121-125 Morgan Street

35.997884, -78.899447

121-125
Morgan Street
Durham
NC
Year built
1920-1930
Year demolished
1967-1970
Construction type
Masonry
Neighborhood
Downtown Central
Building Type
Commercial
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123-125 Morgan St., 1966


121 Morgan St., 1966
(Courtesy Durham County Library)
 

Looking northeast, 1960. The intersection of Rigsbee and East Chapel Hill St. is in the lower right hand corner, and the intersection of Rigsbee and Morgan St. is near the lower left hand corner. Morgan St. curves to the east to meet North Mangum St., where it ends.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

The 100 block of Morgan St. transitioned from residential to commercial use in the 1920s - primarily service-related businesses catering to the tobacco warehouse district to the north, and other light industrial uses


Durham Chero-Cola Bottlers at 115 Morgan, 1925

Some of the buildings in the 100 block of Morgan Street (South) were torn down during the early 1960s for increasing demands for parking. This building was torn down in the late 1960s using urban renewal funds, and with other parcels, turned into a big sea of city-owned surface parking.


Looking northeast, 2007.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The individual parcels actually remain, although they are owned by the city. The city should, in my opinion, begin to sell these off to private developers with design covenants on the property to create a street frontage on Morgan. This is actually a relatively rare spot in the city where we have a bunch of developable parcels fronted by reasonably sized street trees. Now, I'm not giving up my official loop-loathing credentials, but the path of Morgan isn't going to change here. If anything it should be narrowed. So develop the lots, retain the trees, and fix the loop as soon as it is feasible.

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Comments

Submitted by John Martin (not verified) on Thu, 7/12/2007 - 3:23am

Wow, in the first picture you can still see some large houses on Mangum Street. Some of them must have been torn down when the loop was. . .(I don't want to say built for anything as destructive as the loop) inflicted. But there is a particularly large house in the top/center of the first picture on the west side of Mangum. Any idea what that was?

As I look at the picture more, I am wondering if it isn't earlier than 1960. The cars, admittedly small, look older than that.

Submitted by Gary (not verified) on Thu, 7/12/2007 - 11:04am

John

I believe it was a private home - I don't have any great pictures of that house, although I do have partial views from a couple of angles. You'll see it again in a couple of days when I do the gas station.

Re: date - the picture was labelled 1960, but the dates are not infrequently wrong. Looking at the larger picture (from which I cropped this,) I can say definitively that it is after 1945. The land transfers for the auto/tire dealerships on the corner of Morgan and Rigsbee happened in 1950 and 1954, so I'm guessing it is after 1950. There is also one facade covering on Main St., which I don't think was around prior to the 1950s.

So, without really knowing the cars very well (Paul - are you out there?) I'd guess that this is sometime in the 1950s, probably after 1954.

However, the houses on Mangum, including the large one you mention, were still around into the 1960s. That one in particular was still present in 1966.

Urban renewal took out a wide enough swath to build the Loop through this section - clearing both sides of the street and the A&P that was in its future path just out of the frame to the right (east.)

GK

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 7/13/2007 - 12:59am

The trees in the last photo look like Bradford Pear trees. If that is the case, they won't be there long. After 15 years or so, the limbs on a BP tree get too heavy and start breaking off during snow, ice, and wind storms. So I'm not so sure they add that much value to the property.

bj

Submitted by Gary (not verified) on Fri, 7/13/2007 - 1:04am

bj

I don't think they are Bradford Pear trees. I thought they were as well and had the same thought, but looking at the leaves after I took the pictures, they were different than BP leaves. I am not sure what they are, though.

GK

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