INC NEWS - Barry Saunders: Duke, Durham & 9th Street (N&O)

[John Schelp]

Barry Saunders: Area needs stop-Gap measure 
N&O Durham News, 9 Dec 2006

There are two ways to know a neighborhood is about to
be destroyed: You hear a low, whistling sound overhead
-- followed by a KABOOM! -- or you see a sign on a
vacant building that says "Opening soon: The Gap."

There is nothing inherently insidious about the khakis
sold by The Gap. If they sold them in Really Big Boys
sizes, I'd buy some myself -- at the mall.

The problem with the arrival of such Yuppie outfitters
in neighborhoods is that the people who purchase their
pseudo-hip, overpriced wares are the same ones who
purchase pseudo-hip, overpriced coffee, pseudo-hip
overpriced furniture, pseudo-hip, overpriced jelly
beans.

As a Durham resident for more than a decade, I
consider the Ninth Street business district the Crown
Jewel of the Bull City, if not the state. With its mix
of bars, bookstores, bagel shops and restaurants,
among other things, it is the closest-to-avant-garde
section in the state.

(Of course, being considered the hippest street in
North Carolina is a distinction that ranks up there
with being called the second-best left-handed golfer
in El Segundo.)

Ninth Street's distinctiveness is more a sensibility
-- tie-dyed, perhaps -- than a tangible
characteristic. I ended up there my first week in
Durham and stopped by a diner where I had a bowl of
oatmeal with brown sugar, a meal that was so healthy
that I wouldn't have been surprised to see ol' Euell
Gibbons himself sitting next to me.

I later wandered into a bookstore to browse. After 15
minutes, I became strangely discombobulated. You see,
no aggressive clerk had stormed up to ask "May I help
you?" when what he really meant was, "Say Bub, you
gonna buy that or read the whole thing here?"

So impressed was I by the laidback attitude that I
purchased a book just to show my appreciation.

I also appreciate any area in which you can buy a
giant burrito at 4 a.m. -- the Cosmic Cantina -- and
then wash your clothes at a 24-hour laundrymat after
the burrito spills all over you. Let's hope the city
planners, as well as the folks over at Duke
University, appreciate it, too.

Duke officials need to realize that their retail and
restaurant plans along Anderson Street threaten not
only the Ninth Street merchants who welcome and depend
on Duke students for survival, but also the link to a
section of Durham that gives the school whatever
funkiness it possesses.

It would be a shame to see Duke or Durham have such
distinctiveness gentrified right out of Ninth Street.