111 North Duke St.

brilliant photo - kids standing still on swings on a hill - sure cure - no dope - 12 kids per slide - tobacco shed - no fire ants - nice elm

tt

Interesting -- I wonder if it's safe to assume that the (failed) developers of "The Playground" recreation/bar/whatever venue had this history in mind when they started their effort to renovate northernmost section of this building set.

If you drive down Morgan St., you can see the white patch of paint on the northern wall where "ThePlayground.com" (or something like that) used to be painted in several colors.

I remember seeing some of the presumed developers walking the property with some of their contractors, a year or two ago. I feel for their expired dreams.

The windows in this building now say "for rent."

I used to joke that the land must have been some old Indian burial ground, which would explain why businesses there always failed -- from the Weeping Radish to Steve and Clark's and whatever else was before/after/in-between.

Todd

Pretty cool, huh? I have one more pic of it that I'll use next week.

Phil

Ya know, that's pretty interesting; I never considered that the Playground non-starter might have actually known about the original playground (perhaps because, at the time that sign persisted for a year or so with no follow-through, I didn't know about the playground.) Maybe so - or maybe just coincidence.

I'll talk about the long series of restaurants in the next building to the north next week.

GK

In the last photo dated 12-17-07, the mauve looking building was part of the Dodge dealership that face Main St. The building next to it on the corner of Main and Duke Streets was Brunson's Inc. Brunsons was the largest appliance/TV dealership in the area . They moved from Chapel Hill street in late 1960's when the Express Way was starting construction . I belive they stayed in business until the early 1980's .Brunson's also had several other stores , including a tire/auto repair on Main St and one on Morgan. They also hadseveral others. The building with the Studebaker sign facing Duke St, was Brunson's TV/apllicane repair center( again the largets in the area0 from the early 1970's until Brunson's closed . It would be nice to see you do a story on Brunson's since they were in business a long time and were the largest of it's kind in the Durham area.

Anonymous,
there is some coverage of Brunson's/Durham Ice Cream, back in 2006:
http://endangereddurham.blogspot.com/2006/11/durham-ice-cream-company.html

Gary,
I am curious as to why the street-level spaces in the Studebaker and adjacent building to the north are still vacant. Although, it seems as far back as I can remember (growing up on Englewood in the early 1980s) those buildings seemed to be a revolving door for retail/restaurant tenants.

Finally, I have to than the dearly-departed (?) Blazer Manpurse for identifying 114 N. Duke Street, the "Ingram Collection." I am curious as to how much enjoyment Bob can get out his "rare" Porsches, given the condition of most of Durham's surface streets and the steep gutter cuts that this city seems to pride itself in.

Great post. Check out these links for pics and floorplans of the Studebaker Building:

http://studebakerbuilding.com/
http://studebakerbuilding.com/images/115_N_Duke_flyer.pdf

Anonymous 2:

As "duke university" mentioned, I covered the Durham Ice Cream company building that housed Brunson's at this post.

although I didn't know much about the store, so thanks for the additional info. Feel free to email me with more. I also covered their W. Chapel Hill St. Building here.

Just an additional note - from time to time I've had people comment that I neglected their favored business or spot. I assure you that I don't seek to give short shrift to any particular use of a buiding. If I didn't mention something, I probably don't know about it - and I welcome the additional info from folks in the community to help fill in gaps in my knowledge.

By "Dodge Dealership on Main St." do you mean the current Fishmonger's building?

GK

Although I think the developers of these two huge interconnected buildings had the right idea to split the space up for multiple tenants, I think it's been difficult to fill up those ground floor retail spaces for several reasons.

There is no off-street parking dedicated to this building and very little adjacent on-street parking (a few spaces on Duke, none on Morgan). Prospective retail and restaurant tenants want convenient parking, and the owners of Brightleaf Square have it all locked up.

This block of Duke Street is also a virtual no man's land. You've got the blank walls of the now vacant Liggett research lab on the east side and the ass end of Toreros - with ever present bags of trash, grease receptacle etc. - on the west. The exotic car collection/private garage or whatever it isn't particularly welcoming or interesting either.

You'd think there would be a lot of foot traffic from Bullington and West Village to Brightleaf/J.Joyce/Federal down this block, but I don't ever see it. I think pedestrians avoid this dead zone and cut through the parking lot to the west.

It will be interesting to see what impacts the renovation of the research lab and the West Village streetscape project have here.

Gary , I had not seen your previous covers for Brunson's . You do a great job with this site . I visit most evry day . I grew up in Durham and it informs me and brings back memories lost . I didn't mean to infer that you did not cover something, just trying to bring information to light.
Fishmongers was the main street site of the showroom for the Dodge dealership. Also the last building in the group was JM Mathis co. It sold to small stores things like candy ,cigars ect."Anonymos 2"

The Dodge dealership was Ilderton Dodge. As I recall, it went out of business in the seventies when Chrysler itself nearly went bankrupt and was saved by a federal bailout. As usual, I could be off on the timing.

Sorry, I didn't realize that I was signed in under a Google-Analytics account, for work. Obviously, I was not speaking on behalf of Duke, it's administrators or students. (Oops)

'Anon 2'

Thanks - and thank you again for the additional info - I've updated this post and the Durham Ice Cream one with what you provided me. No negativity intended - I just want folks to know that I certainly don't miss things/not cover things intentionally.

GK

The current Duke St streetscape (the stretch from the Duke St side of Torerros and down to the intersection at the DSS) is a posterchild for why underground electric utilities are important. This particular photo doesn't show the real ugliness of it. Next time you ride down there, look up above the grease bins and the dumpster, and you will see what I'm talking about. It's a real eyesore.

AMS

I love reading your blog - it's really neat to see the rich history of Durham laid out in buildings and pictures. It might be helpful for some of us who are newer to the area to have a small map... it would help me visualize exactly where you are talking about to compare to what is now there! Thanks!

Anon

On newer posts than this, I post a link to a google map of the location. I haven't gone back to the older posts to add this. You can also use the "Endangered Durham Map" on the sidebar to see all posts geographically.

GK