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.

See how the creative gears came together to bring Mapping Main Street to life, as Kara, Jesse and James share their insights and inspirations at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society lunch seminar.

There is a long Main Street in Portland proper. But we opted to take a quick peek at this Main Street right outside the city limits in Milwaukie, where the city stores all it’s transportation vehicles (including it’s de-icers). This light industrial zone was also home to a nest of birds atop this tower.

Main Street, Milwaukie (OR) from Jesse Shapins on Vimeo.

Main Street San Francisco from Jesse Shapins on Vimeo.

Constructing a bridge to nowhere?