INC NEWS - Hikers discover history in landscape: 100-plus souls take Saturday walk into city's past, future (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Hikers discover history in landscape: 100-plus souls
take Saturday walk into city's past, future
Herald-Sun, 2 October 2005

Behind the public parking lot on Ninth Street, in the
broad grassy field that pushes the new Station Nine
apartments farther from coffee-scented trappings of
downtown, is a swatch of land that is a piece of
Durham's history. 

John Schelp, president of the Old West Durham
Neighborhood Association, says it is from that grassy
point that history fans can look out on every horizon
and see some remnant of the ever-changing array of
neighborhoods and communities that make up Durham's
past. 

Schelp calls the spot "a microcosm of the history of
Durham," needing only to gesture to each of the four
horizons to say just why. 

North of the nearby railroad, near Club Boulevard,
were the wealthiest of Durham's residents. South of
the railroad lived the poorest of both white and black
communities. 

East of that spot lived the wealthiest black residents
of Durham, namely those who benefited from the
bustling business of Parrish Street, Durham's "Black
Wall Street." 

Finding history in the landscape was the theme of an
"easy urban hike" Saturday morning, organized by the
Sierra Club and the Triangle Transit Authority. 

Schelp, a self-described local history buff, and the
TTA's Juanita Shearer-Swink helped to guide more than
100 people on a trek through Durham. The goal was to
shed light on Durham's past and help to answer
questions about Durham's future commuter rail. 

Schelp offered walkers a bounty of area trivia while
Shearer-Swink talked about the future of the 28 miles
of commuter rail, construction which TTA aims to
complete by 2009. 

Beginning at George's Garage on Ninth Street,
Shearer-Swink and Schelp led the hikers to the site of
the future Ninth Street rail stop, down a dirt road to
the Liggett Meyers development through the American
Tobacco Campus and past the East Coast Greenway to
another proposed rail stop, near Chapel Hill Street. 

Many walkers said they'd come to learn a little more
of Durham's colorful history. 

A recent immigrant, who asked not to be named, said he
went on the walk because he'd wondered about Durham's
past. 

"I walk and I think, these shops always look like they
have history," he said. 

Durham's Walter Jackson said he knew the city pretty
well, but went on the walk to see if there was any
history he didn't know. 

Other walkers, like Beth Silberman, hoped to learn
more about the commuter rail. 

Silberman, a 15-year resident of Durham, said she took
the walk because she wanted to show support for the
commuter rail. She said she thought a public rail
system would lighten the "horrendous" traffic. 

Silberman added that while she and her husband live
close to downtown and are within walking distance of
many places, her job involves going from house to
house. 

"I'm car-dependent," Silberman said, adding that
others could benefit from the rail. 

Shearer-Swink, project manager for the 12 stations of
the TTA's regional rail plan, emphasized that in terms
of the commuter rail, "The question is not if; it's
when." 

"I think there is a communitywide interest in how we
can define our future," she said, "... how we can make
transportation choices that are more sustainable...
The commuter rail is part of that puzzle."