Then it fails with:

./configure: error: the HTTP rewrite module requires the PCRE library.
You can either disable the module by using --without-http_rewrite_module
option, or install the PCRE library into the system, or build the PCRE library
statically from the source with nginx by using --with-pcre=<path> option.

Reading more carefully, I tried using

./configure --prefix=$HOME/unix/local --with-pcre==../pcre-8.00/

but that fails to, with

zany:~/unix/install/nginx-0.8.24% make
make -f objs/Makefile
objs/Makefile:998: *** empty variable name. Stop.
make: *** [build] Error 2