Good article about Fulton Hill in Richmond Magazine

For the full article go to RichmondMagazine.com Dreaming of Green Where a village was destroyed, a planned community may rise in brownfields The Beginning of the End Fulton in the mid-1960s was variously described in the press as “shabby and lonely,” “sick, shaggy,” and “a pocket of almost complete poverty.” Former mayor Eleanor P. Sheppard remarked that Fulton was “the […]

October 6, 2009; 1:28 PM • by vmallonee

For the full article go to RichmondMagazine.com

Dreaming of Green
Where a village was destroyed, a planned community may rise in brownfields
The Beginning of the End
Fulton in the mid-1960s was variously described in the press as “shabby and lonely,” “sick, shaggy,” and “a pocket of almost complete poverty.”

Former mayor Eleanor P. Sheppard remarked that Fulton was “the city’s biggest disgrace.” She further observed, “It’s the only way to get from downtown to the James River plantations at Garden Tour time, yet it’s undoubtedly the worst section of the city.”

Yet despite its forlorn appearance, Fulton possessed “a robust community spirit,” wrote Times-Dispatch staff writer Ed Grimsley in 1969.

The formal beginning of the end of Fulton began on Nov. 11, 1966, when City Council voted 8-1, the dissenting vote coming from Council contrarian Howard Carwile, to study the conditions in Fulton and two other neighborhoods. Joseph Highsmith of the Fulton Improvement Association agreed with the need for the study but insisted that Fulton dwellers be included in the process.

City Council rebuffed developer Alex Alexander’s farsighted October 1967 concept of creating a “semi-luxury,” 160-unit apartment community between Gillies Creek and Lewis Street that would have included tennis courts, a pool and a nursery for working mothers.

 

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October 6, 2009 1:28 PM 0

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