Downtown Durham, North Carolina is filled with old tobacco warehouses, more and more of them now being converted into hip lofts, offices, and retail shops. Durham’s renaissance has come slowly, and only after decades of dormancy. Native son Gayford Caston has a small shoe repair shop on Main Street. He’s open 7 days a week. When he’s not fixing torn leather on his old Singer sewing machine, replacing worn soles on his shoe jack, or erasing black marks on scuffed boots, Caston loves to chat, and reminisce about the old Durham, with his customers.

Gayford Caston, Main Shoe Repair Man, Durham, North Carolina from Jill Strauss on Vimeo.

Many thanks to Jill Strauss who produced this piece for “The Short Audio Documentary,” a course taught by John Biewen at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

You can also check out Jill’s photo slideshow, here.

We just finished a workshop with WNYC’s Radio Rookies Short Wave program in Flushing, Queens, NY. High school students from East-West School of International Studies and the Frank Sinatra High School for the Performing Arts created four portraits of Main Street – from memories of the “Flushing Pimp” to the search for the perfect steam bun.

Jesse and Kara caught up with Urban Omnibus to talk about how Mapping Main Street got started and the possibilities of using collaborative documentary as a tool for urban planning. Urban Omnibus is a dynamic website connecting journalists, architects, planners, designers, artist, activists, scholars and citizens all seeking to create a new kind of conversation about design and New York City.

The end of Main Street in San Luis, Ariz., is a border crossing station that connects the city to San Luis Rio Colorado in Mexico.

Our second story in the series airs today on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. It is about Main Street in San Luis, Arizona, which runs straight into the border with Mexico. Listen to it on NPR’s website.

Where can you inner-tube through snake infested waters directly under a local bar?  Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler share with New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth what it’s like to wade in the sometimes mysterious and exciting waters of radio production.