Ninth Street runs along the western edge of Duke's East Campus and is the main retail strip for the surrounding student-and-faculty neighbourhood of Old West Durham. Three blocks of low-rise older buildings hold independent bookshops, second-hand record stores, a venerable bagel shop, a couple of long-running music venues, and some of the best ice cream and coffee in the city.
The strip is busiest in term time and quietest in summer, but always feels small-town in a way that downtown Durham has long since outgrown. A leisurely afternoon and an evening meal here gives a different and better-rounded view of Durham than the warehouse-district downtown alone.