209 Foster Street

35.997546, -78.901809

209
Durham
NC
Year built
1920
Year demolished
1930-1938
Neighborhood
Building Type
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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. The block was also the home of the Model Laundry by the 1920s.

209 Foster Street, 1920s.

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 an auto service area called the Lyon garage.

 

Courtesy Duke Archives, Wyatt Dixon Collection.
The Lyon garage ~1950, looking west-northwest with the Carolina Theatre in the background.

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

Looking northwest on Foster, 1949

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.

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