June 05, 2006
Condemned
On North 25th near Leigh Street
North 25th is being slowly brought back as the "commercial corridor" through the neighborhood. To the right of these houses is a graceful Masonic Temple, to the left is a nicely restored house. Across the street is a humongous church. I'm hoping that the proximity of not-falling-down buildings will help pull these back from the brink, though the tree growing out of the frame house is not hopeful. Well, the tree is looking pretty happy, but the house? Not so much.
When I opened my eyes this morning, and for the rest of the day, I heard the beep-beep and not quite infrasonic rumble of heavy machinery somewhere within a few blocks. I've learned to recognize those sounds as the signal that the city is knocking something down. In the next few days I'll notice an empty, straw-covered lot and try to recall what used to be there.
This past week a little one-story frame storefront on Clay, boarded up since I can remember, disappeared. For the longest time it had a Pepsi sign peeking over where one of the windows wasn't totally covered: a bottle-cap in a field of yellow painted on glass. We'd go by and every time I'd smile at it and think how amazing it was that the glass hadn't been smashed in all these years. Then, one day it was. And not so long after, the whole building was gone.
Another building on Leigh is gone within the last month or so. It was a two-story frame storefront covered with disintegrating asphalt shingle in the popular ghetto brick pattern. There was a sign on the side, lettering in bright blue electrical tape: Bethel Holy Church. Now it's a vacant lot and the only thing left is the phone-less phone on a stick sort of thing projecting from the sidewalk in front of where the building used to be.
These things that are gone are gone. It's not like they looked all that great, though the boat in the lot on Leigh? With the trees growing out of it? I like to look at them. It's fun to imagine them getting fixed up and turned into a church, a shop, a house where people live and plant flowers out front. But I can't do that once the city knocks them down.
391 words | June 5, 2006 09:04 PM | Ghost signsGreetings, 100 Word:
I am a writer for Richmond Magazine and I'm tight on deadlne with a feature pertaining to neglected and abandoned properties, and the hope of rehabilitation, though demolition is frequently the case.
It's June 6, at 4:13 p.m., and I'm in need to speaking with you--because I want to hear people who walk, live and look at blight and what that means to them and their community. Full disclosure, I ive in the fashionably scruffy or scruffily fashionable West of Boulevard South of Cary (WoBSoC) neighborhood, on S. Colonial Ave., and the Byrd Theatre is my home entertainment center. Except they won't let me use the remote control inside the house.
By the way, I share your interest in ghost signs. I wrote heavily illustrated piece about "wall dogs" for what was then Richmond Surroundings about 12 years ago.
Thanks in advance,
Harry Kollatz Jr.
Posted by: Harry at June 6, 2006 03:17 PMHey Harry - I own the house at 2502 East Leigh - right next door to the property that was featured in Style Weekly on May 31st - wanna chat? My brother, David and I have some really interesting details about the building next door to my place, the properties at 512-518 N. 25th, the increased number of houses being demolished due to an unlimited budget for demolitions, the organization that has and can make the difference but is running with THREE employees total. There is a great need for more volunteers to conduct title searches/property searches/hunting down the heirs to properties, etc. ), funding, publicity,etc.(personally, i think all of those who claim to support preservation and restoration need to back up their claim w/action and a little less lip service - sorry, but it is true - i'll tell you why i feel this way) Call me if you would like to chat or set a time to meet - 248-8547 - Mary Anne Conmy
Posted by: mary anne conmy at June 14, 2006 12:03 PM