530 Warren Street / 607 Willard Street

35.993504, -78.907439

530
Durham
NC
Cross Street
Year built
1890-1920
Year demolished
1967
Construction type
Neighborhood
Building Type
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530 Warren, 1965
(Courtesy Durham County Library)


607 Willard, 1965
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The long western side of the 500 block of Warren St. (because Yancey went no further east than Willard) stretched between Willard and Jackson Streets.


500 block of Willard, looking northwest, ~1950. 530 Warren / 607 Willard is visible just beyond the 'point' of the triangle.
(Courtesy Herald Sun)

530 Warren / 607 Willard was a bit of an unusual house - a sprawling single story that stretched between Willard and Warren with multiple dormer windows.



These houses were torn down by the city of Durham in 1967 using urban renewal funds. Warren Street was closed and absorbed into a giant parcel that became the Alexander Ford Car Dealership.


Approximate location of the west side of the 500 block of Warren Street, 02.10.08.

Comments

Seeing these photos, from this now extinct neighborhood, really underscores that fact that Durham was really like so many other towns in North Carolina. This type of architecture is still very prevalent in the eastern part of our state, towns without huge "urban renewal" budgets didn't remove all their ecletic housing. Ironically its neighborhoods like this one that are now driving urban restoration and are considered jewels in other urban areas. These losses of middle income sturdy housing stock are very sad, especially when one thinks about what replaced them and where the residents were forced to move. Alas!

dtd

Somehow replacing a neighborhood of houses that could have been restored with a huge car dealership in the middle of town does not seem like a worthy example of urban renewal.

MK

Indeed. And if you can find a worthy example of urban renewal perpetrated by the Urban Renewal program, I'd be surprised.

GK

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