Downtown Durham

112 West Main Street

(Courtesy Durham County Library) 112 West Main St. was the initial homes of the Durham Book and Stationery Company. Like all of the buildings profiled thus far on the north side of West Main St., it was built in the mid-late 1910s, after the fire of 1914. The picture above was taken sometime during the late 1920s or early 1930s. Another shot, from...

205-207 North Church St.

(Courtesy Norman Williams Collection) (Courtesy Duke Archives) The buildings along the west side of the 200 block of North Church St. are a very-well preserved block of early 20th century structures. The Hicks building, on the northwest corner of North Church and East Parrish, and its immediate 3 neighbors to the north were constructed around 1910...

203 North Church Street

---- (Courtesy Duke Archives) The buildings along the west side of the 200 block of North Church St. are a very-well preserved block of early 20th century structures. The Hicks building, on the northwest corner of North Church and East Parrish, and its immediate 3 neighbors to the north were constructed around 1910. 209-211 North Church, at the...

201 North Church St. - Hicks Building

(Courtesy Duke Archives) The buildings along the west side of the 200 block of North Church St. are a very-well preserved block of early 20th century structures. The Hicks building, on the northwest corner of North Church and East Parrish, and its immediate 3 neighbors to the north were constructed around 1910. 209-211 North Church, at the northern end of the row, was constructed somewhat later, likely during the early 1920s.

119-123 Orange St.

Orange St. was, as the name implies, once a street - with older commercial structures along the western side of the street. Above, a fuzzy view of the western facades of Orange St. - behind First Baptist Church, 1924. Below, the view from December 1963, looking northwest on Orange St. Only a portion of 111-113-115 is visible on the left, but the...

105 S. Mangum St.

306 West Main Street

306 West Main was built circa 1906 by John Sprunt Hill. In the picture below, the second 3-story building moving right to left is 306 West Main - one of the last buildings surviving in this block - the Temple Building and 308 W. Main (flanking) being the others. It appears to have been a Western Union office. (Courtesy Duke Archives) By the 1950s...

216 Rigsbee Ave.

216 Rigsbee, on the right. (Courtesy Durham County Library) The once-residential area on Rigsbee developed from the tobacco warehouses south and from Mangum north during the 1920s. The house in the middle, now 204-208 Rigsbee, was demolished for parking (yep, even back in the 1920s.) The above photo shows the lot to the left of 216 Rigsbee from the...

111 West Parrish Street

Aside from the previously featured Nancy Grocery and 119-121 N Mangum (the two ends of the block) the south side of the 100 block of W. Parrish St. seems to have been rarely photographed. The Parrish St. side of the block extending through to W. Main St. was also badly damaged in the fire of 1914. Looking west, 1914; the south side of the street is...

109 West Chapel Hill Street

In 2011, the Durham Herald-Sun reported that chef Matt Kelly of the Vin Rouge restaurant on Hillsborough Road planned to purchase the building and renovate it as a tapas restaurant, which would be called "Mateo." As of early 2012, the building is under renovation, and the mid-century glass block in the upper windows has been replaced by 1 over 1...