Bellamy Apartments/ Mike's Transmission

Gary,

Agreed with your assessment that it'd be nice to see a different use here. I will say, FWIW, that I've used Mike for transmission work in the past and found it to be a great business that does very good work with terrific customer service, so one can hope that a good guy running a good business could eventually find the opportunity to move.

What I really wonder is, I wonder what State Senator Floyd "Here on Geer" McKissick Jr. thinks of having a transmission shop right across the street from his home at Geer and Mangum? I wonder what it must be like to walk out your door each morning and see the sight of a transmission shop right there? I wonder what he thinks when he comes home each and every night and looks at this business?

One can only wonder...

Kevin

I agree- I've had a bum transmission before, and I'm glad to have good businesses in Durham should the need arise again.

I'll have the Boone house up here sometime this week. I felt most fortunate that no one came out of the house to scold me for taking photos.

GK

While I am apt to join in the passing wish that the less visually attractive uses found in any city were somehow hidden, it does not seem reasonable to expect service industries like auto mechanics and the like to hide their valuable enterprises from public view.

When your business relies upon automobiles, is there any place more reasonable to site your business than along a thoroughfare?

Where would expect we a transmission service to be located?

TarHeelz

I think of N. Mangum as more than a thoroughfare. It is a neighborhood street as well, and therein lies the tension. The design of this structure/site treats N. Mangum as a thoroughfare, and only a thoroughfare. There are other locations in the city that don't have this dual role - Hillsborough Road west of Hillandale pops immediately to mind.

But also to be clear, I have less problem with the service use per se than the design. So build a new structure at the sidewalk line, with attractive landscaping, no barbed-wire-chain-link, and put the cars at the back of the lot rather than the front (although this doesn't work as well on a corner.)

I don't think those things are going to happen with a transmission shop, so I suggest that other service uses/mixed-use buildings might be a better fit for the neighborhood + thoroughfare.

GK

Having lived on a street with lots of service stations, I don't think it has to be such a bad thing.

I think I'd be happy here with just getting rid of the razor wire and chain link. I know that there's all sorts of "crime" problems on Mangum (I put it in quotes because I think the perception far outstretches the reality there), but the fence is really an eyesore.

The Bellamy Apartments were torn down long before the 1990's. I was looking for housing in that neighborhood in the early 1980's and I know they weren't there then. I would have remembered them, the way I remember the duplexs across the street that were torn down.

What a loss! It looks like a great building.

I lived in the Bellamy apartments from my birth in 1948 until approximately 1957 when my family moved north to Bragtown (Bon Air Avenue). Many fond memories from my childhood playing in the large paved parking area that was located behind Bellamy apartments. I remember a young lady named Daisy Garner who lived nearby and a fellow resident of Bellamy apartments, Stevie Rolland. I wonder what became of those folks.

Linthicum & Linthicum list the 'R.L. Bellamy House' in a Manufacturers Record of 1908, and the 1915 city directory puts Mr. Bellamy living in the Bellamy Apartments. Maybe one of theirs?