Main Street, Commercial Place, and Redevelopment

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Main Street, Commercial Place, and Redevelopment
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"...When the dust had settled in the early 1960s, old East Main Street, lined with burlesque houses and bars, was gone. Gone was the original Commercial Place, where stevedores and merchants traded drinks in ancient taverns while they waited for ships to unload. Gone were the central city markets, where dozens of produce, dairy, meat and fish

Hampton Roads Times Magazine
HamptonRoadsTimes.com

merchants sold their wares at small stands under mammoth roofs. Gone was the city's old Union Station near the Elizabeth River, where travelers stepped off trains into the heart of the city. Gone was the entire neighborhood of Atlantic City. Gone was the city's oldest core, a tight web of streets dating back to the city's founding...."
(from "Urban Renewal in Norfolk - What Was Lost: A lot. What Was Gained: Not Much." by Alex Marshall, alexmarshall.com, August 10, 1999; first published in the Virginian-Pilot)