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Mosha's

North 25th and East Broad Streets

This was the first ghost sign I saw when I moved to Church Hill. Every time I went down Broad I'd see it and think, Mosha's. I wonder who Mosha was. My question was (sort of) answered later that year. This was the first time, and will likely be the only time, that anyone ever popped up at random and told me about a ghost sign.

For the first year I was living back in Richmond, I didn't have a car. When I wanted to visit friends up in DC, I took the Groome shuttle from the Holiday Inn on Staples Mill up to National Airport (and from there, the metro). There was one stop, at a hotel in Fredericksburg, to pick up or drop off a few passengers and let the drivers take a break. Once over the break, one of the drivers started talking to me. He was a white man, probably in his early seventies (and this happened back in 1993). He asked me where I was from and when I told him I lived in Church Hill, he said, "Oh! You know that place on Broad, the building with the sign Mosha's? That used to be a grocery store and the first job I ever had was delivering groceries for them by bicycle."

So that's the Mosha's story. Maybe not so exciting, but it's interesting for me. It used to be when I told people I lived in Church Hill, I'd get the "Oh, that horrible! dangerous! neighborhood!" reaction (usually from people who'd never set foot here), but occasionally someone would have a story to tell me.

278 words | April 20, 2006 07:52 PM | Ghost signs