FURNITURE STORE /UNION BUS TERMINAL/ "THE PALMS"

Ever wonder why Corcoran St. stopped at East Chapel Hill St. until the 2006-2007 link with Foster St.? Because Willie Mangum’s farm was in the way when the streets were laid out.

Looking north-northwest from Corcoran St. ~1890s.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

By the early 20th century, Willie’s farm had succumbed to development pressure, though.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The first three buildings in the 300 block of East Chapel Hill Street remain, outwardly, little changed from when they were first built in the 1910s. Although the shot above is really too blurry to make out much detail of the buildings on the northeast corner of Foster and E. Chapel Hill, this is their appearance in 1924, soon after the Washington Duke broke ground, looking northeast towards the Corcoran/East Chapel Hill/ Foster intersection.

Another partial view from later that year, looking northwest.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

This clearer view of the buildings looking north up Corcoran shows that the easternmost building was, like that profiled yesterday, a Holland Furniture building, built in 1914. The double building just to its west was the Liberty Cafe and the Union Bus Station.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

A bus loading across the street.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

Possibly a bit later shot shows a bit of the easternmost building, now Stockton-Hill Furniture.
(Courtesy Duke Archives, Wyat Dixon Collection)

A not very good shot to get a bit more of a look at the building on the corner, the Lyon Hardware Company, which you can just make out painted on the side of the building.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

The Liberty Cafe changed to the Palms Restaurant at some point in the 1930s, which was evidently the place to do business and be seen downtown. Steve Massengill says in his book that it was called “the bellybutton of Durham.”

Interior of the Palms, 1939.
(From “Images of America: Durham” by Stephen Massengill)

Below – diners at the Palms – enjoying some ice cream with their ‘sizzling steaks’ ~1938.

The Palms closed in 1983, but its logo remains in the entranceway.

305 E. Chapel Hill, 2007

The easternmost building went through a few more furniture permutations. From “Huntley’s” in 1965

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

And with a new logo in 1969

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The buildings in 2007, fairly well preserved, looking north from the former Corcoran St., now a plaza.

I keep hoping something interesting will happen with the building-of-a-thousand-furniture-stores. It’s been vacant for awhile – the owner is listed as “Empire Alliance Properties” which seems to be the same address as Empire Properties, Raleigh developers who have done many of the buildings in their downtown. Wade Penny sold the building to this group in August 2005 for $442,000. I was in there around that time, and again last summer for the big-blue-circle gig, and it doesn’t appear that any active renovation is going on. They have a good track record in Raleigh, so hopefully that means good things for this property. (They also own the two empty buildings just to the east, on the other side of E. Chapel Hill St., which I’ll be profiling next week.)

Update 3/15/07:
I don’t know if I missed this before, but Empire is preselling retail(first floor) and ofice upper floors of this building with a target date of Q4 2007 for the first floor and Q1 2008 for the upper.

KRAMER TOBACCO / KONTEK

The building(s) in today’s post represent the solutions to two Durham landscape mysteries that plagued me for awhile, now solved – but with an enduring question.

First the building below, which I noted in the Duke Archives last year. It was simply labelled as “Kramer Tobacco Company” with no location info. This, in and of itself was not terribly unusual – I’ve often managed to deduce the location of a building shot by something in the background of the photo, or, failing that, looking up the business name in one of the early city directories on microfilm at the main library (which is what I did for yesterday’s photo of the Waverly Ice Cream company).

(Courtesy Duke Archives)

When I looked up “Kramer Tobacco” though, it said the business was located on Parrish St. I knew I’d never seen an image of Parrish St. that included this building. So it remained a mystery to me for many months (as I tried to figure out whether there was a spot this building could hide on Parrish St.)

Finally, I stumbled upon an aerial shot – and I thought I recognized the distinctive facade of this building – I looked at the shot with a magnifying glass, and confirmed it. Here is a blown-up view of that aerial.

The one-story and two-story buildings were located just to the south of the Waverly Ice Cream company, on the east side of Holland St. They persisted in the current configuration until 1960, at least. Which leads me to my second mystery and enduring question.

Before I really knew that Holland St. had been a street at some point, I had been intrigued by the building below.

The Kontek building faces on “Holland Alley” as it is called – and I always found it cool that this funky building was, I thought, hidden in the middle of the block.

So – same spot as the Kramer Tobacco company. The enduring question – same building(s)? Although the outward appearance is not at all the same, the size/massing of the ‘backwards L’ shape seems to be in the exact spot of the original one-story, two-story building(s). There is also a little step-down on the roofline that appears similar. I think they could be – what do you think?

Kontek and Mutual Savings Bank, looking south on the former Holland St.

Update: 3/15/07
The nice folks at Kontek were kind enough to take me on a tour around the inside, and I would say that I left with a strong certainty that these are the same buildings. While the inside was redone as an impressive modern office space (with some very cool details) there are remaining elements, such as the original tin ceiling upstairs and exposed original beams and brickwork in the front stairway. I am also pretty certain that nothing of the original facade remains. The provided me with some nice shots taken from the Durham Centre.

Looking southeast from the Durham Centre at Holland and Morgan.
(Courtesy KONTEK Systems)

Looking southeast from the Durham Centre, tighter shot of the KONTEK builing.
(Courtesy KONTEK Systems)

WAVERLY ICE CREAM

(Courtesy Duke Archives)

The Waverly ice cream company stood on the east side of Holland St., facing the city market. Below, an aerial view of Holland St. in 1938, taken from the west looking east. Foster St. is in the foreground, with the Armory to the left, and Holland St. the next street to the east (into the background). The Piedmont furniture company is on Holland at the left edge of the picture, and the Waverly ice cream building is the first free-standing building moving to the right.

(Courtesy Duke Archives, Wyatt Dixon Collection)

(Also notable in the above picture is the demolition of the western half of the Hotel Corcoran, and the Center Theater under construction.)

By 1963, there was a GE repair center in this building.

Looking south, down Holland St., 1963.

While this building was not part of urban renewal, it was demolished sometime in the 1960s as well and became (and remains) surface parking – the official groundcover of the City of Durham.

Looking east from the former Holland St., 2007.

PIEDMONT FURNITURE/ HOLLAND AND MORGAN

Holland Street, like Roney, is another ‘lost street’ downtown, although more vestiges of it remain than Roney St. – although it is no longer really a street, it does still show up on maps as one.

Holland St. ran behind Holland Bros. furniture, on Foster St., and was fronted by several businesses on the east side of the street.

At the southeast corner of Morgan and Holland was Piedmont Furniture. Several furniture stores were located near Holland, Foster, and East Chapel Hill St.

Looking southeast, with a view down Holland St.

These buildings were taken by the city as part of urban renewal, and by 1969, the Piedmont Furniture store has a “Going Out of Business” sign.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)
Looking southeast, with a view down Morgan St.

The buildings were demolished soon thereafter, and by 1970, the landscape was a sea of surface parking, which it remains today.

Looking southeast from Morgan at the former corner of Holland St., 2007.

CITY MARKET / THE ARMORY

The northern portion of the site between Morgan, East Chapel Hill, Holland, and Foster Sts. was the site of a city market constructed around 1910. It is unclear if this market replaced the market that had been located in the Academy of Music or supplemented it – it is possible that when the “New Academy of Music” was constructed, the market was relocated to this location.

Below, a Sanborn map of the site from 1913 – oriented with west at the top. Watkins was later renamed Morgan St., and Ella renamed Holland.

Copyright Sanborn Fire Insurance Company

An aerial of this area from 1924 is the only picture I’ve been able to locate that shows a bit of the market building.

The Washington Duke hotel, under construction, is at the extreme left. The unique roofline of the DC May company is in the left background on Morgan, and the building at 226 Morgan is to its right (east.) Moving towards the foreground from that building, you can see the large roof of the market building, with an open air bay extending along the entire eastern facade (Holland St.) An interesting – almost Mission style – parapet appears to face Holland St.

From 1935 to 1937, the Durham Armory was built on the same site. It “incorporated elements of the city market”, but it is difficult to say how much or how little was included. It was the headquarters for the National Guard in Durham.

Durham Armory, 1950.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

In the late 1950s, the National Guard built a new complex at Carroll and Lakewood Sts. The former site was converted to the Durham Central Civic Center.

Durham Armory, 1963.

It remains a civic center today, used for a variety of community functions.

313-315 E CHAPEL HILL ST.

At the northern terminus of Corcoran at East Chapel Hill Street, across CHS from the Washington Duke Motel, is the northeast corner of East Chapel Hill St. and Holland St., where we’ve moved from Mansard to Modern to Launch Vehicle.

The building at 313-315 East Chapel Hill Street was constructed around 1907 as the Corcoran Hotel, but did not survive for long due to stiff competition from the other downtown hotels. It became Mercy Hosptial, then the Durham Business School.

From “Durham: Images of America” by Steve Massengill

From the Washington Duke Hotel, looking northeast, likely mid-1920s.
(Courtesy Duke Archives, Wyatt Dixon Collection)

From the corner of Corcoran and East Chapel Hill St., looking northeast. Probably a little bit later than the above picture, but before 1934, when the Post Office was built.
(Courtesy Duke Archives, Wyatt Dixon Collection)

The entrance

(Courtesy Duke Archives, Wyatt Dixon Collection)

The business school appears to have closed by the 1930s. The “Tip-Top Tavern” was located on the first floor during this era.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

As seen from the east, looking west from Rigsbee, mid-1930s.

From “Durham: A Pictorial History” by J. Kostyu

In the 1938, at least the 313 half of the building was torn down and replaced with a art deco/moderne movie theater known as the Center Theatre.

Looking east, Foster St. in the foreground. The Center Theater is under construction, and 315 E. Chapel Hill perists to its east.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

The Center Theater, completed. This picture is from about 1948, going by the movie title.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The Center Theatre around 1965, again by the movie title, looking northeast from Corcoran, near Chapel Hill St. Notice that the building immediately to the east has changed significantly.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

But by 1968, no more “Harlow”

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The building which replaced it, the Home Savings Bank, is what you get when you combine modernism with whimsical.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The same building today, now the Mutual Community Savings Bank

While I feel like I should dislike this building because of unclear openings for doors and windows, on most days I can’t help but like it. Unlike a lot of stolid modernism, this just seems sort of irrepressibly geeky, in that Revenge of the Nerds/Napoleon Dynamite kind of way.

The building immediately to the east of the bank may actually still be the original 315 East Chapel Hill St., albeit radically transformed. Visible around the window frames is brick, underneath the parged concrete exterior (on the sides.) Not much other clue, except for the general size and massing (minus the mansard roof.)

Looking northwest from East Chapel Hill St., 2007.