Clothing Store

The Wright Corner / Main And Corcoran - Sw

One of the earliest mixed-purpose office buildings in Durham, Richard Wright's "Wright's Corner" survived in modified form until 1961.

712 Ninth Street

Looking northeast, 12.18.69 (Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper) The only frame building remaining on Ninth St., the store at 712 Ninth St. appears to have been built around 1930 as Paul's Place restaurant. By the 1950s, the business had become O'Briant's Restaurant. O'Briant's, looking south, 12.18.69.

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...

109 W. Parrish St.

109 West Parrish Street is actually the same structure as 112 West Main Street. The structure was built after the previous building on the site was destroyed/mostly destroyed in the 1914 fire. Looking west, 1914; the south side of the street is on the left. (I had not realized what an impressive terminating vista the Academy of Music once was at...

116 West Main St. / Merchants Bank

The Bossom-designed Merchants Bank building, built after the fire of 1914, was a beautiful neoclassical structure that later housed the Hood Industrial Bank and First Union Bank. Sadly, the beautiful facade was entirely removed in the 1960s when First Union moved.

2017 Chapel Hill Road

(Below in italics is from the 2003 Lakewood Park National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.) Commercial Building. One-story brick veneer commercial building with a flat roof and a raised basement. A metal shed porch shelters the two glass storefronts. Current occupants are Lakewood Laundry and Rocks Pawn Bail Bonds. From...

3009 Fayetteville St.

07.04.06 (Courtesy Lisa Brockmeier)

116-118 South Mangum Street

116-118 S. Mangum, 01.66 Durham's often-noted rough-around-the-edges reputation is nothing new - in the mid-to-late 19th century, the town was well known for its multiple saloons - the place where students from the University of North Carolina would come for some less-than-genteel entertainment (many of them would disembark from the train in Durham...

122-126 Morgan Street

Moving west to east: 126 Morgan, 1966 122 Morgan, 1966 Today's post is a historic illustration of an architectural type that I've advocated many times before - the liner building. The large Brick Star warehouse at Morgan and Rigsbee was 'square' to Rigsbee St., where Morgan St. curved to the south as it headed east away from Rigsbee. This formed a...

106-110 West Main St.

The intersection of Main St. and Mangum St. could be considered the center of Durham. Except for the rather odd Chapel Hill St., Main St. forms the dividing line between "North" and "South" streets, and Mangum St. the dividing line between "East" and "West" streets.