Boy, I haven't posted a photo thread in a long time. But I'm feeling the itch, so let's kick off a thread series with a quick Durham post. It's easy and short.
The first half of 2019 was the most
North Carolina-y of my life. Between January and the 4th of July, I visited the state on 5 separate occasions, all to different destinations. I was in Duck, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Raleigh, Asheville, and Durham.
NC cities are interesting in a sort of unique way. 100 years ago none of them were large. There were *zero* NC cities among the 100 largest in the US from the Civil War until World War 2. The entire state was basically absent from the era of most extreme urbanization in American history. As a result, today NC has a ton of medium-sized metro areas that all have small cores, surrounded by surburbia. Population doesn't really predict what you'll find in terms of urbanity, the way you'd expect it to.
Here's Durham
Railroad tracks run right through the middle of town. They make for nice views, but cut the city in two.
Durham's tallest building, the 356'
University Tower, is out in the suburbs. Downtown tops out in the 200-300' range, with this 1937 art deco building and 2018 residential tower dominating the center of town.
The downtown core is pretty intact in terms of urbanism. That is to say, it's not overrun with parking lots like some cities. And it has a nice mix of architecture.
But it's also tiny, and pretty quiet. This was on the late end of lunchtime on a Monday.
The tall 2018 residential tower preserved the historic facades along one side. It's a nice effect.
Off to one side of downtown there's a warehouse district. I was only in Durham a couple hours and didn't get much chance to explore this part.
The warehouse district is where you'll find Durham's train station. It's a converted warehouse building.
North Carolina has better Amtrak service than you might expect, compared to most other southern or interior states. Certainly nothing like the northeast, but it does at least exist. The state subsidizes an NC-only route that increases the number of trains significantly beyond what it would have based on long-haul lines only.
On the other side of the tracks you'll find Durham's main bus station.
Durham and Raleigh (and some other cities nearby) all have separate bus systems, but recently they semi-merged into a semi-unified brand.
The old buses look like this:
The new ones look like this. In Raleigh they say "Go Raleigh" and are red instead of blue:
Regardless, the scooters are here too:
The end.
Expect more threads whenever I get photos off my camera and feel like posting :-)