Monday, November 1, 2010

Won’t you be my neighbor?

Welcome to the Third Annual Cleveland-Holloway Home Tour!

11am-3pm on Saturday, November 6th

The self-guided tour begins at 501 Oakwood Ave


Around 1890 the city of Durham expanded its boundaries to include our neighborhood. Homes built here were for merchants, and factory workers-- largely Greek and Russian Jews who had immigrated to the area for work. Between the 1940s and 1960s the area gradually became a predominantly African-American community.

Unfortunately a variety of forces, including redlining (banks would not lend money in African-American neighborhoods) and urban flight resulted in a period of disinvestment in downtown Durham and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Despite this sustained period of scant resources and investment many of our residents have called the neighborhood home for 20 and some 40 years, and recently there has been much cause for celebration!

By 2009 the entire neighborhood was granted National and State historic district status, offering tax credits for the rehabilitation of homes. Cleveland and Holloway Streets have local historic district status, which offers protections-- the rest of the neighborhood is under consideration by the City for the same.

Things are happening fast in Cleveland-Holloway. Since our first home tour in May 2008, over thirty homes have experienced, or are undergoing, substantial rehabilitation. The list goes on: two new homes have been built on vacant lots; mixed-use residential development project in downtown Durham has been built by Center Studio Architecture at Mangum 506; Wendy Clark has rehabbed the John O’Daniel building as a business incubator; and Triangle Brewing Company has set-up shop in one of the large warehouses near SEEDS.

We have a vibrant neighborhood organization, an active list serve, and a neighborhood blog.

We would love for you to buy one of our available homes and to call YOU neighbor.

2 comments:

Courtney James said...

Do you have a date yet for the 2011 Home Tour?

matt dudek said...

Courtney, we're working on setting a new date for this summer some time right now. We'll post something on the blog when we have a date!

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