HSS 105 Timion Meijs: The Mendenhall Muddle

Hey everybody,

In the class on Thursday, September 17 we visited Greensboro College and Mendenhall Street. In this post infill in this part of Greensboro over the years. Infill means that something new replaces the building/land there was before on that place.

The area on and around Greensboro had different names in the past years: Piety Hill, West End and the current name for this area is College Hill. I will explain why those names are chosen. A long time ago the methodist church of Greensboro established Greensboro College as a religious (methodist) school. Since piety means religiousness, this name is declared. The second name is West End, because the government of the city didn't think that Piety Hill was a good name to hold. This is because they didn't want the city to be too religious in its charisma. There also had to be freedom of religion. College Hill is the last name for this area. Hill stands for 'just oudside downtown' and it is exactly the area between UNC Greensboro and Greensboro College, so it is not strange that it is called College Hill.

Then Mendenhall Street. The pink house is the oldest house in this street. It is build in an Italian style, what is known as italianate. It looks great and the details are precise, what is characteristic for this style and for older houses (in Greensboro) in general. The windows are shaped more vertically than in the most other houses.
Two houses further down is a house that is made of brick. This one is newer than the pink house (is built in 1910's). You can see this, because the details are rougher and the building looks more functional than classical.
Number 115 on Mendenhall Street is the newest house of the street. You can become aware of this by noticing that this house faces the side, so it doesn't face Mendenhall Street directly.
Further down the street there is a house that is made of brick and has a flat roof. It serves as an appartment now. That is an example of an infill, because the land is used to create more living space. The building is related to the building across the street. This one looks almost exactly the same and has the same function.
There is also a setback on Mendenhall Street. A path leads to the house that is obviously newer dan the surrounding houses.
Further down the road you can discover a big church. It was built on the place where a couple of houses used to be, so this is an example of a church infill. Across the road is a parking lot for the church that also took the place of a few houses.
Across the street from the parking lot there is a house that used to be a firehouse. That became clear to me when I saw the (kind of) front porch. There is a little round-shaped entrance, where firetruck used to stay and drove in and out. This is also an infill.
Furthermore, there is a nice story about why the stores on Mendenhall Street all are located towards the crossing with Spring Garden Street. I heard that there, several years ago, drove a trolly bus. In the trolly where, of course, potential consumers. That is the reason that store owners wanted to locate their store as close to Spring Garden Street as possible.