|
|
|
|
Norfolk Redevelopment, 1940s, '50s, and '60s
(For more Norfolk geography tidbits, click here.)
"...As the decade proceeded, city leaders fell in love with the bulldozer. In projects beginning in 1949, 1951,1953, 1957, 1958, 1961 the City Council, through its creation the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, ripped out dozens of streets, knocked down hundreds of buildings and evicted thousands of families from their homes. At the same  time, it built new highways, new civic buildings, and new public housing.
Under then Mayor Duckworth, the city would announce a clearance project or an expansion of a current one almost every year. In 1957, the City Council approved the destruction of Atlantic City, a relatively stable neighborhood, that used to exist around the midtown tunnel entrance and underneath the medical complex. In the same year, the city would commence clearance of the central core of the city, which would lead to the construction of a new City Hall, courts complex and jail. These renewal efforts would also create the famous blank "17 acres," which would stay empty for 35 years before the MacArthur Center was built.
By the mid 1960s, most of downtown, with the exception of Freemason, Granby Street and part of Main Street, had been cleared...."
(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)
|
|
|
| |
