My Journey Into Richmond...And What I Found There Part VII

The story thus far: Philip Gotz, an obstreperous travel writer known for his "What I Found There" pieces detailing his five-day visits to destinations, is in Richmond, Va. The visitors bureau has assigned to him as a guide Tia Chulangong -- who pretty much has his number from the moment she meets him at the Richard Evelyn Byrd International Airport. She provides running color commentary on Richmond sights and history while riding the train to bustling Main Street Station, and from there to Gotz's accommodations. Tia, however, has informed Gotz that Jennifer Royce, his novelist ex-wife, is in town on a book tour and through a scheduling error he's booked into the Jefferson Hotel where she is also staying. The writer and his guide have now gone up to the rooftop terrace of the Jefferson, where Tia is giving Gotz a travelogue explanation of the city's sights. Gotz observes the city's bosky streets and plentiful green and open spaces, lack of automotive traffic or parking lots, the preserved historic architecture and the exile of high rise office and residential towers to the outer edges of the central metro. Tia leaves him to enjoy his first evening on the town. (Image: 400-500 blocks of West Franklin this from the north side near Belvidere, looking west, toward Monroe Park, via Library of Virginia).


"Richmond: A Laughing Matter"

All images in this section via the Library of Virginia's archived Richmond Esthetic Survey, 1965. View and weep what was, and the record of how ugly interpretations of Modernism chewed up the city's aesthetic qualites.


Gotz returned to his suite like a wary cat. Armed with this knowledge of Jennifer’s presence, he expected to see her around every corner, or the elevator door opening to reveal her. It wouldn’t be so bad. There’d been only minor bloodshed in their fight, and it got messy only toward the end, and four of their six years had been quite enjoyable. But it was that fifth year, and, oh, good God, the sixth. The whole fiasco ended in tears and lawyers.

Why Tia, this presumed efficient hospitality diva, allow this to occur? Gotz wondered if, indeed, he was as annoying as many believed. Tia couldn’t be that passive aggressive, could she? Say it ain’t so. For all she knew, Gotz could take it personal and write a fierce and vehement assessment of Richmond. Just to teach her a lesson. But he’d much prefer other methods.

Gotz arrived at his suite without incident. Perched on the soft beckoning bed he investigated the CVB gift bag feeling like a raccoon rummaging through the trash.

He formed piles on the royal blue bed covers.

Interesting: final copy of the itinerary Tia designed, the DVDs, guide books, the most recent Richmond Tempo for the what-to-do and where-to-go; Not Now: slides, brochures. Junk: Coupons. On the topmost of the first division was the DVD loaded with “trailers.” He decided to slip it into the big plasma screen machine the Jefferson hung on the bedroom wall like a magic portal. He kicked off his shoes, propped himself on pillows, and aimed the remote.

Richmond: A Laughing Matter featured a series of comedians, chosen for broadest appeal, a white guy in a double-breasted suit and tie, Jerry something, he'd have to reverse it if the name mattered; a back guy in a skull cap, Ronnie Wilcoxen; a sharp fast talking woman—Sherry Ressen he’d actually seen her on HBO— “I’m Jewish, from Richmond, Virginia, so deal with it -- ya’ll.” They were shown speaking “before live audiences” at various Richmond entertainment venues; The Laff Riot in Shockoe, Galloping Comedians downtown; and The House of Mirth on something called Staples Mill Road.

There was fun with classifieds designation about house and apartment locations. The skull-cap comedian Ron paced the stage, his temples gleaming, “ So listen up, chirrun—that’s children for you up staters—for your insider info. “ITWNRVU’ means Inside The Woods River View, or even more detailed, ITWNSRVU, Inside The Woods North Side River View, or SS, for South Side – I hear we got some South Side in the house tonight--which is where the best views are, (hoots). Inside the woods don’t mean you’re like Hansel and Gretel and you live in a gingerbread house in the forest. No, uh-huh. Means you’re rich. You are very, very rich (laughter, applause) You’re making large sums of money. That’s what it means.”

Guy in a suit, Jerry. More conversational, leaning on his mike stand:

“What comes down to is: Are you an innie or an outie? (laugher) So, if you live In The Woods, means you live in the old part of town. And if you’re a single guy trying to hook up, and she asks if you’re in the Woods or outside of the Woods, and you say,” he lifts one arm and nonchalantly scratched his neck, “Yeah, I live in the Woods,’ she’ll make this sound – they all do – “Oh,” like she just got pinched but she kinda liked it, you know? It’s weird, weird, it’s like that’s the sound you want. That little ‘Oh!’ adds a real or imagined $50,000 to your paycheck. Seriously, seriously.

But, if, like what happens to me, I say, (self-consciously rubbing his forehead) ‘Oh, I live Out of the Woods.’ (pause for effect) In Chester. (chuckles) And she makes this, ‘Ah,’ sound. Not so good. Not the sound you want. Very different from the, ‘Oh!' which is a whole tilt of the head with interest-in-you kind of thing. ‘Ah’ is you get a nod and this expression of, ‘That’s almost 15 minutes on the Centralia train. Bet he reads a lot.’

Sherry Ressen, in her floral pattered summer dress, and easy delivery. She’s quite pretty, sharp featured, long black hair that she tosses with alarming abandon.

“So my buddy comes to visit me from New York. Says he’s nervous. Says he's worried because Richmond impounds cars with out-of-state plates and fines the owners. He says this to me. So I had to, you know, talk him down, that no, we just lock up your car for your safety and ours.” (knowing laughter and big applause)

(change of angle on her)

The Car Docks. (mixed applause) Strangest thing for some people. You drive your car into this thing that looks like it was used for anti-aircraft guns during World War II, and you just leave it there.

This totally freaks people out. Totally freaks’em out.

They don’t want to leave Betsy behind, you know? Like it’s their kid: ‘Now, now, Mr and Mrs. Johnson, she’ll be completely safe in our hands.’ It’s a parking garage, not summer camp. (laughs)

Skull cap Ron:
Richmond’s missing making a mint on this whole car dock deal. We should have package plans, you know? Park in the dock and we’ll wash your car, vacuum, detail it… We could say: Leave the heap with us in North Tower and three days later you pick it up in the South Tower she’ll look like she went though an automotive self-improvement class.” I’m telling you, you could reduce our taxes his way.

Guy in suit Jerry:

Trolley cars and Richmond, Richmond and trolley cars. We love’m. We invented’m. We’re very proud of this. But after a century, you’d think we could tell you how to get someplace on one of the things. (laughter, clapping)

It’s kind of confusing. There’s a rainbow of options (holds up multi-colored route planner and lets it unfold to general amusement). It’s like there should be a leprechaun involved. (big laughter and steady applause as camera lingers on route schedule)

Skull Cap Ron:
This is what you got to know about Richmond neighborhoods. So listen up, know and learn this. I’m gonna tell you it to you straight like nobody else will. Gonna start far east, not China, but Fulton, OK?
Fulton: hippies and the black folks who tolerate them. Rocketts: tourists, gamblers and the boat crews that blow into town for the weekend push and shove, you know. Shockoe; One of Richmond’s oldest hoods, gamblers and drinkers and people who live there who’re shocked, shocked to see gambling and drinking going on. And gambling.

Sherry:

Church Hill: They’re on a hill and they know it. It’s old. Poe hung out on Church Hill. And Shockoe, too. See what happened? Downtown: people wandering around looking at the people wandering around, you got your students and the hipsters and the gamers and city hall stuck in the middle of it.

Highland Park and Northside: Oh, you mean there is another part of the city? We like it over here just fine. Buppies and post-graduate newlywed breeders and gays. And some of the best coffee in town. It’s true.

Skull Cap Ron:
Ginter Park: More established, upper class folks, houses big enough to need intercoms and camera systems to find your wife or husband or your kids. “Timmy, what are you doing in the garage? I can see everything. Don’t touch that. Don’t touch that, either.” (whistles, appplause)
Union Theological is there, so people are more holy, or holier than you, anyway.

And, the Fan, man, the Fan. (big reaction, whisles and hollers) Yeah. You know. Ginter University types, people that go there or people that teach there, are people who can afford the scenery, if you know what I’m saying. There's more bralessess in the Fan than anywhere in town. (laughter) You got Carytown on one end. All that stuff to buy, my wife loves it, 'nice' stuff that you put on a shelf then knock over and bust when you're playing with the soft basketball when she's away and you know you shouldn't but you do it because she's gone and you have to go buy another one of whatever it is, and, of course, the're out and won't get any more for years, and so are you, too, if you follow me. (big laughter) Manchester, yeah, Dogtown. Nothing doggy about it. Well, maybe on some streets. Artists. Fan refugees. Computer nerds. (hoots) Alright, alright, I hear ya.

And so on it went for another few minutes. A city that could laugh at itself. That was refreshing.

Gotz stood up, stretched, opened the curtain to look upon Franklin Street and the the city beyond. A human-scale city. Some higher rise buildings over on Broad and one Deco-style tower that rose above the others.

He decided to stride up a few blocks to this Monrovia place.

*************************************************************************

Franklin Street's sidealks smelled of wisteria and honeysuckle. The clots of people moving along by him were young people, laughing, there was a pleasant holiday air to the place. The grand houses, Richardson Romanesque brownstones, whimsical Queen Annes and each compelling him to stop and gander to comprehend their individual natures.

The stuccoed, somber Monrovia building's ends had high arched stained glass windows. A crayon-box color assortment of scooters clustered around the place. The placard he stopped to read indicated that from the mid-1910s on the building was the fire and police alarm station but the 1930 acquisition by the Monroe Park Improvements Commission rescued it from demolition. Subsequent purchase by various entrepreneurs followed with several incarnations of restaurants and gathering places, but as Monrovia, from 1968 on, it had become a cultural landmark. ("Monrovia" is to the left in the Monroe Park image)

Gotz was greeted on the porch by a smiling hostess in a tiny floral-pattered summer dress. She asked him if he was here for dinner, and he replied just a drink or so. He entered the dim dark wooded bar adorned by onlooking oblong African masks and old photos and prints of Monrovian street scenes, intermixed with Monroe-ania. A bust of the president near the entrance wore a high purple velvet fez.

Brass wall fixtures with globe lights cast an eerie glow across the place. Gotz flashbacked on a book about ghosts that purported a photography of phantom monks going up a stair. The flash captured the deep creases of their robes and the grasp of their hands on the rail. The furnishings are random, old and plush, the tables heavy and wooden. Above stairs a small performance space, where the semi-regular house band Deadly Nightshade holds forth.

The diners and drinkers clustered in high-backed, plush cushioned booths were a mix of Ginter College students, professional bohos and tourists. Gotz checked off Monrovia in a mental box as an Richmond-centric place that suits both regulars and discerning visitors.

Deadly Nightshade’s lead singer's voice called him upstairs. Peyton Uvilla, tall, redheaded, bare shouldered in a black dress. She had with her a tall, stout goateed upright bass player, a youthful dread locked piano player and a bald, mustached horn player, dressed in khakis like he'd just come off safari and Gotz wondered if the mufti somehow mattered in Monrovia.

He drank in his Glenmorangie and her, too, crooning, wailing, whispering, tossing back her head and howling then grabbing the mike and sing-speaking in a voice so soft and compelling everybody leaned forward to hear. These were mostly original songs so he didn't know any of them, and this didn't matter. For a couple of songs she sat, eyes closed and didn't move. Gotz, who'd seen cabaret performers all over the world, hadn't seen anybody quite like this. Her audience roared and stomped their feet. Gotz did, too.

My Journey Into Richmond
And What I Found There

The story thus far: Philip Gotz, an obstreperous travel writer known for his "What I Found There" pieces detailing his five-day visits to destinations, is in Richmond, Va. The visitors bureau has assigned to him as a guide Tia Chulangong -- who pretty much has his number from the moment she meets him at the Richard Evelyn Byrd International Airport. She provides running color commentary on Richmond sights and history while riding the train to bustling Main Street Station, and from there to Gotz's accommodations. Tia, however, has informed Gotz that Jennifer Royce, his novelist ex-wife, is in town on a book tour and through a scheduling error he's booked into the Jefferson Hotel where she is also staying. The writer and his guide have now gone up to the rooftop terrace of the Jefferson, where Tia is giving Gotz a travelogue explanation of the city's sights. Gotz observes the city's bosky streets and plentiful green and open spaces, lack of automotive traffic or parking lots, the preserved historic architecture and the exile of high rise office and residential towers to the outer edges of the central metro.

Part VI

The unique, quaint and charming boutique

The terrace wended back into the café. The perspective northward was interrupted by the Jefferson’s bellevue towers and the private terraces along Franklin Street.

At the table, Gotz asked a passing waitress for another gin and tonic.

“But, so, I’m glad I have several days here. Because where I kind of like how those high rise buildings are out of the old center district of your beloved town, I wonder about that. I just wonder about it. How does the city function that way? And it seems, to me, a little contrived. Actually, a lot contrived; over-planned. Is this downtown and its satellite neighborhoods just flash frozen in 1900, or is there a street life here, is there an art life, is there some people tearin’ it up and gettin’ er done, as they say in NASCAR.”

“Oh, absolutely, and you'll be seeing plenty of that. And we got the NASCAR. Yes we do. We have a museum and everything. Which I don’t think you chose to go see.”

“Maybe. If I have time. And I won’t have time.”

Tia pursed her lips.

“I think, Tia, that you’re laughing at me.”

“I’m just sitting here.”

“And doing a find job of it, too, if may observe. I mean, I think it’s funny about the NASCAR because Richmond has waged war against internal combustion since it first showed up here.”

Tia's tongue ran along the edge of her front teeth. Gotz sighed.

She said, “Richmond’s all about contradictions.”

“ Yes! It seems so. And that’s key, I think, isn’t it? Most of what happened during the 20th century Richmond batted away. You were ahead on almost every social and civil rights issue, and then there’s the interstate highway system, the no-car downtown." 

“And there’s the car docks.”

Gotz nodded in some vague familiarity about these somewhat legendary Works Project Administration garages at the compass points of the city used for storing visitor vehicles. They served as transit stations, too. The white-shirted, bow-tied drivers for the Richmond car docks attracted the attention of the Maysles brothers who titled their documentary Valet Service.

“So how does that work, Tia? If I’m driving into Richmond from the north -- and plan on staying.”

“You go into the parking tower and nowadays a scanner reads your license plate, and on Virginia licenses there’s indication of your zip code that a machine reads, and depending on how far you’ve come, there’s a discount for your parking there. You leave your car, take the train in, and if you’re planning on leaving in a few days, you can have your vehicle transported to the other side of town and waiting for you. This discourages driving in the city, puts people in transit and on foot. So once you dock your car, and you’re here, and you find so many cool things to do, you might not be so anxious to bounce out. Which is what happens.”

“I’m supposed to see one of these, right?”

“Yes, sir. I think day after tomorrow, something like that,” she looked at her handheld device. “Yes. Actually, Sunday at 3:30, after brunch here.”

“There goes the Gallego Plaza mimes. No, no. I’m kidding. Fine, that’s fine. But -- so basically, you’ve impounded their cars to get a captive audience.”

“They’re not captives if they want to stay.”

“And they want to because of the Charming and Quaint Boutique.”

“Well, Mr. Gotz, some people like the Charming and Quaint Boutique.”

He waved his hand. “No, no, no. I don’t care about them, you don’t really care about them, the CVB has to care about them but wishes it didn’t need to. They come here, and stay their unscheduled two point five days because they see vistas and buildings and street scenes and museums and patterns of light and shadow from magnolia trees cast on brick walls that. they. can’t .get. anywhere. else. They can’t get it anywhere else. That’s what you’re selling here –and that unfortunately gets me to another word that I’ve handed its walking papers, and that is Unique.”

“So the Unique Charming Quaint Boutique -- ?”

“Yeah, I’m gettin’ me some dynamite and I’m blowin’ that sucker up.”

“H’mm – travel writer and urban terrorist.”

“Everybody needs a hobby, Tia. So, what about you? Lining up your nights, a whole glam-tastic circuit, flouncing from one dimly lit establishment to the next with perfect people making beautiful plans?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Gotz. That’s all I do. I smoke and drink all night long, and dance on tables and bars.”

“Well, long as you have your youth and agility, I should hope so.”

She sighed. “Mr. Gotz, you’ve watched way too much Sex And The City.”

Gotz winced. “Those girls -- excuse me --  those women, never interested me.  No, really. Never once --  least when I watched it -- did they ever show the least bit of interest in art or history or books. Only if it increased their hipness quotient. Now, you on the other hand.”

Tia straightened her back, balled a fist onto her side and said in mock irritation, “So I’m not hip?”

“This is not what I’m saying.”

She waved him off. “Mr. Gotz –“

“Phil.”

“Mr. Gotz, not that I’m not enjoying our time –“

“Oh, you’re leaving me. They always leave me.”

“Courage. Morning comes soon.”

“You going to that Mongoose place?”

“Mongoose Civique. Ah, probably not. Cruel Aztec Gods are at Tantilla Garden tonight, so I’m going with some friends.”

“Cruel Aztec Gods?”

“Uh-huh. They’re local and they’re touring, just got signed, and we love them. I used to watch them in tiny little bars in the Fan. They’re great for dancing.”

Gotz’s brows rose. Tia dancing, he imagined, arms up, elbows bent, hands in her hair, hips swaying. And he snapped back.

“Never heard of them. But the whole collection of syllables and their vibrations: the Cruel Aztec Gods at Tantilla Garden – sounds – extraordinary. Where is it?”

“Oh, west,” she raised an arm, squinted, pointed. “Thattaway. The Broad Street Five takes you right there. Great place, from the ‘30s, a ballroom. Huge. The roof rolls away on good nights. You should go there if you can before you leave. I can score tickets for you. There’s a schedule in your packet. Let me know.”

“Hum. Yes, yes. Cruel Aztec Gods. Are they, what, punk what?”

“Punk? No. They’re pretty, uh, alt rock.”

“OK, dumb question: what do they sound like?”

“That’s tough. They sound like Cruel Aztec Gods.”

“That’s not good marketing.”

“I don’t do their marketing.”

“OK, I’ll let you go. Thanks for the tours and all the stuff.”

“Oh, glad to do it and excited you’re here. I am, don't make that face. I very much apologize for the mix-up on bookings and schedules."

“I don’t blame you. It’s the Infinite Cosmic Jester who uses as punch lines for his party jokes.”

“I should’ve told you at the very beginning. I’m sorry.”

“S’okay, Tia. Truly. You read her book?”

“Um. No.”

“You should. It’s good. Somehow, her latest bad guy character isn’t based on me.”

“Well, I’m going to take my leave now,” and she settled the strap of the slick black purse on her shoulder.

“So, you going to the ‘Goose?”

“That what the hip kids call that place down there?”

“Some of the hip kids.”

“I may, I may. I think I’m going to study some of the material you’ve helpfully given me, too.”

“The CVB DVD has a few shorts, sort of Richmond trailers, with different approaches. You might try that for fun.”

“I will.”

“OK. Have a good evening,” and she shook his hand and he watched her undulant departure with avid interest over his lifted glass.

The pianist played Gershwin.


Notes: The concept of automobile "docks" was proposed in the 1960s when architect Louis I. Kahn attempted to "pedestrianize" midtown Philadlephia. I'm wholesale stealing the idea and putting it 30 years earlier for advanced alternate reality Richmond. If such a system was in place from the mid-1930s on here, it'd be just part of living and viewed as a Richmond eccentricity.

The image of Tantilla Garden comes from richmondthenandnow.com and I also wrote about the place in True Richmond Stories.

My Journey Into Richmond
And What I Found There

The story thus far: Philip Gotz, an obstreperous travel writer known for his "What I Found There" pieces detailing his five-day visits to destinations, is in Richmond, Va. The visitors bureau has assigned to him as a guide Tia Chulangong -- who pretty much has his number from the moment she meets him at the Richard Evelyn Byrd International Airport. She provides running color commentary on Richmond sights and history while riding the train to bustling Main Street Station, and from there to Gotz's accommodations. Tia, however, has informed Gotz that Jennifer Royce, his novelist ex-wife, is in town on a book tour and through a scheduling error he's booked into the Jefferson Hotel where she is also staying. The writer and his guide have now gone up to the rooftop terrace of the Jefferson, where Tia is giving Gotz a travelogue explanation of the city's sights.


Conclusion: Part VI
View From The Terrace Part II

“Let’s sort of start east and work our way west.”

“Excellent.”

At the far east, the Great Turning Basin of the James River and Kanawha Canal and the Gallego Plaza with its extensive marble, stone, and iron loggias, grand stairways, arcades and colonnades. From their perspective, the turning basin shone like a mirror tilted toward the sun. The Northbank Esplanade begins there.

Tia said, “People love Gallego Plaza, You should go like on a Sunday—work off your gi-normous Jefferson brunch—there’s concerts, or the street musicians and performers all the time, to eat lunch, get pictures taken. It’s lovely all the time.”

“Silver people?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you have mimes there, in Gallego Plaza.”

“I think we may have mimes. You can’t keep them away from a public plaza. It attracts the mime action.”

“Sort of like pigeons.”

“Sort of, but not as messy. Any-way, so the boat you’ll take comes up through here, and along Gambles Hill. The neighborhood is named for the family and their house,” she pointed to a stuccoed neoclassical pile, “and it’s great to walk through because of the wrought iron porches and fences everywhere, and the views of the river from the park are pretty incredible.”

“Can’t be much better than here.”

“But you can see the river and the rapids. Below the hill, also on the canal, is the restored Tredegar Iron Works and the National Civil War Center and Museum. You want to understand what it was all about, you can’t go wrong.”

“On my list.”

He straight away noticed the battlements of an apparent small fort.

“That’s Pratt’s Castle,” she began.

Landscape designer, architect, and photographer William Abbott Pratt constructed his curious house around 1853. Pratt took the last known picture of Edgar Allan Poe when he was in Richmond before he went to Baltimore and never came back. That single association with Poe laid the groundwork for lore telling how the place was inspiration for the House of Usher or other stories, though Poe was long dead when he built the residence. Pratt’s Castle became one of Richmond’s most legendary buildings and during the late 19th century visitors photographed it more than Jefferson’s State Capitol.

“Sometimes you’ll hear it called “Pratt’s Folly,” because of how it’s behind the big Harvie-Gamble House. Like in Europe, a wealthy 19th century estate owner might construct a faux ruin in the gardens—a folly.”

“So can I move in and live there?”

“No, well, you could stay there a few nights, it’s a bed and breakfast, and there’s a small restaurant on the roof. Pricey but the view is awesome.”

Gotz from his perch was impressed by the bosky quiet of Richmond’s streets, its open places and park. Tia related the pride of the city in its “arboreal husbandry,” and she stated this absent any trace of irony. She was, after all, in marketing.

A city landscaping and design office opened around 1910. She further explained how a team of professionals responsible for the health and well-being of the urban forests shares that responsibility with the state, in maintaining The Woods. The extensive James River Parks System, with the only Class V rapids in a U.S. downtown, is the center of sports events and river enjoyment.

“We have bald eagles nesting out there, otters and herons, and even the sturgeon are coming back.”

“Sturgeon?”

“Yup. But not like the big boys from John Smith’s days, and even into the late 19th century, when they were 15 feet long and weighed hundreds of pounds. The farmers markets here used to sell caviar.”

“You know, I’m standing here, and in most other cities -- at least in this country -- I think I’d see lakes of asphalt for parking.”

“Not in Richmond, no.”

“Where’d they all go?”

Tia clasped her hands on the rail. “They didn’t go anywhere because we never really had them. The city has remained from the beginning anti-car, pretty much, especially downtown.”

“I’m sure that’s been a fight.”

“Oh, yeah. Well. Not so much these days – people have kind of gotten used to it.”

Gotz watched as a commuter train slid along near the river, and another raised tram ran toward the distant towers. A few cars moved on the streets, but what he noticed were people walking and asphalt biking paths embedded in the sidewalks.

The silhouettes of clouds slide across the city like parade balloons.

He said something, but the wind took it away, “Say again,” she asked.

“Thinking out loud. I said, ‘Urbane pastoral.’ Conjuring titles and subheads and subjects.”

“’Urbane pastoral. That’s ‘town and country.’”

“Rather reductive! Words have shades and resonances.”

“Oh, I know, but I’m in marketing, which is the communications business, and if we don’t communicate, there’s no business.”

“Town and country sounds far more hokier than this looks.”

“I’ll buy that,” she said.

Tia spoke next about the eastern swale by Gamble’s Hill, Harvie’s Canal Basin, an intermediate staging area for canal boats in their travels. “If your boat that you’re going to take is scheduled to meet another boat coming down from the west, then, what you’ll do is kind of hang out at Harvie’s, and there’s a restaurant and a bar there, and you can watch the other one go and then you start up again.”

“This really will be a slow boat, huh?”

“Which is why people take it. So, right around there, is where the state penitentiary used to be, and now there’s a park, and a memorial wall with the names of the people who died there—naturally or otherwise, including those who were killed by the death penalty.”

“Which you don’t have anymore.”

“Not since the 1930s. It’s probably in your information.”

“Richmond’s got this…thing, right? Museums to slavery, the Civil War and a park about the death penalty. Guilt’s like fertilizer around here.”

“At least we own up to it.”

“But I mean, join a 12-step or something.”

“I’d rather have a park or a museum than go to meetings, Mr. Gotz.”

He chuckled. “Wouldn’t we all.”

The William Mahone Bridge cut across into old town Manchester. Spread along the south bank bluffs a tall grove of upscale hotels. Signs announced Hilton, Marriott, and Omni. Down the hillside a building notable for its contemporary sleekness, “That’s the convention center,” Tia said.

“Looks like it’s about ready to launch into the river.”

“Yeah, some people call it The Mayor’s Yacht.”

“Why’s that?”

"Mayor Carruthers, who really wanted it at that place, and there was a big argument about its cost, and who built it. Typical stuff. But it’s great, and people love it.”

Nearby was one of the strangest buildings Gotz had seen since arriving in Richmond. First, it wasn’t 175 years old, and he recognized the unusual sweep of its lines from photographs. “That’s Richmond Symphony Space?”

“Yes. By Jamgochian, who also designed the airport, among other things.”

“What do you think of it, non-marketing aside.”

“I think that some people say it looks like the sound of an orchestra reaching a crescendo. I know, because I’ve heard him speak, that Mr. Jamgochian was inspired by the James River and the spray and rush of the rapids. Besides that, it’s a very cool place to go into and listen to music. One of the most acoustically perfect rooms in the country. Now, speaking of Mr. Jamgochian, you can’t see it so well from here, but sort of left of the hotels and all that, you can see this kind of stick figure tree building. With its branches coming out. Do you see? There?”

Gotz leaned forward, peering, and yes.

“It’s like, you’re right, some kid’s drawing of a tree.”

“Jamgochian designed that in the mid-1960s and wanted to put it on a piece of property he owned right next to the Garden Club of Virginia’s building – the Kent-Valentine House. Well, the city council wouldn’t approve it, because the preservationists were really opposed to this, even though people said they liked it. A developer saw the proposal photograph in the paper, and when council denied it, he said: build on my land. It was Mr. Jamgochian’s first commission. And it opened Richmond up to modern architecture.”

“Happy ending.”

“He also designed several of the residential high rises, over there, in Parnell and Broad Rock, you can see one – looks like a flying saucer landed on it.”

“Yes. You’re right. Let me guess. Revolving restaurant.”

“Doesn’t revolve, but it’s a restaurant, ‘Top of the Tower,’ and it’s big on prom nights and for weddings. Now, here, running north south, is Belvidere Street,” and she passed her hand over a tumble of brick and frame houses, some two stories, humble and all old. “This is Oregon Hill, so-called, because as you can see, there’s Gamble’s Hill over there, and what was then a huge ravine, and before the roads were put in, when you moved to this side of town, it was like going to the Oregon Territory.”

The community, she explained, sprung up as worker’s housing for the nearby Tredegar Iron Works. At the center, cloaked behind a wall of green and other houses, the Belvidere Plantation of Willam Byrd III, and kept now by the National Park Service. Byrd’s grandfather was given much of the land upon which the father founded the city. Belvidere was built in 1755 though Third Byrd didn’t spend much time in it, as he was off having military adventures and gambling away the inheritance of his far more industrious ancestors. His first wife went nuts and may have killed herself, just as Byrd did in 1777, at his ancestral Westover Plantation, east of the city.

“What trouble was he in that he did that?” Gotz asked.

“Money and scandal.”

“Finest kinds.”

“Except that he got so deep in debt that he auctioned his land – Almost everything you can see from here. And, during the Revolution, he wouldn’t join either side. That didn’t do much for his popularity.”

“I guess so.”

“But the house survived, more-or-less, it’s kind of an on-going archaeological and restoration project. Your slow boat will stop there, and you can go there and to Hollywood Cemetery. And they have a tram that takes you around. Seriously, though, there are presidents, governors, writers, and 18,000 Confederates. It’ll be beautiful this time of year; gorgeous overlooks of the rapids, too.”

“OK, hold up, here. So where’s the Miniborya arts colony that I’m visiting.”

“Oh, that’s way south, central, kind of through there,” Tia squinted an eye and leveled her arm past his face. “Our view here’s not quite that good. That’s deeper into Chesterfield, near Meadowbrook.”

“You say so, good enough for me. Now, that was some other rich guy’s house, yes?”

“Correct. J. Scott Parrish was a builder and contractor and his country estate—compound—was Miniborya—which had its own dairy farm and extensive gardens. When the house and grounds passed out of the family in the 1970s, a trust was set up and now it’s this big-time arts colony.”

“Looking forward to that,” he said.

Tia continued to guide him along where this slow boat would take him, past the trees, to Maymont Park and Dooley Mansion, and the Pump House, “Right about there – you see the Carillon?”

Gotz spotted the Georgian Revival bell tower poking up along the horizon.

“At the Pump House there’s a Canal Museum and restaurant, it’s very nice and with the weather we’re having, you’ll really have a good time. And then it takes you on out to Goochland, and you can stop at Tuckahoe, and there’s a rail shuttle back. Unless you want to take your slow boat to Lynchburg.”

“I’ll pass.”

They walked toward the western banister. Spread before them was the Fan District and the campus of Ginter College with its imposing red tiled roof buildings and grounds by Charles Gillette. On Main Street and across on Belvidere big, mansard buildings with interlocking courtyards interested Gotz; these were some of the student dorms. The writer wondered about the minarets above the park next to Sacred Heart’s dome.

“That’s the Richmond Shrine Auditorium, that looks like a mosque,” Tia said. “The city’s owned it since the 1930s, and it’s a public venue for performances and city functions like graduations. It’s one of our more incredible buildings, and Sacred Heart is stunning. This is Monroe Park, and over there, on the corner of Belvidere, you can see Monrovia, which is the restaurant.”

Gotz nodded toward the handsome stucco building and its big arched end windows.

“The building was a big police and fire alarm station, and now it’s a great restaurant, Amazing Southern comfort food, very good and reasonable, fantastic brunch, but if nothing else, a great place to get a drink. The bar on the first level’s called Monroe’s Tomb, mostly because Monroe is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, down the street. There’s this jazz band, Deadly Nightshade, that plays there on Thursday nights. You’d love the girl who’s their singer. It’s fun; you’ll meet some characters.”

“Sounds like a recommendation, to me.”

Luxe interwar apartment buildings faced the park and behind the Prestwould the massive spire of Pace Memorial Methodist Church displayed to the faithful the countdown to redemption with clock faces in all directions. Spreading across to Broad Street a rich variety of Edwardian splendor and the wondrous creations of Ginter’s architects. Trees obscured a detailed view of varying slants and pitches of rooftops and chimneys and dormers. Off to the west several higher rise buildings broached the horizon.


Notes on images:
1) The drawing of the Gallego Basin is from an electronic copy of Edward King's The Great South, a touring book describing the South in 1873-1874. The James Wells Champney illustrations show some of the views including this of the Great Basin. Now covered over by parking lots, the James Center and the Omni Hotel, the basin was first filled in for a railyard. During excavations in the 1980s, canal researchers unearthed from the muck more than 50 portions of canal boats and other river craft. In Tia's Richmond, Gallego Plaza is a major public space ringed by robust architectural elements.
2) Pratt's Castle is from vintagedesigns.com. Of the numerous wreckerball atrocities committed in Richmond during the past one hundred years, this loss is in the top five. The Ethyl Corporation (now NewMarket) pulled it down in 1958 after preservationists failed to get clemency for the structure. There is today no marker, no indication that it ever stood on Gamble's Hill.
3) "Richmond Convention Center" was inspired by the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pa. Image via Christinedavisconsultants.com. Richmond in the early 1980s could've done something like this before the fateful decision to brutalize the city to save it.

My Journey Into Richmond
And What I Found There

Part V and a portion of Part VI

The story thus far: Philip Gotz, an obstreperous travel writer known for his "What I Found There" pieces detailing his five-day visits to destinations, is in Richmond, Va. The visitors bureau has assigned to him as a guide Tia Chulangong -- who pretty much has his number from the moment she meets him at the Richard Evelyn Byrd International Airport. She provides running color commentary on Richmond sights and history while riding the train to bustling Main Street Station, and from there to Gotz's accommodations. Tia, however, has informed Gotz that Jennifer Royce, his novelist ex-wife, is in town on a book tour and through a scheduling error he's booked into the Jefferson Hotel where she is also staying.


5. At The Jefferson


A cheery doorman wearing a long red coat and white gloves touched the slick visor of his cap as he pushed the entry wide.

“G’ afternoon, Mz. T."

She introduced Phil, and when they stepped into the main lobby the transition from the real world to someplace else was complete.

Gotz stood in the palazzo of a European palace, but rather than open to the air, crowned by an enormous stained glass skylight.

Tia followed his upward gaze and at his shoulder said, “Tiffany.”

He took several long moments to appreciate the curved bays of the mezzanine gallery; huge round ottomans; the marble, stone and gilt on the cornices; palm trees; wrought iron columns; the grand stair vanishing underneath an arch surmounted by a bronze clock set in a niche of Italianate flourishes. Around him people moving, going and doing in the rhythm of the quiet urgency of a busy and important place.

“The Louvre called,” Gotz at last said. “They want their courtyard back.”

Tia put a hand on her hip. “You’re not hatin’ on the Jefferson. I mean, not even you.”

“Just the opposite.”

Gotz pulled the plastic press badge from underneath his jacket as they crossed over the carpet to check-in. A high-cheeked blonde who somehow didn’t seem to know Tia greeted them. Gotz made reservation confirmation and declined help with his bags. He chose to use the upper gallery elevator just to use the grand, red-carpeted stairs.

They went under a barrel-vaulted, coffered ceiling passageway, the panels blue with gold trim. The stair provided three wide landings where doors led to lounges and offices. Then ascending to the upper lobby, more fountains and palms and a white marble statue of Thomas Jefferson, standing amid piles of books that presumably he’d finished reading while there.

“This was done by Edward V. Valentine,” Tia said. “And the entire hotel was the idea of our friend Mr. Ginter, who hired the New York architects Carrére & Hastings. He packed all his ideas from a life of world travels into this building.”

“I just may not ever leave.”

“Ah. One of those travel writers.”

“Yup. Stay in the plushest digs and concoct it all from the press releases.”

Then an alligator galumphed across the floor followed by a pith-helmeted young woman dressed in a khaki short sleeves and pants and hiking boots. The alligator’s claws tick-ticked on the marble floor. Round the keeper’s waist was a utility belt for, Gotz presumed, reptile emergencies and she carried a plastic pole, a prod on one end and a kind of cheese grater on the other.

The gator, bony-ridged, prehistoric and frightening, slipped into the nearby fountain rill and sunk to its eyes. The keeper put hands on hips. “You’re full now, so you should have a good nap.”

Gotz couldn’t close his mouth.

Tia offered, “He just fed.”

The writer nodded.

“How – how does this manage not to scare the living crap out of people?”

Tia shrugged. “It’s the Jefferson. We have gators.”

“Guess you beat out the Peabody and their ducks.”

“Our mascot can eat their mascot.”

“So somebody watches him her it?”

“A rotating team -- the Jefferson Gator Gang.”

"She with the Gator Gang?"

"Quarles. Yes. She is."

“I want to interview her.”

"Now?”

“If she’s got a few minutes.” Gotz brought up his recorder.

Quarles Fontaine introduced herself using a firm handshake that signified to Gotz the strength needed should she need to wrestle a stubborn alligator. Her violet eyes fixed on him with a discomforting attention that she used to observe wild creatures prone to sudden attacks. Quarles explained her taking the Jefferson gator gig.

“When I was growing up, in the early '80s, the Jefferson was between owners and renovations. Weren’t any gators, then. But my parents brought me here a few times, for some parties, and my Dad showed me these fountains and little brass statues and told me how there used to be live ones. Little did either of us know, but I’d develop a fascination for slimy creepy crawlies and I’d end up doing what I do.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, is this full-time?”

“No, wouldn’t that be great though? I’m also with the state office that administers wildlife in parks and zoos, and my expertise are guys like these. But I started here as a seasonal part-time person, interning with Dr. Bryan Woods, and he’s the lizard king.”

“What’s the story on the Jefferson's gators?”

“They were introduced probably by a guest, near as we can figure, around 1910. There was a thriving summer railroad vacation trade, going from the North through Richmond to Florida and back. Best guess is, somebody got a gator, realized they couldn't take it home, so they dumped it into the fountain. And they were so alluring and strange that the hotel just decided to keep them around."

"So it became a kind of trademark by default."

"Absolutely."

"Now, that's marketing, Tia."

"You got that right."

Quarles continued, "The gators stayed here at least until the late 1940s, when Old Pompey, the last one, died. Dr. Woods reintroduced them in 1988. “

“What about liability?”

“What do you mean?” then Quarles and Tia laughed together. “You think my gators are liable to do something?”

“Well, they are alligators, not house cats.”

“Awww, did you hear that, Bossanova? No, but, we’ve had a remarkably incident-free record. People like to get their pictures taken with them, but they don’t go swimming in the fountains. I think some bridal parties have gotten close. Our gators tend to hatch and get raised here, so, they are accustomed to the surroundings. This," she spread her arms, " is their habitat. But, you’re right, they’re not cats or dogs.”

“That’s more like what they eat.”

“Well, we don’t feed them other people’s pets – well – unless rats that we get, or rabbits.”

“Oh, no, not bunnies.”

“You eat them in the restaurant.”

“I don’t, but I see your point.”

Gotz thanked Quarles, they exchanged cards, and he made sure to get her contact information.

“That, Tia, was an example of the hard-hitting journalism I’m committed to.”

“You got her number.”

“Well, they’ll send a photographer. Really, they will. So, you mentioned this rooftop café and maybe some drinks.”

“I don’t remember the drinks part.”

“You did, believe me and by the big grandaddy clock over there,” he pointed to a 19th century heirloom, “and if I’m reading my Roman numerals right, it’s past five and you don’t have to be so straight. And please call me Phil.”

“Mr. Gotz—“

“You’re just doing that to annoy me.”

Tia turned away to laugh.

He said, “Listen, why don’t we do this. I’ll go up to the room, drop off this stuff, turn around three times and meet you up there. Can you do that? I bet the view is great – “

“The best in town.”

“So I’d like some fraternization, I mean, familiarization.”

“I think you probably had it right the first time.”

“So, you’ll accompany me?”

“Ah. Sure.”

They shared the cherry wood, shining brass and mirrored elevator, with its tufted and upholstered bench, to the seventh floor. Gotz noted that the Jefferson was probably the biggest building in midtown Richmond, and Tia, reflecting, though that if not, then it was in the top three.

“Lewis Ginter got past the height restrictions.”

“Well, he was Lewis Ginter.”

“Ah,” Gotz nodded as the bell for his floor sounded. “This is me. See you in a few minutes. Order me a gin and tonic." He held the door back form closing. "If I'm not up there in about 10 minutes, I bumped into Jennifer and there's been an altercation."

She put up a shame-faced hand as the doors closed.

The hushed hallways and the sussurrant air conditioning comforted Gotz. No matter where you go in the established places, these remain the same.

Note on image: The top picture of the Valentine statue of Jefferson in the hotel's palm court lobby is from UVA Magazine archives page. The lobby and rooms of the Jefferson correspond to appearances prior to the 1901 fire which all but destroyed the building. In the Richmond of Tia Chulangong and the one Phil Gotz is visiting, that fire -- and several others -- never occurred.

The View from the Terrace (Part I)

Tia snagged a table mid-distance between the opulent teak and mahogany bar and the stage where the pianist at the grand provided a soundtrack of jazz standards for the guests imbibing in the fading early evening sun.

Gotz entered left of the stage, raising his chin in a near-sighted way to look around. Tia half-stood to wave him over. He was changed out of professorial tweeds into black, from his collarless shirt and slender-cut jacket to his shoes. His massed Andrew Jackson on the $20 grey hair gave him the appearance of a retired rock star.

Gotz negotiated the café tables and various couples and groups enjoying their Jefferson Hotel happy hour. He gazed upon the trailing vines, palms and trellises woven with roses and wisteria. Metal arches fitted with big yellow bulbs spanned the garden. The glass partitions around the terrace were open to allow for breeze and prevent over-warming from the sun. The city and countryside spread out before the Jefferson like the view from a doge’s palace.

“Well, well,” she said. “You're so hip and urban now."

He rubbed hands together. “I'm ready for where the evening takes me." He bobbed his chin in appreciation of the G & T and gave a thumbs up. “Um! The exact thing. Here’s to massive quantities of information." They clinked glasses.

“This is quite fine,” he gazed around him. “So let’s get a look at this view, and start with the south, because, I want you to tell me about that bouquet of towers floating on the horizon.”

“Sure,” she said, then asked what he thought of his room. He was given a suite and while he hadn’t explored it yet, the spa shower was just fine with him.

They stepped past the trellises to the bulging balustrade. Wind caught Tia’s hair. Beyond the river and Manchester, along the edge of the city the sun was flashing across hundreds of windows in the varied high rises.

“Those are mostly apartments, condos, residences; most have retail on the lower floors, the coffee shops, the delis, there’s galleries and offices.”

“So there’s where the almost four million people live.”

“Some, not all; and these concentrations are pretty much here in the south and they’re further out west, and not so much north.”

“Why not so much north.”

“Ah – you know, I don’t have a good answer for that.”

“I’m shocked.”

“Well, you can talk to the planning people –“

He raised a hand.

“Hah. Well, I can say this: These concentrations,” and she raised her arms as though to embrace the agglomerations of towers, “are noticeable for several reasons. You remember, The Woods, that goes all the way around us, and you can’t build the high rises-- here in midtown.”

“So they’re all out there,” and he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the stone rail. “This sort of reminds me of overlooking from atop Notre Dame all the squares and rooftops of Paris, and there’s the Eiffel, and there’s the Sacré Coeur and past all that marvelous architecture, is La Defénse and the Tower of Montparnasse, and those congested residential towers where the rest of Paris is. And there it’s turned into a haves-and-have-nots problem, there.”

“Um, and so, it’s a consideration here, too. Maybe not as drastic as that.”

“Yet.”

Tia inclined her head and drank.

Notes on images:
The Jefferson rooftop garden is not an invention. Prior to the devastating 1901 fire, the hotel staged vaudeville and minstrel acts there. The growth of movie theaters and cheaper entertainments led the management not to rebuild the terrace. The drawing was a newspaper illustration.
The two building models are by architect Haigh Jamgochian, as displayed in a Library of Virginia exhibit, "Never Built Virginia."
This Richmond's population is edging in on 4 million. This is possible because Metro Richmond embraces Chesterfield and Henrico counties. To the south, Petersburg and Hopewell are Richmond bedroom communities and viable, livable cities, too, with a combined population of almost a million. The Colonial Heights of our world -- a white flight suburb -- does not exist in the form we know it.
Richmond sustains this population load due to superior prescient planning and having started with various cultural and technological innovations rather than following behind others. The burgeoning, sprawlng Atlanta and North Carolina's "Research Triangle" aren't like we know them; Richmond got ahead on biomedical research, information technology and the music and film/video scene. There are games designed in Richmond, movies made here, and recording studios for world class musicians.
In this alternate world, Virginia banks were allowed to set up shop outside the state borders. Thus, finance, insurance, retail, entertainment and real estate remain stalwart components of Richmond's economic landscape, in addition to state and regional government offices, and institutions of higher learning. Names gone from our city in the past 20 years remain, in addition to many others conducting varieties of enterprise we cannot imagine here now.

My Journey Into Richmond And What I Found There

Parts IV-V.

The story thus far: Philip Gotz, an obstreperous travel writer known for his "What I Found There" pieces detailing his five-day visits to destinations, is in Richmond, Va. The visitors bureau has given him as guide Tia Chulangong -- who pretty much has his number. They've taken a train from Richard Evelyn Byrd International Airport to bustling Main Street Station, and from there they'll go to Gotz's accommodations at the Jefferson Hotel.

4.

Gotz crossed his legs, settling in, and raised his empty glass toward the waitress. “So this Ginter. He’s like Michelangelo. Made half the city.”

“Not quite half, but some pretty big chunks.”

“A New York Dutchman who fought for the Confederacy. Kinda curious combination, huh?”

“Well, then, like a number of people with his kind of background, he caught the New Dominionist wave – “

“Which nobody, but nobody, really understands really how happened. Except, our good Dr. Venable here,” he brought out the bent-covered book. “She gives it her best shot.”

Tia nodded. “It’s true. That’s why the call it The Miracle of 1888.”

“I’m a little,” he squinted for emphasis, “suspicious of these miracle things. You understand.”

“Part of your charm.”

“Such as it is,” he peered over his glasses.

“I’m sure you can be quite charming when you want to be.”

“Oh, Tia, you wound me.”

“Also charming was Lewis Ginter,” and she smiled, making the dimples.

Gotz was certain he could crawl into those indentations and live, like an efficiency apartment.

She began, “He embraced integration and the Knights of Labor."

He raised a finger to find the passages in the Venable tome. " -- Which, caused him to be burned in effigy on Broad Street. And his house guarded by private security."

"You've really studied."

"Proving that no good deed goes unpunished."

"There's some truth to that, in his case. Because with his many many millions, he changed the city like nobody since. He created the Ginter Park community, bankrolled Union Theological Seminary, built the Jefferson Hotel where you’re staying, and chartered Ginter University.”

“That’s an odd story, too; right?”

She inclined her head. “How so?”

“He, Ginter, was kind of a – how to say? – Clairvoyant? Helluva business card you think about it: Lewis Ginter Tycoon-Psychic.”

Tia said, “Well, some people – um, it is interesting that he bought blocks that were already built up with businesses then he put them in a trust.”

“That’s the part. That one right there.”

“You have been studying up – and, you’re right. Mostly along Broad Street, where he set aside sections near where he wanted the university to grow, and contracted to relocate businesses and families or their descendants when the time came.”

Gotz said, part marveling at a new cold glass of the black Legend, “But the story gets even better, as I understand it. He opened enrollment to anybody who wanted to come: black, white, Cherokee.”

“More like Chickahominy, but yes – See?” she put her hands on her hips, in quite a fetching way, so thought Gotz, then she said, waving a dismissive hand, “You don’t even need me. You already know it all.”

He shrugged. “Oh, no, no, no. I wouldn’t say that. I try to know a little so I can learn a lot.”

“Hum,” she raised her chardonnay and looked off the balcony. “The very interesting part of the whole thing is that because some professors refused to teach integrated classes —meaning women, or people of color -- Ginter sent his recruiters throughout the country to find people with the right fit. Then he built housing for them, too, and that really boosted the development of what we here call the Fan District.”

“Hum. That’s wild. I mean, truly. That Ginter was so ahead of the curve.” He smiled at his Legend. “You getting another?”

“I’m working, Mr. Gotz.”

“Phil. So am I.”

“Heritage Trolley to the Jefferson is about to come.”

“Am I at that exciting at a distance?”

Tia made an elaborate frown and shook her head.

“It’s a real Richmond experience.”

His glass drained, Tia rose and thanked Audrey the hostess. Another embrace and cheek kissing and Tia promising to call her, and they took the stairs down to the street level to emerge into the gold light of late afternoon on the spacious stepped veranda. Clusters of urbanites gathered to get street trams and some hailing taxis. Charter buses and other vehicles moved with pedestrians in a cosmopolitan choreography.

Notes on images: 1) Lewis Ginter (1824-1897), tycoon, developer and philanthropist, via Richmond Then and Now. Proof that money does change things, Ginter endowed his adopted hometown with buildings and institutions that continue today, these include Ginter Park, Union Theological Seminary and the Jefferson Hotel. In Tia's Richmond, however, Ginter became "infected" by the New Dominion political bug and also lived longer.

In the current reality, a contest Ginter called for caused the invention of the cigarette rolling machine. The shock of the new proved too much for Ginter, who didn’t see a market deep enough to accept all those mechanically made cigarettes -— mostly, only fey folk like Irish playwright Oscar Wilde smoked them. Real men chomped on cigars or chewed tobacco. The cuspidors in the corners of the lobbies of Richmond hotels proved it. Besides, the new machines frequently malfunctioned. Ginter had already made and lost two fortunes, and the third time wasn’t the charm for him. He sold the rights in 1885 to James Buchanan Duke of Durham, N.C., and that’s why there’s a Duke and not a Ginter University. Duke had no problem ginning up advertising campaigns for his Bull Durham tobacco. Still, Ginter did well for himself and gave a significant portion of his fortune -- some $20 million -- to his favorite niece, Grace Arents, who pursued her own course in social philanthropy.

2 - 3) Images of Union Theological campus, first from Richomnd Then and Now, and the Virginia Department of Historical Resources. The Ginter University buildings possess a similar character, due to architects in common, including Charles Henry Read Jr. (1861-1904) among whose institutional buildings in Richmond include the 1894 Planters National Bank at 1200 E. Main St., a brick-and-brownstone Richardson Romanesque landmark that’s now state offices. Charles K. Bryant (1869-1933) built Richmond Hall (1908) for a new refectory, and the firm of Baskervill and Lambert built Schauffler Hall (1921) and added the impressive semicircular chapel for Watts Hall.

5. The Jefferson’s Heritage Trolley

The royal blue Heritage Trolley arrived with its bell clanging, easing to a stop in front of them, ‘The Hotel Jefferson’ written in gold, flowing script on its side identified its main sponsor and major destination. Even the conductor here was thrilled to see Tia, crying, “T! My girl!” And Gotz was introduced, the conductor waggled his eyebrows, “She keepin’ you in line?”

“Trying her best.”

“Look, life can’t be so bad if T’s showing you around and you’re staying at the Jefferson.”

The group of travelers going to the Jefferson included tired businesspeople, some families and what Gotz concluded was a gooey-in-love honeymoon couple, young fresh faced kids who sat holding hands and talking in whispers as they stared into each other’s eyes. Canned ragtime music played low.

The guide and the writer sat near the front of the antique car that she noted as a 1900 model. The mahogany, brass fittings and tufted seat cushions, reminded Gotz of a Gilded Age elevator on wheels.

A gesture to technology and technology were monitors recessed into panels in the backs of seats, like on airliners, with attached headphones. Tia explained that Gotz had a choice of listening to the tourism video synched to the progress of the trolley’s passage, or to her, who’d not get to everything as with the video. Gotz opted for the live version.

“So this is Main Street,” Tia began, and several sets of eyes turned toward her.

They rolled past the St. Charles Hotel of 1846, a New Orleanian place, four stories and quite long, festooned by a wrought iron second story balcony. A hostelry had been there since before the Civil War. Slave auctions took place there, Poe took meals in its dining room, and the Poe Museum faced it from across the street. “It’s now part of the Museum of Bondage and Liberation,” she hurriedly said.

Moving over 15th Street the trolley began an uphill climb. Looking around, Gotz could not see anything higher than six or eight stories and past 14th he noticed that most automobiles vanished. Bold red white signs with the silhouette of a car and truck with a red slash through them proclaimed UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES PROHIBITED. The fine print exempted emergency or official traffic, and restricted residential vehicles to certain hours.

Tia pointed out rows of iron front office buildings, and two miraculous survivors of the 1865 evacuation conflagration, both built in 1817: the arched Italian villa arches of the Bank of Virginia’s main branch and another columned temple of finance. “This was the Exchange Bank and after the fire, the only things left standing of it were those columns. It was rebuilt, and First National went in there, but now it’s an art gallery.”

Propelled at easy trolley speed Gotz appreciated entire blocks of renovated 19th century commercial buildings, on occasion with more contemporary levels or modernizations. At 11th, Tia ducked her head and pointed southward down the street, “You see, there’s the Great Basin and Gallego Plaza.”

Gotz peered toward what appeared to him as a long, square lake as Tia told of how the Great Basin stretched to Eighth Street and during the busy canal days of the mid-19th century, this was where canal boats picked up and deposited passengers and freight.

The railroads put the canal out of business and buried the basin, Tia explained, but investors in the 1950s cleared the tracks and unearthed the “big hole” where some 20 canal boats of all shapes and sizes were brought up from the muck. The revival of the canal, and the establishment of a museum at the Byrd Park Pump House, allowed the evolution of the basin and connectors into a major tourist draw.

Tia mentioned names and architectural styles with the familiarity of friendship. When rolling past Ninth and Main, she pointed right to the Richardson Romanesque Chamber of Commerce building, the high curved windows, granite and brick, all this, she said, topped by a skylight illuminated courtyard and seventh floor auditorium offering wonderful views. Gotz would visit during a luncheon next week.

The Pace Block of exuberant, high mansard Second Empire commercial buildings loomed over Eighth and Main like a piece of Paris had landed there.

As Tia continued her narrative Gotz watched Richmonders bustle along the business district sidewalks. He’d traveled in enough cities that he thought he could read the character of the place in people’s faces. Gotz called this the “Shitstorm Quotient” –did those on the crowded walks act like they were leaning into a fecal headwind?

He observed a stylishness of fashion, both self-conscious and nonchalant, and how smart everybody seemed as they stood in lines at the food carts and noshing at the outdoor café tables. The varied hues of people gave this quadrant of Richmond a cosmopolitanism he’d not expected. No SQ quotient.

“Tia, I’m not seeing any high tension wire or cables overhead…this just downtown of all over?”

“Since around the '70s we've buried utilities and, now, fiber optics—first in midtown, then expanding out into the neighborhoods, and requiring it for any newer building throughout the Richmond Metro.”

The street numbers tumbled into the single digits and the commercial buildings became bolder, more flamboyant, their display windows bigger. Gotz asked about a sign on one old storefront, “What’s Mongoose Civique?”

Tia tossed her head back, laughing. “It’s a club, a nightclub.”

“Private?”

“No, not hardly. It’s a popular place people go, after work, late nights.”

“Really? You go there?’

“Ahh,” she ran her tongue across her upper teeth. “I may have been seen there on a few occasions.”

“You little devil. I knew you had it in you.”

She shook her head.

Alongside the trolley helmeted, puffing men in suits rushed their bikes up an incline that would wind Gotz just walking. One guy was even using his cell phone.

Tia in a quick but coherent manner at Sixth and Main, indicated along the left the pediments and columns of the Second Baptist Church building, now offices and a restaurant; next af Fifth, the hulking 1800 mansion of Moldavia, where young Poe gazed upon the James River from its high, temple-like porches and now the Virginia Center for Architecture; the curved graciousness of the Virginia Building Apartments and behind them, the square, fortress temple of Second Presbyterian, and across from that, the octagonal wings and arched balcony of the 1808 Hancock-Wirt-Caskie House; on the left facing Main, the imposing Greek Revival Hobson-Nolting House of 1847, with its triple windows on all four floors and massed rear porticos. These days, Nolting House is a bed and breakfast.

“The restaurant there’s been used in movies,” Tia added. “’You ever see My Dinner With Andre, it was done in the Nolting House’s dining room. All that’s in your info package.”

She pointed to the right at the Freeman-de Saussure house of 1838 and after various latter day incarnations, once again a private residence, with its long iron balcony overlooking Fourth Street.

 The trolley’s shadow rubbed like an affectionate cat against the three-and-four story facades of Federal and Greek Revival townhouses adorned by decorative porches and balconies that reminded Gotz of Charleston and New Orleans. On the right, the handsome brick 1814 Carter-Crozet House,  with its curved railing two-sided porch, a home and antique shop, and the big, dignified stucco-sided Greek Revival house where Pulitzer Prize-winning Ellen Glasgow lived and died.

This blocks-long array of antique buildings was mere prelude to the emphatic splendor and Edwardian fantasy of the Jefferson Hotel. The car glided up to a swell in the road before the hotel and Gotz reveled in this prospect; the elaborate white Jefferson like a docked Spanish galleon, and along the hillside, repeating bays and finials as notes in a musical score, resembling to Gotz the Richmond neighborhood in San Francisco; a park beyond and the high dome of the cathedral in the distance, and odd minarets piercing the sky above the leafy canopy.

“This is quite,” he searched, “remarkable.”

“We like it,” Tia replied.

The trolley’s bell announced their arrival to the Jefferson’s front entrance as other cars, their passengers deposited, with bells ringing whined down hill. Gotz didn’t need the assistance of the red-vested and bow-tied carriers who handled luggage.

Image notes: Top image is lower Main Street in the mid-1940s, next to Main Street Station, and conveys the busy-ness of downtown and the character of the Jefferson Heritage Trolley. In Tia's Richmond, the St. Charles Hotel still stands where the stone wall is at right, as do most of the buildings in the background. The highrises in the misty distance were instead built on Broad.

2) Is Second Baptist Church, via rustycans, which also has a comprehensive history of brewing and prohibition, and the 1902 Virginia Constitution. The building was demolished in 1906.


The bottom photo is the Jefferson Hotel's Franklin Street side mezzanine terrace. I don't know the source.

The enormous sacrifice Richmond made for conceding to the needs of the automobile is little understood today because generations have grown up with the city as it looks now. But what began as a slow attrition in the 1890s accelerated to outright cultural devastation by the 1970s. So many fine residential and commercial buildings were lost through outright neglect and bone headed planning. Residential neighborhoods were saved, while what could've been a preserved and unique downtown was instead given over to steel and glass and plastic buildings. These structures weren't designed as much just built, and most of them now seem dated, as if they were bought off a shelf for "Moderate-Priced Medium-Sized High Rises." Downtown Richmond today, with few notable exceptions, resembles bad quick-and-dirty renovations made to bathrooms and kitchens of Fan houses in the 1980s. 

When we think of Charleston, Savannah or New Orleans, the skylines of those places do not come to mind; but their human-sized, individual buildings, their street life. Richmond lost its way through most of the 20th century in her hell for leather rush to be like somebody else, whether Atlanta or Charlotte, and not herself. This is her tragedy. 

My Journey Into Richmond

-- And What I Found There III

Part III

“I have thought it wise to live for the future and not the dead past. While cherishing honorable memory of its glories, I have thought that we should look to the future for life, power and prosperity…”

William Mahone, Readjuster and ornery cuss, 1882

Just a different set of problems…

Come now, and walk alongside an obstreperous travel writer who is researching an extensive feature about Richmond – a different version than the one with which you are familiar.

He—like you—has never been to the Richmond described here-- but he’s applied himself to studying the story, and he receives able guidance by indulgent, patient and hospitable residents.

In this Richmond, people are no less venal and slothful, nor more gracious and industrious, as they are in the city around you now.

They just have a different set of problems.

The subjects of conversations in its boisterous bars and busy cafés are textured by a history quite altered from the one recorded in Virginius Dabney’s book.

Nobody could blame you, though, if you’d like to move there.

The story thus far: Philip Gotz. a well-known travel writer for print and online media, is taking one of his five-day "What I Found There" excursions to Richmond, Va. He was met upon his arrival at the Admiral Richard E. Byrd International Airport by Tia Chulangong. a representative of the city's tourism office. While riding the airport train to Main Street Station, Tia explains to Gotz about Richmond's development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including a zoning provision forbidding high rises in the center city, and the green belts girding the town, which one developer derided as a "noose of weeds and vines." At Gotz's behest, they've stopped to have a drink on the station's Main Street balcony.

(Image credits at end)


3. The Balcony Scene



“So Cap’n Trice mentioned something about restaurants and lounges,” said Gotz as they alighted from the train and stepped onto the platform. But his next thought floated away as he observed the important bustle under the steel supported canopy. Gotz pulled up his recorder, “Main Street station train shed big enough to park a zeppelin.”

The baggage handlers puttering on their whirring lorries, families with maps and questions and making sure everybody was together, a gaggle of seniors and their jaunty capped guide holding up a sign, “Mature & In Motion,” and the European college kids hauling massive backpacks. He stood for a moment and breathed in the sensations.

Electronic klaxons, the slow building whine and chuff of one train backing out and the corresponding announcement, “Now departing from Track Thrrree, the Tidewater Express, bound for Petersburg, Williamsburg a-a-and the Citeee of Ham-pton Roads.”

Other announcements of arrivals and departures echoed overhead and a hanging screen noted in red and green to expect the Washington D.C. high speed express in two minutes.

Tia at some paces ahead turned to see Gotz standing, his big chin raised and eyes closed as if in communion. She let him do his thing, since he was enjoying himself, until he realized how long he’d remained there. He realized this, smiled, and joined her.

The noise of the platforms didn’t allow for speaking but as they passed through the doors into the station house he said, “You ever see It’s A Wonderful Life?”

“Too many times.”

“There’s that great line – and places like this remind me of it, and my whole profession. George Bailey asks Uncle Billy what he thinks the three most exciting sounds in the world are, and Uncle Billy says, ‘Breakfast is served – “

Tia joined, “-- lunch is served, dinner – “

Gotz nodded. “Then George says ,’No, no! Anchor chains, plane motors, and train whistles.’”
Tia asked, “Which do you like the best?”

“’Breakfast is served,’ I think. I’m worthless without my coffee. But speaking of drinking —“

“Which we weren’t.”

“But I’m getting to it,” his eyes swept around the coffered ceilings and gilded columns, the newsstand bristling with colorful enticements, the various fast food come-ons in bright lights. While not as grand as Union Station in Washington, or as self-important as Grand Central, Main Street conveyed the sense of comings, goings and busy schedules to keep.

“Howzabout those restaurants and lounges?”

“We can get something on the terrace; the balcony. Beautiful day for it.”

“I’ll follow you, to the balcony, or even off it.”

Tia indulgently pursed her lips. She said, “That wouldn’t be good for either of us.”

“Depends, depends,” Gotz airily replied.

They strode across the wide marble floor to the arches of the loggia where a young brunette woman in crisp whites at the host stand knew Tia well enough to say, “T! How are you,” and embrace her.

“Audrey Thomas, this is Philip Gotz, the travel writer, and he’s spending five days in Richmond for a piece he’s writing about us.”

Audrey beamed, shook his hand, “Welcome to Richmond! You have the best possible guide.”

“I’m thinking you’re right.”

“So we’re just having a drink,” Tia said and reached into her little purse for round lensed, tortoise-shell sunglasses

They followed Audrey onto the ornate Main Street balcony furnished by café tables and chairs. Buses, taxis, and trams provided a hopping energy accentuated by a lattice of railroad bridges and viaducts that criss-crossing over the street. The busy rhythm was punctuated by a procession of dormered, step-gabled, third-floor arch windowed, lush-corniced 19th century commercial buildings marching west up the hill toward the business district.

Tia sat Gotz facing west and that allowed her to point out sites while she did not drink from her chardonnay. He sampled a Richmond brew, Legend porter.

They tapped glass together, “To you, and welcome,” she said, and he replied, “And here’s to the startling qualities of Richmond guides.”

“I’d feel better if I didn’t think you said that to everyone.”

“But you’re wrong,” he said, and tried the beer, nodded, and drank more. “If this is any indication, Tia, it’s going to be a great visit.”



He peered over her shoulder toward 15th Street. Red signs and arrows indicated the Edgar Allan Poe Museum. “Ah, so here it is,” he said. “Been reading about Eddie’s foray into journalism.”

Tia, one hand under her chin, turned, “Yes, that’s the Southern Literary Messenger building,” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “His first real writing job.”

“We’re going there –“

“Um, tomorrow, later in the day. So, what you’re seeing here,” she swept her lithe arm across the storefronts and peaked and corniced rooftops, “are some of the most historic places in Richmond. And they’re still here, which considering all that’s happened, and all that could’ve happened, kind of a small miracle. For example, a lot of what you’re seeing here was supposed to be demolished for the interstate.”

Gotz nodded. “But you Richmonders got all up in arms.”

“Biiig time,” Tia said, widening her eyes. “Marches on the Capitol here, convoys of protestors to D.C., the Governor making his declaration,” and she squinted to recall the words, as though some pledge taken in an elementary classroom. “‘The roads will not run through Richmond, nor any of our cities where the people are opposed.’ And the Congressional delegation protesting how the Interstate Highways Commission was just handed money without going through an allocation process. It was big, nasty, loud and long.”

“Sounds fun.”

“Knew you’d say that. But, anyway, it wasn’t but so much fun because Virginia lost millions and millions of dollars in government money – punishment -- not just for the highways; but the actions here inspired cities nationwide to follow Richmond, and places fought to keep the highways from knocking down their central city neighborhoods.”

“Bunch of troublemakers, is what you are.”

“Thank you! We make our best effort. Anyway, you can just see the Riverwalk over there, that really saved this neighborhood by combining new construction with a floodwall. A regional arts project created that mural of the historic riverside.”

“Ah, yes. Sort of fools your eye for a minute. It’s like a stage backdrop.”

“Beyond that, is the real James River Kanawha Canal and the – “

“Where I’ll be taking a slow boat.”

“That’s right. Tuesday I’m putting you on the slow boat to Tuckahoe.”

“Looking forward to it.”

“You’ll be getting aboard at the Gallego Plaza – the canal boat offices are at Eighth Street. I’ll show you where it’s at on your way up to the Jefferson. Two blocks over, behind us, is the 17th Street Market, the oldest farmers market in the country, and behind that is the National Museum of Bondage and Liberation—we’re going there day after tomorrow—and it’s built over Lumpkin’s Jail -- holding pens for the slave markets-- and what’s interesting is that around the corners the floor is clear, so you can see the foundations and other things they found below the surface, the black cemetery across the street is part of the museum, and there’s some exhibits, too, in the St. Charles Hotel building which is next door.”

“Tia, be honest with me. Do people actually go to a slavery museum?”

“Yes, they honestly do, and more and more of them.”

“Not something you do on a light-hearted whim.”

“Yeah. I mean, of course, it’s a serious place.”

“One would hope.”

“We’ll see it; the scope of it is not just the 400 years —but the abolitionists and attempts to gain freedom, as individuals, or through group action – “

“We’re talking Nat Turner, right?”

“And Touissant L’Overture in Haiti. And Gabriel Prosser, too,” Tia added. “And John Brown.”

“Serious place, for sure, ” Gotz said and drank.

“But it’s about slavery here, elsewhere, past and current worldwide, and how people have fought for their freedom. Before the Civil War, here, the slave markets were all around where we’re sitting. Then the big fire destroyed almost this entire district.”

“How Wagnerian.”

“Most of what you see was built just after the war.”

“But now Shockoe is where all the fleshpots and iniquity are at?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You really need the opium dens.”

“Richmond’s progressive about many things, but I don’t think that’s one of them.”

“Brothels?”

“Not legal in Virginia.”

“Amazing. You have casino gambling and horse racing, but no opium dens or brothels,” and Gotz performed a profound disappointment. “This is turning into a very boring story.”

“Would you want to live next to an opium den or a brothel?”

“You live around here?”

“Yup; actually just past Shockoe," she squinted her left eye and pointed over Gotz's shoulder.

"Fulton...now remind me. This is one of those revitalized neighborhoods."

"H'mmm. Yes. Well, it'd gone through a few, I guess, cycles," she twirled a hand in the air. "So, it was a working and middle-class neighborhood, whites, immigrants, and by the mid-20th century more African-Americans. But the community pulled together, got historic status and urban redevelopment money, a levee along the river, and now it's a really great, I think, I mean live there," and she allowed a smile punctuated by dimples. "A mixture of all kinds of people."

"Pricey, though?"

“Depends. But the city is right out your front door. Some people say it's too far away from downtown, and the fun, but we got our own cafes and restaurants, galleries and movie theater. Plus, I tell people this because it’s true, I haven’t owned a car since high school. I just don’t need one here. My money goes to other things than oil changes and insurance.”

“A very public relations response –“

“Well, that's my job. And, speaking of which: Mr Gotz –“

“Phil.”

“Well, the office informed me,” she breathed in and pushed a strand of errant hair behind one ear. “Your former wife is here this weekend.”

Gotz pushed out his lower lip and raised his shoulders.

“We’re adults. It’s a big town. Which former wife, by the way?”

“Ah, Jennifer Royce.”

“Book tour I bet.”

“She’s giving a reading at Cokesbury tomorrow.”

“Good for her!”

“She’s staying at the Jefferson, too.”

Gotz blinked, then chuckled.

“Well, long as we’re not in an elevator and the power goes out, we should be fine. Tia, don’t look so anxious.”

“It was a booking confusion and I’m really really sorry.”

For a moment, Tia’s sharp professionalism popped like a bad cable television connection. Gotz shrugged.


“Really, it’s fine. I mean, you didn’t do it. Did you?”

“Ah. Like I say, it was a scheduling error.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“Somebody at the office fouled up.”

“You mean fucked up.”

Tia sipped her chardonnay.

His brow furrowed and he raised his nose. “H’m,” he said. “Somebody’s smoking the world’s largest cigar.”

“ That’s the tobacco across the river. There’s several factories here. Not as many as years ago.”

“This is the city tobacco built, huh?”

“At first, flour and textiles, then tobacco, yes,” Tia began, happy to speak of history less emotionally freighted than ex-wives. “We can thank Lewis Ginter for that, whose company invented the cigarette rolling machine and he formed American Tobacco here, then the U.S. government split it up and several of the smaller firms kept headquarters in Richmond. By the 1940s, we produced about 85 percent of the tobacco products consumed in the United States.”

“Tobacco put the ‘rich’ in Rich-mond, is what they say, right? ‘Cigarette City.’”

“And other not-so-nice names.”

“Like, for example, what I’ve heard, Carcinogenville, Big C-Town…”

“Because of health considerations, and changes in the national economy, many of those plants closed or moved,” Tia explained. “They’ve been turned into apartments and lofts. But, when the wind blows the right way, you can still smell tobacco.” She turned toward Main Street and added, “I don’t smoke, but I like the smell.”

About the images and notes: Exterior of Main Street Station, with balcony arches, from weddingmapper.com Interior version of balcony arches from the Archer Pelican blog.
Interior of unfortunately empty Main Street Station, mlight.typepad.com and from Kim Schmidt.
And Shockoe from the balcony, perpetual headwinds.com. I've tried finding interior images online of the wondrously restored building showing people and movement -- to no avail.

Some of the most depressing images I've ever seen of Richmond history is that of the concrete support stanchions for the so-called "Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike" marching into Shockoe like Imperial Walkers, and almost crushing Main Street Station. The before and after images of this cultural atrocity, shown stark and large at the Valentine Richmond History Center's exhibit Battle for the City: the Politics of Race 1950s-1970s, were enough to provoke in me a physical, nauseated sensation.

The Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike was an extension of I-95. Despite two public referendums denouncing the plan for the highway's course, the then-powerful Main Street business and private club coalition nudged their collaborators in the General Assembly to form a special "authority" to create the turnpike. Thus, blunt-minded engineers drew an unforgiving line through the mid-section of the city, direct through Shockoe, Union Hill and Jackson Ward, for the most part occupied by poor blacks, or consisting of residential housing considered substandard and not worth saving. More structures were destroyed by this hamfisted solution than by the Evacuation Fire of 1865.

A similar methodology caused the creation of the Richmond Metropolitan Authority to oversee the Downtown Expressway that forever lanced the city and was not just stupid engineering and policy -- designed to bring suburbanites into the city -- but bad feng shui. Richmond was cut off from its riverfront by lanes of asphalt and an important section of the James River Kanawha Canal obliterated.

Scott M. Kozel provides a valuable, detailed and, to my view, pro-road builder history of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike and Downtown Expressway at his Roads To The Future site. The image below is from that site; note Main Street Station at lower left. In the Richmond that Phil Gotz is visting, the "spaghetti works" doesn't exist. That Richmond has a different perspective on automobiles and their proper place.



Due to the series of unfortunate rail and transit policy botches and bollixes Richmond's great stations, Main and Broad Street, were stranded in the mid-1970s after Amtrak chose to move from its urban stations into suburban "Amshacks" to theoretically accommodate suburban commuters (a mistake realized too late). Both Richmond stations suffered the indignities of abandonment and neglect. Main Street resisted floods, fire and the vagaries of municipal governance. Both came within an ace of demolition. The domed, John Russell Pope-designed Broad Street received rehabilitation as the Science Museum of Virginia, but spur tracks remained, allowing the now defunct American Oriental Express to pull in there twice a year.

Main Street is caught in a perpetual "multi-phase" rail redevelopment plan, due to the nation's false economy and historic wretched priorities of transit planning that champions wasteful highways over passenger rail. This is why for several decades the long-needed straightening out of the mess at the Acca Yards remains unaccomplished, and the upgrading of rail leading between the Staples Mill suburban station and downtown goes uncompleted.The country, not to put to fine point on it, is screwed up big time regarding efficient, safe and aesthetic transit.

The Southern Literary Messenger building is from freebase.com. The building was torn down just prior to World War I when 15th street was supposed to undergo widening; the war intervened and the street expansion never occurred. Richmond lost yet another one of the actual physical spaces known by Poe. The preservationists who rescued the Old Stone House, today the Poe museum, acquired the bricks and used some of them to construct the wall surrounding the rear garden and construct the pergola. The Messenger site, and that of the next door Allan tobacco offices, is now in part occupied by Club Velvet.

Tia's residence in Fulton may throw some readers; in our Richmond, there's Fulton Hill, but "Fulton Bottom" (never called that by those living there -- the "bottom" designation was a class-based pejorative), was allowed to be ripped up and torn down by the city (and a few neighborhood Quislings) during the early 1970s for "urban renewal." Supported and allowed to exist, Fulton would've perhaps provided a funky alternative to other pricier neighborhoods, as a mixture of Church Hill and Oregon Hill, an architectural mixture of brick single family residences and townhouses, churches and stores, and old frame buildings, too. The image row houses along Denny Street come from Richmond Then And Now.com.

Further description of Fulton in the current Richmond's timeline, from a back-issue article of mine here.

" In the late 1960s, Fulton had 3,000 residents in some 836 buildings spread across 330 acres. The neighborhood counted seven churches, one of which, Rising Mount Zion Baptist, was more than a century old. Fulton was restaurants, stores and schools, and at least one small movie theater, The Lennox, at 514 Louisiana St.

In 1930, Fulton boasted a 30 percent home-ownership rate that was, according to urban-studies writer Chris Silver, substantially higher than those of other working-class communities.

During the 1940s, home ownership actually increased because families of limited means could afford to own. A number of those houses didn’t have indoor plumbing or electricity.

The character of Fulton shifted due to layoffs at the C & O railroad when it switched from coal to diesel and unemployment from the closure of the nearby Richmond Cedar Works in 1957. White families left. Rental properties proliferated, but they weren’t properly maintained. City inspectors seldom visited Fulton, and housing codes weren’t enforced. Poor blacks displaced from neighborhood obliterations in Navy Hill and along North 17th Street arrived in Fulton because they had few places to go. Break-ins and robbery, nearly unknown in Fulton, proliferated after 1961, and heroin arrived in the community’s streets in about 1964.

St. Augustine’s Catholic Church was in such dire shape in the mid-1960s that [artist Don] Crow remembers his foot smashing through a floorboard during Mass one Sunday. Fulton itself slipped through the cracks of planning and oversight. Still, neighborhood leaders, as Silver writes, “rejected the slum stereotype and sought through political mobilization to resist” massive demolitions.

Scott O. Davis, in his book The World of Patience Gromes: The Making and Unmaking of a Black Community, a memoir of his time as a social worker there, records nip joints and bootleggers with alcoholism and the domestic squabbles they produced, the gamblers, pool sharks, hoodlums and a rising tide of despair. Richmond’s officials couldn’t figure how to solve Fulton’s problems except, ultimately, to get rid of Fulton altogether."

Given the dramatic shifts in urban planning and policy in the Richmond where Tia lives and Phil Gotz is visiting, it's unlikely Fulton would've turned into empty green fields lately filling in with vinyl-sided tract housing, The flight of both white and black middle class into the cul-de-sac archipelago hinged on first, integration and second, the collapse of the public schools deprived of tax dollars to operate and maintain them.

. But this alternate Richmond's situation is different -- as we shall see.

Finally, Methodist-based Cokesbury books, still a presence in the Richmond region, occupied an entire downtown building and I often visited the racks and aisles there when I wore a younger man's clothes on a thinner frame. The main floor on Grace and 4th was a regular, secular store with an excellent selection, and in this Richmond, it's still there.

My Journey Into Richmond

-- And What I Found There

Part II

“I have thought it wise to live for the future and not the dead past. While cherishing honorable memory of its glories, I have thought that we should look to the future for life, power and prosperity…”

William Mahone, Readjuster and ornery cuss, 1882

Just a different set of problems…

Come now, and walk alongside an obstreperous travel writer who is researching an extensive feature about Richmond – a different version than the one with which you are familiar.

He—like you—has never been to the Richmond described here-- but he’s applied himself to studying the story, and he receives able guidance by indulgent, patient and hospitable residents.

In this Richmond, people are no less venal and slothful, nor more gracious and industrious, as they are in the city around you now.

They just have a different set of problems.

The subjects of conversations in its boisterous bars and busy cafés are textured by a history quite altered from the one recorded in Virginius Dabney’s book.

Nobody could blame you, though, if you’d like to move there.

The story thus far: Philip Gotz. a well-known travel writer for print and online media, is taking one of his five-day "What I Found There" excursions to Richmond, Va. He was met upon his arrival at the Admiral Richard E. Byrd International Airport by Tia Chulangong. a representative of the city's tourism office.



***********************************************************************


2. To Main Street Station…

Their queue was short and Tia followed by Gotz slid their cards into a chirruping reader, then boarded the crowded train. A few electric chimes bing-bonged and a pleasant woman’s voice said, “This is the Byrd Airport Express to Main Street Station and Richmond center.”

Gotz noted that among the moving, LED advert placards advertising jobs and attractions that Ken Burnsian pictures depicted one mustached, bespectacled Julian Sprague, and images of streetcars from the past decades. Scrolling words-and-pictures screens placed at the ceiling showed the time, temperature (a pleasant 72 degrees), minutes to Main Street (10 and counting…), but also announced the “Richmond Metropolitan Authority: 120 Years And Still Rollin’.”

Tia urged him not to sit yet but follow her to the observation level. Gotz pushed in his baggage handle to carry it up the 10 tread spiral stair. At its foot, Tia thought better of ascending first, and said, “After you.”

Gotz chortled. “You’re just not going to cut me any slack are you?”

“So, tell me about that elevator in Seattle?”

The writer set his mouth in a line, said nothing, and went up the stairs though midway up he stopped to inform her, “You know, that story is at least six years old by now, and I was a different man, then.”

Tia, holding the silver stair rail said, “How so?”

He raised his brows for comic effect. “Well. I was six years younger with better knees.”

A few passengers at the bottom of the stairs gazed toward them expecting movement. Gotz waved at them and continued. As he came to the clear canopy observation deck the train bolted out of the airport’s tunnel into the bright day that shined through the bubble top. The train’s chock-itty-duh-duh-duh as it rushed forward provided a sense of exhilaration. Passengers pointed and took pictures of the countryside streaking past.

Tia said by way of preface, “ I hope you won’t mind, but I can talk your ear off about Richmond.”

“What I’m here for,” he said as he twisted his backpack around, unzipped it, and pulled out Jessamine Venable’s lauded history, The Girl in The Picture, about the civil upheaval in Richmond and Virginia surrounding the 1888 state constitutional convention. A bookmark indicated he was halfway in, and dog-eared pages gave the appearance of study.

“You’re scheduled to meet Dr. Venable on Monday --?” she frowned at her own palm-held device. “Yes, Monday at 2 p.m.”

“And to meet your low expectations of me, I’m going to ask you some rude and personal questions.”

“Oh, rude and personal. My favorites.”

“How is it that you’re in Richmond?”

“I’m native. Born and raised.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I wouldn’t have thought.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re baiting me,” Gotz said, half-smiling.

“These are your rude and personal questions.”

“OK. Fine. You’re not from Anglo-Saxon stock.”

“Not directly, no. My father,” she touched her clavicle, and a necklace pendant inscribed with symbols, “ was studying international policy at Ginter University, he’s from Thailand, and my mother, she’s African American, was a dance major.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Mr. Gotz.”

“Phil. I’m trying not to ask how old you are.”

“Good, because a Southern woman wouldn’t say.”

“I was trying not to be rude or personal. But -- You’re all of, what, 19?”

She laughed. “A bit more than that, Mr. Gotz. And that’s as far as you’re getting – Not something, I’m guessing, you’re used to.”

“Ouch,” he touched his ribs and squinted as if lanced. “But I probably have socks older than you. I think I’m even wearing them,” and he pulled up his trouser legs in a well-practiced move.

“Thought so.”

Tia twisted her mouth into a reluctant and indulgent smile and shook her head.
He resembled a rather befuddled professor, in his tweedy jacket, khakis, and tassel loafers.

The writer said, “Speaking of statements, these pictures and the screen down there, the 120 years. What’s that about?”

“Ah, well, 2008 is he 120th year of electric-powered transit in Richmond, which has the oldest in the world, Julian Sprague — he’s right there,” she motioned to a bespectacled man, his combed over white hair and drooping mustaches, “flipped the switch for the first time on a trolley car train in 1888.”

“Hold up. You said trolley car. Isn’t a streetcar and a trolley the same?”

“Um, there’s a technical difference. Richmond had horse-drawn streetcars. He invented the troller that hooked the car to an overhead wire.”

“Ah — so trolley.”

“Happened right here, on Church Hill. We’ll see the spot. The city owned the service and didn’t sell to outsiders, so we’ve maintained the system -- But I need to tell you about this,” she raised a hand to indicate the outside. “We’re passing through some, uh, controversy right now.”

Gotz glanced to either side.

“Trees?”

“We call this The Woods.”

“How Lord of the Rings.”

“It’s a part of a circle of forest, fields and farms that goes around Richmond, actually, most of Virginia’s major cities and many smaller towns have a version of this, but ours is the oldest and biggest.”

“Trees.”

“Forests, fields and streams. The Greater Richmond Commission, what it was called back then, set it up about 1890. Basically designed as a buffer to prevent what we’d now call sprawl.”

Gotz nodded and the passing woodlands shimmered on his glasses.

“Humph. So that’s smart and years ahead of everybody. Richmond was Green before there was the political color,” he raised the book. “So elsewhere, Dr. Venable talks about how Teddy Roosevelt came here and admired what was happening.”

“’Their love of nature in her many parts,’’’ yes. But it’s a big topic right now in Richmond, which is has now more than three million people in the metro. One of the issues is that due to very strict zoning, high rise buildings can’t go up in the old central city.”

“And how did that happen?"

"Well, around 1890, Richmond adopted the nation's first historic preservation and historic district creation regulations. And one of the zoning laws was that no building within six blocks of Capitol Hill could rise taller than the building, or hide it from view."

"Thomas Jefferson's Temple of Democracy," Gotz said, then peered over his glasses, adding, "Even though Virginia was built upon a slave economy."

Tia raised a brow. "We never said we were perfect."

Gotz laughed. "Virginians are always saying they did it first, better and prettier."

"Most times, we have."

"And thus, no high rises."

“Not downtown, anyway, or the older and historic neighborhoods. Like I say, we call the parklands around the city The Woods but few years ago a developer got famous by describing them as “a noose of weeds and vines.”

“Poetic.”

“Everybody has an opinion. You’ll hear them. Buh-lieve me.”

“What’s your opinion?”

Tia eyed his recorder, then laughed, forming the dimples. “We should find a solution through discussion.”

Gotz grunted. “You oughtta go into politics.”

“Maybe,” she raised a brow. “One day.”

The train rolled free of the forest into open sky and the city spread over undulant hills. The cars curved toward the Beaux Arts tower of Main Street Station. Tia explained the view.

“To the left is Richmond’s cradle, the Shockoe Valley,” and upon Richmond’s eastern hills clustered a proliferation of brick and wood frame houses and buildings of considerable vintage.

“Above it is Church Hill, there at St. John’s Patrick Henry gave his “Give me liberty or death,” speech."

A span crossing above the tracks and bridging the hills loomed large on iron legs with cross-hatched struts. "Ahead of us is the Marshall Street Viaduct that goes between the hills. It's 2800 feet long and 95 feet high and spans 17 railroad tracks. To the right, Court End and downtown."

Gotz observed another tight agglomeration of varied buildings, some quite contemporary, and one massive ziggurat rising above it all. He asked Tia about it.

“That’s MCV, the Medical College of Viriginia, it’s —“

A black shadow flew across the passengers as the train slid between the viaduct's iron legs and an amplified non-automated and jovial voice interrupted her.

“Oh, this is Captain Trice,” and she raised a hushing finger to her lips.

“G’evenin’ ladies and gentleman, from around the world and from around here, this is your engineer Cap’n Trice speaking. We arr-ruh on our final approach to the grand and wonderful Main Street Station, where you can connect to every other train, tram, streetcar, bus, taxi you need, ever’ thing but the boat, and that’s just three blocks away.

From Main Street Station you can catch the Medical College of Vuh- gin-ya East Campus Express a-a-a-nd the Ginter University South Express, the Downtown Access train, the Richmond Circle and the Manchester and Glen Allen locals. This train proceeds to Broad Street Station.

If you’re visitin’ with us here in Richmond today, we have a welcome center and traveler’s hostel in the old Railroad YMCA next door, and if you’re waitin’ on Amtrak, there’s restaurants and lounges in the station. Cap’n Trice thanks you for taking the Richmond Metropolitan System today, because it’s been 120 years, and we’re still rollin’, --

Tia mouthed along with him: “—and I know, ‘cuz I’ve been here for every single one of’em.”

The tourists chuckled even as he began repeating some of his narration in serviceable Spanish. The soft exhalation of the slowing train began and the station’s shed eclipsed the car’s dome. The train slid along the outside track. From here it would roll out and yaw west.

Cap’n Trice announced, “ Maaaayn Street Station, Richmond, Vuh-gin-ya, North America, Western Hemisphere, Earth. You have arrived. Please, exit to the left. And please, mind the gap.”

They stood and Gotz said, “I want to meet this guy. Anybody who enjoys his job that much I need to speak to.”

“If you’re serious I can arrange it,” she said, at the spiral stair, and this time going first.

“I am-- I am serious. Maybe, what? Squeeze him in before I go—“

“I’ll work it out,” Tia said.

“I know you will.”


Note on the images: I happened upon this photograph on the Hattie and Bruce Travel blog. This is the Oslo, Norway, airport train to the city. Richmond could run an airport train from Richmond International to Main Street Station; the track is there, and various plans have called for one. But, still, it hasn't manifested into our reality. The Marshall Street Viaduct straddling Shockoe Valley is an early 20th century post card from the Virginia Commonwealth University Library Special Collections & Archive online exhibit "Rarely Seen Richmond." The MCV West Hospital wasn't yet built, but the massive roofs of the Main Street Station train shed is visible at left.