1102 Wall Street

1984

1102 Wall Street is an example of the most common style of house built in the Golden Belt / Morning Glory mill village near the turn of the century - the "4 room house" as shown below, which originally would have had an outhouse, but later had a bathroom attached.

4 room house plan
(Courtesy John Martin)

Many of these houses had enclosure of front porches and other 'inset' spaces to provide expansion space, creating more boxy envelopes. Lots of them also had liberal application of faux stone asphalt siding, asbestos, and vinyl, as well as tiny replacement windows.

An oblique view of 1102 Wall and its identical neighbors on the right side of the street, 1990s.

This was the condition when Scientific Properties purchased the abandoned house in 2007. The inside had been used, um, liberally, by upstanding members of the community.

1102 Wall, January 2008.

While I have more disgusting pictures of what the interior looked like when we got it, this one summarizes the vibe well without turning the stomach. (Unless you've had a particularly bad experience with King Cobra - which probably encompasses any experience with King Cobra.)

1102 Wall, 01.04.08

We did an exterior renovation of the house with Jon Fish and Acanthus Construction and found a willing buyer with vision for the interior. Using CDBG funds from the city, we renovated the interior as well and sold it to the current owner occupant in January 2010.

1102 Wall, 09.22.10

There are numerous other "4 room style houses" in the neighborhood in variable condition. We've been trying for 3 years - through months of phone calls, two sealed bids that were thrown out for flimsy reasons, pleading to the DHA board, waiting through the HOPE VI revitalization plan revision and HUD-DC approval, and now waiting for HUD-Greensboro to do something that was supposedly going to take a week but has dragged on for 6 months - to purchase the persistently abandoned 1007 Morning Glory Ave. from the Durham Housing Authority. We've been under contract for 2 years. While I've had some complaint with DHA on this, my absolute greatest frustration lies with HUD, which has been more unhelpful and uncaring about owning abandoned historic housing in a neighborhood they are supposed to be revitalizing than even a cynic like me would have imagined. And I haven't been able to get an elected official - up to our congressional representation - to do a thing about it.