CLUB BOULEVARD SCHOOL

Rendering of Club Boulevard School, 1949.

Club Boulevard School was built in 1950 - per the school website, Club Boulevard School was built in response to population growth after WWII, rapid development in Northgate Park, as well as overcrowding at George Watts and North Durham Schools.

The 5.6 acre site at Glendale Avenue and Club Boulevard was developed per the architectural design of Marion Ham - among the earliest schools in Durham to exhibit Modern architecture. Ham also designed 1223 Vickers Avenue that same year, and would go on to design the NC Mutual Life Building, built in 1964-5 - an award-winning modern design that was later sullied by the failure of its cantilevered corners.

Per the Club Blvd. website, "the original building cost $300,000 and was the first one-story school in the county. It consisted of the primary wing, which included the media center, the auditorium and the cafeteria."

Club first opened its doors in November 1950; the rear section of the school was added on in 1954, at a cost of $125,000.


Club Boulevard School, 1953

Per the school website:

"In 1970, Club Boulevard was paired with East End School. Children in grades 1-3 attended East End and those in grades 4-6 attended Club. Twelve years later, the school grades were reorganized, and since then Club Boulevard has served students from kindergarten through the fifth grade. School enrollment peaked in 1966 with a total population of 607 students and 20 teachers."

In June 1994, Club Boulevard Elementary became a magnet school and was renamed Club Boulevard Humanities Magnet School.

At some point an architecturally unfortunate addition attached itself to the front of the school like a brick-and-mortar alien facehugger. While I am sure that it is quite functional, and the materials match, it leaves the previously interesting architecture a blocky mess. It's unfortunately typical of most of our schools in this country (I don't mean to pick on Club Blvd. in particular) - once stately structures that have been reduced to the worst in institutional architecture - like hospitals, but without the money to afford all of the glass and shiny steel.


Looking northwest, 05.22.10.


Looking northeast, 06.26.10.

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36.019184,-78.897071

WEST CLUB AND ARBOR

West Club Blvd., east from Arbor Street, May 1938
(Courtesy Duke Forest Collection)


West Club Blvd., east from ~somewhere around where Arbor St. used to be., 06.26.10
(Copyright Endangered Durham)



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36.018266,-78.897835

NATURE / CHILDREN'S MUSEUM - NORTHGATE PARK

Children's Museum, Northgate Park at West Lavender Ave., 07.09.46.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

The denizens of Northgate Park are celebrating their park's 70th anniversary this week, and thus I'll pop a bit farther west to highlight the original Children's Museum in Northgate Park. The origins of the Museum of Life and Science began with the establishment of a small children's museum on Lavender Avenue in Northgate Park. The museum's website notes that it established in 1946 by a "group of dedicated volunteers." The museum seems to have begun with a particular focus on the natural sciences, and quickly established a small collection of fossils and, it seems, taxiderm-ized animals.


Interior of the Children's Museum at Northgate Park, 07.09.46
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

It seems that the museum quickly outgrew its original location, and moved that same year to the former Hester House on Georgia Avenue, where it stayed until 1961 - when it moved back to the Northgate Park area, to its current home as the Museum of Life and Science on Murray Avenue.

I was delighted to discover that the original building is still standing in Northgate Park - I don't know what it's currently used for. Seems like it could be a great small community center for the neighborhood.


Former Children's Museum, Northgate Park (404 West Lavender Ave.), 05.23.10

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36.023047,-78.897444