by Charly Mann

No place stays the same. Change is inevitable, yet we know that it is not always for the good. When I think of Chapel Hill, it is the downtown I knew so well from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. There was a charm, vitality, and originality to the place then that I loved and still cherish.

The site of out-of-business Carolina Movie Theater on Franklin Street. For more than 70 years it was the most popular and elegant theater in town.  

Huggin's Hardware on Franklin Street was much more than a hardware store. It had an array of unique items, and was Chapel Hill's favorite gift shop for more than thirty years. It also had the friendliest and most helpful sales staff in town. This ad is from December 1950. 

What made Chapel Hill then were its merchants, men and women who owned and operated more than 100 unique businesses that often stayed within the same family for generations. Each store was a treasure to the community, and the quality of service in each was exceptional. In most cases the owner of these businesses was an ever-present fixture in their establishment. For example, does anyone recall going by Varley's Clothing Store without seeing Bob Varley. And as far as I remember, the only time Maurice Juilan left his store, Julian's, was to have his ritual lunch at the Rat. Also Mac McGinty was always at McGinty's Sports Shop, Kemp Nye at Kemp's Record Store, Vic Huggins at Huggins' Hardware, Bob Rosenbacher at The Hub, Spero Dorton at The Goody Shop, and "Old Man" Lacock at Lacock's Shoe Store. And in those days Chapel Hill had a flavor that came from a handful of incredible family-owned and operated restaurants including The Porthole and the Ram's Head Ratskeller. The food in these places was great and highly affordable.

McGinty's Sport Shop had the best selection of atheletic gear in Chapel Hill for decades. They also had a great phonograph album selection. Before The Record Bar opened they were Kemp's Record Shop's main competitor. Their selection was 1/100 the size of Kemp's, but it was often more up to date. I bought several Kingston Trio albums from them in the early 1960s that Kemp's did not have.     

Lacock's Shoe Shop probably lasted longer than any other store on Franklin Street, opening in the early 1920s and remaining in business through the 1980s. In the beginning they made custom shoes by hand and eventually expanded into selling "pre-made" shoes. By the 1950's they were the leading shoe store in Chapel Hill, as well as the best shoe repair business anywhere. I often took in my Bass Weejuns there when they were totally worn out, and after a few days at Lacock's they were actually better than new. Over the years Lacock's tried adding some things to their business. In the 1930s they became the distributor for an electric three wheel automobile, and during the depression they bought and sold used clothes.

The single block of stores on Franklin Street between Columbia and Henderson Street represented the style, culture, and taste of the community. Here almost every Chapel Hillian dined, bought their clothes, books, drugs, records, and other necessities, and saw their movies. While it might seem that this would lead to a mass conformity in the town, the eclectic nature of the offerings actually enhanced the town's diversity.

Wallace Kuralt owned the Intimate Bookstore on Franklin Street from 1964 to 1999. It was the best bookstore in the South for most of those years. It had two floors filled with books on every subject, and bought and sold textbooks at the beginning of every semester. The store had a lot of character. The building was old when the Intimate moved in, and it had creeky wooden floors. Competiton from the major book chains forced the Intmate into bankruptcy in 1999. Wallace Kuralt died at the age of 64 in 2003.    

Foister's Camera Store opened for business in Chapel Hill in about 1910. They originally were a place where you would go to get your picture taken and then developed. By the 1920s they began selling cameras, and during the 1960s even had cameras you could borrow for free (of course Foisters was the only place that could develop your film.) They were always busy and had an extremely knowlegeable staff. In the 1960s they became the exclusive outlet for Sony televisions. They only had small portable sets in those days, but the picture on a Sony was far superior to any other brand. In 1971 I bought a "small" color portable Sony TV from Foisters for $300 (it weighed about 35 pounds and had a rabbit ear antenna for receiving the four channels that were then available in Chapel Hill).  The year I bought the set I was making $110 a week before taxes, which was a good income, but it is interesting to note a small TV cost me more than three weeks of my salary.

While the physical character of downtown Chapel Hill remains the same, what has changed is the community identity that came from being able to link each business with an owner who you knew and saw often. Like most towns the size of modern day Chapel Hill, sprawl has changed the character of downtown. Now there are more than half a dozen malls and strip centers in, or near, Chapel Hill where most shopping is done, and almost all these stores are chain stores, where one rarely even has an idea who the manager is.

This is an ad for the Ramshead Rathskeller in 1964. I actually loved their pizza, but I do not think there was anything on their menu I did not love. Their $1.20 large pizza was really big, and their small was enough for someone, like me, with a healthy appetite. No other business is missed more in Chapel Hill, and Chapel Hill Memories gets five to ten e-mails a month bemoaning its closure.

Ledbetter Pickard was another one of a kind store. They had a wonderful large selection of greeting cards and seemed to have everything else under the sun that was related to stationery. They had impeccable service and one could spend hours looking at their assortment of merchandise. It was also a very profitable business. One of the owners built the most magnificent house in the Greenwood neighborhood around 1959.

Today downtown Chapel Hill has a reputation for premium upscale restaurants that offer some of the best culinary delights in the Southeast, but these are not places where students, teenagers, or families can enjoy a great atmosphere, receive excellent service, and dine inexpensively like they once could.

This is an ad for Julian's College Shop from 1952. I was a loyal customer when I could afford Maurice's goods, from 1967 through 1988. In  those days did he never had a single sale. In 1950 Maurice Julian was indicted by the IRS for significantly under reporting his income tax owed to the federal goverment. In 1948 he had a gross income of $21,877.56. In those days few professors made $5,000 a year, and a very nice house in Chapel Hill would sell for about $12,000.  

This is the former location of Varley's Men's Clothing Store, and Schoolkid's Records from about 1976 to 2008. Schoolkids was the last record store on Franklin Street. For more than 60 years Chapel Hill was renowned for having some of the best and most innovative record stores in the world including The Record Bar, Kemp's, The Record and Tape Center, and Springfield Records. Many college towns like Berkeley and Austin still have very successful record (CD) stores in their downtowns.

One significant reason for these changes is that until the early 1970s most of affluent residents in Chapel Hill lived downtown, and the businesses on Franklin Street ingeniously appealed to not only their tastes and needs, but also those of cash-strapped UNC a college student.

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