Greensboro: 1045 West Market Street Is Now 1015 West Market Street

Today's post is prompted by the above post card of the Manor Motel. The motel was located at 1045 West Market Street, across from the State Employees Credit Union at Tate Street. According to the post card, Manor Motel was a quiet and restful room with TV, telephone, tile baths, room controlled air-conditioning, heat, and a swimming and wading pool. It was owned and managed by Mr. and Mrs. S.T. Dickinson. Mrs. Dickinson was a teacher in the Greensboro City Schools and at Smith High School when Smith High opened.

On p. 105 of her book "Greensboro," Gayle Hicks Fripp, writes and provides photos that reveal the Manor Motel was demolished by D.H. Griffin to be replaced with a new location for the Central Y, a change that was not without resistance by the local College Hill Community. Construction, by the W.H. Weaver Company, would have happened in the late 60s-early 70s.

The top photo shows the building on now the former Manor Motel site. The Central YMCA became the Royce Reynolds Family Student Life Center, the westernmost building on the campus of Greensboro College. Royce and Jane Reynolds donated $2 million dollars to Greensboro College, where Royce Reynolds was also chairman of the board of trustees. 

So, what was an elegant mansion just west of downtown Greensboro, became a motel, which was replaced by a YMCA, which became a student life center at Greensboro College. When 1045 West Market Street was demolished, the current building on the lot is now 1015, the last property on that side of the 1000 block. Those who are lifelong residents of Greensboro, and are senior citizens, may remember the Dickinsons, the Manor Motel, the Central Y, and the opening of the Reynolds Student Life Center. For us, putting the pieces together involved much sleuthing. We found a vintage postcard, searched the Fripp book on Greensboro, and talked to a long-retired educator who knew of Mrs. Dickinson. Our friend called a retired Smith High School teacher, who called a friend who remembered Ms. Dickinson in the early years of Smith High School (circa 1963). It is so easy for this information to slip away from us and so special when people document and share the stories of their community.

Comments

[Jane T. Mitchell]

All your sleuthing was well worth the effort. It is important to keep this history.