501 South Duke Street

501 S. Duke (Durham County Library)

The building at the back of the Duke Mansion property (perhaps a caretaker's house/servant's quarters?) is visible to the left in this picture, taken of the southeast corner of Duke and Jackson.

The urban renewal 'study area' in Durham was quite large, encompassing essentially the entirety of downtown. While structures taken by urban renewal within the area of the current 'Loop' were selective, few structures were spared in the remainder of the 'study area.'

On the western side of downtown, Duke St. represented the urban renewal border. Structures on the east side of the street were taken, while the western side was not. 

501 South Duke Street, a small grocery store (Duke Street Grocery,) was likely built in the 1920s as a neighborhood grocery for the West End. It was demolished in the 1960s as part of the urban renewal project.

This land sat vacant for some period prior to construction of an office building sometime during the 1970s

1970s
(Courtesy NC Mutual Archives)

This block is currently a BB&T building - one of my least favorite buildings in downtown because of the huge amount of wasteful surface parking surrounding the entire building.