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Brambleton, Norfolk's First Suburb
(For more Norfolk geography tidbits, click here.)
In his series on Norfolk’s development, Robert C. Smith discusses the development of Brambleton , Norfolk's first "true suburb":
"Probably the earliest true suburb of Norfolk was Brambleton, where homes built for the moderately well-to-do have since fallen into ramshackling disrepair in a hodgepodge of urban commerce.
It is difficult to imagine the Brambleton of rose gardens, wood  lots, and chicken yards, just as it is difficult to imagine Church Street from a 1835 description: ‘A handsomely paved street from the lower termination near the Court House to the Town Bridge, with fine residents on the north.’
...Brambleton began to develop in the early 1800’s, when there were more homes than shops on Church Street and when East Main and Holt streets were high on the list of desirable residential districts. Atlantic City – where the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s vast, new medical center is now foreseen – had already come into being from the cotton industry which took up its entire waterfront, but it was considered principally a suburb for cotton factory employees.
The overflow from the city brought many newly married couples who built and owned their own homes on an individual scale. There were no tenements, no homes for rent; neither was there running water, sewerage, or other modern conveniences. There were no street lights until the gas mains were laid in 1900, and by that time Brambleton’s 4,000 citizens had been annexed by the City and the same thing was happening to Atlantic City...."
(Virginian-Pilot, June 28, 1955, pp.17)
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