Tuesday Mornin': Building the Arts & Rail Districts in the Downtown Model

Sunday Mornin': Moving ahead with the Downtown Model

Looking South from Wells Avenue

Sunday Mornin':Thinking about the Roanoke City Market

I think David Trinkle's idea of providing assistance to displaced vendors in the City Market Building is well worth  consideration by Council. Perhaps, the same consideration should be given to those businesses along Wall & Market Streets along the East & West sides of the Market Building.

Surely,  some time must be taken to understand the real cost of moving these businesses to wherever, including upfit requirements in temporary(?) space, and reestablishing the vendors in the Market Building a year later.  Was planning building systems items for renovation/replacement such as water, sewer, electrical undertaken with detailed input from the eventual building vendors?

How would that cost compare to conducting renovations to the City Market Building incrementally? What might the increments be? Half the building at a time, one quarter at a time, upstairs/downstairs, vendor-by-vendor?
With Twists & Turns and Claire V's expression of intent to leave the market due to Center-in-the Square's intent to sell the building next summer to reduce expenses and raise money to allow the beginning of their major renovation; thoughtful consideration must be given to the implementation of these "most public" of projects in an open design lab atmosphere (as compared to another "Town Hall" format).

The problem is arising from an obscure & archaic planning process.  It is no one's fault!

The confluence of an economy in a tailspin and increasing divisiveness/partisanship in our society demands change in our approach to designing, planning and building our future.

The process needs to be transparent, flexible and quickly responsive. Think monumentally; act incrementally. Think globally; act locally.

Think for The Heart of Roanoke: A forum for discussion of issues like these.

If Construction is scheduled to begin 8-12 months away,  the architects & engineers of the project are not so far along in the creation of construction documents and specifications that a review of the project's implementation would create a problem. In fact, such review or reconsideration of projects in this stage is normal in my experience.

Eldon L Karr-Architect

Urban Design - Historical Framework Reference

As a resident of this area for a half-century and as an Architect and Urban Designer, I have tried to remain cognizant of the history of this area if not really well-studied. Recently, I discovered a book entitled, Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: magic city of the new South By Rand Dotson, who has done the research work, and very well, too.

Following, is a review of the work by Tom Lee of East Tennessee State University:
Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: Magic City of the New South. By Rand Dotson. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007. Pp. [xxii], 338. $42.00, ISBN 978-1-57233-592-9.)
Too often, the label urban Appalachians evokes thoughts of urban ghettos in northern cities and the so-called hillbilly highway. Over the course of the last few decades, however, a number of scholars have produced studies of cities within and on the outskirts of Appalachia that have illuminated the complexities of New South cities and their relationship to the mountains. With Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: Magic City of the New South, Rand Dotson has filled a huge gap in the literature and done it well.
In the 1850s the village of Big Lick, a tobacco manufacturing, warehousing, and transit center, developed around a depot located along low, marshy land, or licks, where surveyors chose to route the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad in Roanoke County. Although near ruin at the end of the Civil War, Big Lick achieved township status in 1874 and in 1880 claimed a population of 669, almost evenly divided between blacks and whites. In 1881 officials of Enoch W. Clark & Company chose Big Lick as the junction of two company-owned railroads, the Norfolk and Western Railroad and the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, and they established offices, shops, yards, and ancillary businesses. With the agreement of locals, railroad officials chose to rename the town Roanoke, and by 1883 Roanoke had become a New South boomtown with over a thousand new migrants, many of whom were skilled workers from the North and most of whom were white. By 1890 the city conceived and fostered by a single company had become what Dotson calls a "corporate town" with multiple enterprises independent of the railroads and an independent municipal government that, although factionalized, shared the tenets of the New South (p. 28).
Roanoke's economic fortunes aggravated political, ethnic, racial, and class divisions, endangered public health and public morality; and threatened potential discord and disorder. Throughout the late 1880s business and civic leaders utilized company paternalism, moral crusades, and appeals to a white-dominated urban ethos to check potential threats to city harmony, but the onset of economic depression in 1893 and the alleged robbery and assault by a black man of a white woman from a neighboring county inflamed simmering tensions within the city. When Roanoke's working-class whites, bolstered by rural whites, threatened to lynch the incarcerated suspect, the mayor, a Roanoke native and longtime city booster, called out the Virginia militia. A confused exchange of shots left eight people dead, wounded thirty-one, and forced the mayor, the militia, and other important citizens to flee: the mob hanged and burned the prisoner. The riot, crucial to Dotson's story, punctured Roanoke's reputation as a city hospitable to new investment, but it failed to force city civic and business leaders to address divisions in the city. Rather, in true Progressive fashion, they sought to restore Roanoke's image by channeling unrest into moral improvement movements like Prohibition into civic improvements like urban planning and sanitation, and into legalized expressions of "justice" like sanctioned hangings.
Dotson's work is more than a case study of a New South city on the edge of Appalachia or of any single group. With ample attention to primary and secondary sources, he explores the interactions of multiple interests within Roanoke and adds considerable complexity and nuance to the story of Roanoke's elite. While Dotson argues successfully that social conservatism and boosterism linked Roanoke with other cities of the New South, certain of his assertions need more thorough treatment. However, these minor points should not diminish the story that Dotson has assembled. Anyone with an interest in Roanoke, the New South, Appalachia, labor history, urban history, or race will find much of value in Dotson's work.

Thank you to Rand Dotson, who reminds all current Roanokers of many fences that must be mended as we move forward, while we remain cognizant of the fact that not one of us can live with the expectation that our very own great, great, grandchildren should make amends for our indiscretions.This is must read for all dedicated Roanokers, new & old.

APA

Lee, Tom. "Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: Magic City of the New South.(Book review)." Journal of Southern History. 2009. Retrieved October 05, 2009 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-199800975/roanoke-virginia-1882-1912.html

Idea Sketches - The Greening of Henry Street #3

So, now it's Spring 2012. We are standing at the intersection of Wells Avenue and Henry Street looking back toward the Wachovia/Wells Fargo building. We see the Old Henry Street frameworks that pay homage to the cultural history of this short section of street designated with a National Historical Landmark status.

Two perfectly restored vehicles; a 1930 sedan and a 1948 Tucker Torpedo have been brought to the pavilion that represents an old service station that stood in the same spot nearly 60 years ago! They were brought for the Henry Street Festival in the recently completed park area.

Development of the area continues as excavations for the new HealthCare Forum building are underway behind the trees and adjacent to the new Higher Education Plaza.

The steel silhouette of the two men talking might be talking about the new developments in the area. But, no, the plaque at their base indicates that this silhouette honors Oscar Micheaux and Oliver Hill. (What do you think the older Micheaux might have been saying to the much younger Hill?) There are four or five other silhouette monuments placed along Henry Street honoring outstanding contributors from the Gainesborough neighborhood.

Idea Sketches - Playing with Rupert's Idea

Vertical Wall Gardens?

or

Urban Art?

or both?

What do you think?

Let's keep planting more trees, too!

Idea Sketches - The Greening of Henry Street #2

Can You Imagine... A way to honor a street with no buildings that has been designated a National Historic Landmark. Do you remember Tom's Service station at the Corner of Henry Street and Wells Avenue. Today the frame could serve as a park shelter.