Wilmington’s Compton Park Apartments added to National Register of Historic Places
Compton Park Apartments, on the corner of North Walnut and East 7th streets in Wilmington, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on Nov. 1, 2024. Significant for its association with community planning and development, along with architecture, Compton Park Apartments
This property includes five contributing buildings, all of which are three stories and constructed mainly of brick and stucco. The buildings were designed in the Modern style by architect Theodore Brandow, and were built as part of the Compton Village “urban renewal” project between 1967 and 1968. The buildings, which house 55 apartments, sit on a single parcel despite having five separate addresses.
The complex was part of a project in Wilmington’s East Side, led by Wilmington builder Leon N. Weiner, aimed at creating a racially integrated, middle-class neighborhood in an era of urban decline. But the construction of Compton Village itself led to the displacement of many poor Black families during the clearing of the area for redevelopment. Still, this apartment complex would be seen as a success: Initially, about two-thirds of the residents were Black and one-third were white, making the Compton Park Apartments a model of racial coexistence in an era when battles over integration in housing were being fought in cities across the country. The complex also helped dispel the idea at the time that middle-income whites were needed to make urban renewal a success; there was demand for housing among Wilmington’s middle-income Black residents, too.
The L-shaped property of the Compton Park Apartments wraps around the historic Bethel A.M.E. Church and can be found just east of Wilmington’s downtown commercial area. The rectangular apartment buildings are arranged irregularly within a park-like setting of grass lawns, which are criss-crossed by concrete walkways providing pedestrian access. The buildings include one- and two-bedroom apartments that were converted into federally subsidized housing in 1981 under Section 8, a program established by the Nixon administration in 1974, and remain federally subsidized today.
The inside of the five buildings are largely the same, including a central corridor with apartments on both sides. Inside the entrances on each building’s ground and second floors, there are small vestibules with original slate tile floors and painted gypsum walls and ceilings. Metal stairs with rubber treads led to the different floors.
While there have been some changes over the decades, the buildings themselves still express the original design intent of the architect, through the structures’ strongly articulated Modern form (of brick and stucco), light and shadow, and public and private spaces.
For more details, read the full final nomination for the site’s listing