219-225 Foster Street

 

 

The 200 Block of Foster St. developed as a commercial/light industrial area which supplanted several residences in the northern portion of the block at the turn of the century. 219-225 Foster was built in the early 1920s as a set of fairly typical commercial storefronts.

This aerial view from 1938 shows the rear of the structures in the 200 block, with the Armory to the left (north). Roney St. is in the foreground. Running through the middle of the block was a auto service area called the Lyon garage.

(Courtesy Duke Archives, Wyatt Dixon Collection.

By the late 1940s, the Model Laundry had remodeled their original building and expanded their plant.

Looking northwest on Foster, 1949
 

219 Foster Street, 1963, home of Scarboro's TV and Appliance.

221-223 Foster Street, 1963, home of Scott Tailor and WM Hunt Plumbing and Heating Co.

225 Foster Street, 1963 - George J. Poe, Nationwide Insurance, and David L Cope, Office Supplies.

227 Foster Street, 1963, a parking lot, looking northwest. The DC May Company (400 block of Morgan) and the Imperial Tobacco Company buildings are in the background.

 

These buildings were demolished as part of Urban Renewal in the mid-1960s. Most of the northern portion (north of the East Chapel Hill St. storefronts) sat vacant until the development of the Omni Hotel and the Civic Center Plaza in 1986.

The 200 block of Foster, now the ever-so-welcoming entrance to the Marriott, looking west-southwest, 2007.

The corner of Foster and Morgan, looking northwest, 2007.