 200 block of North Roxboro was residential well into the mid-20th century - the Afton Inn was a large rooming/boarding house ("one of the better known in Durham" according to Wyatt Dixon) in this block, seen on the right with a two-story wrap-around porch. It appears to have been known as the "Lyon House" in an earlier...

Today will continue the theme of how I would have liked to have lived on Liberty St. once-upon-a-time. Until the late 60s, anyway. What a great tree at 319 Liberty. 319 Liberty St., 11.63 You guessed it. The city of Durham declared all of these houses blighted - a menace to society, really, and tore them all down. It was a campaign for more modern...

As mentioned yesterday, the 200 block of N. Queen wasn't cut through until after 1915; houses were then built along both sides of this street with a corner store and synagogue at the northern corners (previously profiled). 212 N. Queen., 11.63 In the early 1970s, these houses were demolished through urban renewal. This block of Queen St. was then closed to create more surface parking for the library and WTVD.

I.F. Hill, a city councilman from 1905-1909 and his wife Kate F. Hill lived in this house on the southwest corner of Queen St. and E. Main St. from the early decades of the 20th century. I.F. Hill was also an officer with the Homeland Investment Co. (Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Hood Street, originally called Parrish Place, was a street of large houses at the eastern edge of the East Downtown neighborhood anchored by mansions on East Main and Dillard Streets. Around 1900, the street was put through an area that had held JR Reams' tobacco prizery house. 1891 - the prizery house is labelled #28. Reams Ave. later became South...

As Durham is a relatively young town compared to Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, Raleigh, etc., there is a great deal of history in now-Durham County (originally Orange County) prior to the existence of Durham proper. While it may sometimes be tempting to think of it in the same way we think of colonial settlements, Durham's history is more that of multiple small settlements and farms that rather quickly consolidated around the opportunity presented by a new railroad line.

When Julian Carr established the Durham Hosiery Mill No. 1 (above), and the Golden Belt Hosiery Mill, he developed two communities - Edgemont and Morning Glory. At the center of those two communities, he developed a park (seen in the foreground above) with a baseball diamond, gazebo, trees, etc. This park was the center of the community - a place...

510 Holloway, likely 1960s. (Courtesy Herald-Sun) The R. Pearcy Reade house was built around 1900 by Mr. and Mrs. William B. McGary, who purchased the land from Julian Carr. Originally the house, like the others around it, was Victorian / Queen Anne in style. In 1909, R. Pearcy Reade purchased the house from the McGarys. In the late 1920s, he...