Beautiful Ginter Park - 1910

From the May 1st, 1910 issue of The Times-Dispatch comes this ad for Ginter Park, one of Richmond's first streetcar suburbs.

Bellevue Ave - April 1978

The 1200 block of Bellevue Ave in Northside, looking towards Brook Rd, from April of 1978. While this block has changed a fair amount in 33 years, Bellevue Cleaners is still on the corner of Brook and Bellevue, and from what I can tell in this photo, looks exactly the same. I love the Drug store and Bi-Rite Market signs, and I still have a Bellevue Hardware yardstick in my house, left by a previous owner.

Photo courtesy of VCU Libraries

Richmond Arena Roller Skating - 1957

From the April 26th, 1957 issue of the University of Richmond's newspaper The Collegian comes this ad for roller skating at the Richmond Arena. The Arena initially opened in 1908 as part of the Virginia State Fair when it was located in the area where The Diamond sits now. Over the years it had many uses, including a city garage, and later as home to the University of Richmond's basketball team. The building was torn down in 1997.

Here's a shot of the outside of the Richmond Arena:

Richmond Arena roller skaters in action:

Ad courtesy of the University of Richmond's Boatwright Library/Digital Initiatives

Green Day at Twisters - January 22nd, 1993

Green Day played Twisters on on West Grace Street on January 22nd, 1993, 18 years ago today. This is the current location of Strange Matter, and has been known as 929, Chronos Cafe, Nanci Raygun, and The Back Door among others over the years.

I have a little backstory and some pictures to go with this post, since I was at this show. I'd been listening to Green Day for about a year and a half at this point, but hadn't been able to see them live, so I was pretty excited. So excited that I brought my camera, something I had slowly stopped doing over the years. I'm glad I did.

Green Day put on a great show, and I was surprised how packed it was. Consequently, I wasn't so surprised a year later when Dookie came out and made them a household name.

Towards the end of their set a guy started screaming for them to play Sweet Home Alabama. He wouldn't let up, and to the crowd's amusement, Billie Joe offered to play it of the guy came up and sang it. The guy climbed on stage and very drunkenly attempted to sing the song, and to everyone's surprise began a slow striptease. The pictures above show a bit of this, although I had to censor the last one! Immediately after the last picture was taken, he dove into the crowd. I can still hear the SLAP of his naked body hitting the black and white tiles that Twisters had on the floor. The sold out crowd managed to part just enough so no one had to catch the sweaty naked drunk guy. Thank you sweaty naked drunk guy, for one of the most memorable moments of the hundreds of shows I've attended over the years.

Anyone else there for this show? Or better yet, were you the sweaty naked drunk guy? Add your story in the comments. And sorry for the small pics, I have no prints of these, and no negative scanner. This was the best my scanner could do.

Lou Rawls at The Mosque - January 21st, 1967

44 years ago today Lou Rawls, "America's Greatest Blues Singer," played The Mosque (now The Landmark Theater). This ad comes courtesy of the January 13th, 1967 issue of the University of Richmond's newspaper The Collegian.

Photo courtesy of the University of Richmond's Boatwright Library/Digital Initiatives

1979 VCU Academic Campus map

From a 1979 VCU application packet comes this Academic Campus map. VCU alumni (like myself) will notice many fixtures of the current campus missing in this map, including part of Gladding Residence Center, the Temple Building, the Student Commons, and the Main Street Parking Deck among other staples of the last 20+ years.

The Academic Campus, now the Monroe Park Campus, has change just slightly over the years. Click the map below for a modern day VCU campus map.

I-95 Toll Plaza - 1966

Postcard from 1966 of the Belvidere Street toll plaza. This was part of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike/I-95 toll road. You can still see today where this toll plaza was, the width of I-95 at the Belvidere Street exit is much wider than the rest of I-95 downtown. All of the original toll plazas have been removed though, this one in 1992.

316 East Main Street - 1936

Here's the De Saussure House from Tuesday's post about 10 or 15 years later in 1936. In the photo at the bottom of the post, you can see the Great Depression took it's toll. The house looks largely abandoned, except for the used tire store (25 cents and up!) in the basement.

A few things I really like about this photo are the men hanging out on the side of the building:

The "ghost" man in front of the house:

And the dismembered ghost leg in front of the car:

Unfortunately, the house was demolished 4 years after this picture was taken.

Photo courtesy of The Library of Congress

316 East Main Street - 1920s

I'm going to try something a little different here: Over the next few posts I'll show the same house from two different time periods in the past. The De Saussure House was built in 1839 at 316 East Main Street (corner of 4th and East Main Street). The photo at the bottom of the page was probably taken sometime in the early 1920s. You might not notice it at first, but the side of the building is an Amoco gas station. Check out the great "American Gas" pump at the curb:

And it looks like the house next door at 314 East Main St was one of the first, if not the first home of the Richmond League of Women Voters:

Photo courtesy of The Library of Congress

State Theatre Grand Opening film - 1933

Keeping with the theme of my last post, here's a silent newsreel highlighting the grand opening of The State Theatre at 712 East Broad St. on October 25th, 1933.

This theater opened as the Broadway Theater in 1919, reopened as The State in 1933, and closed for good in 1981. The building was demolished when the Theater Row Office Building was built in the early 90s, but it almost looks like some of the facade survived...Or did they just mimic some of the facade from The Colonial that they saved? Anyone know?

Video courtesy of the Internet Archive

Colonial and State Theaters - October 1975

The Colonial Theater opened on the 700 block of East Broad St. in 1921. At one time this section of Broad was known as "Theater Row" because popular theaters like The National, The Bijou, The State, The Lubin and The Colonial all were within a few blocks. The Colonial Theater closed in the early 80s, and the building was mostly demolished in the early 90s, although the facade was preserved as part of the Theater Row Office Building that took it's place in 1993. Today, VCU occupies the building. Part of The State Theater can be seen at the left.

Photo courtesy of VCU Libraries

Open air 6th Street Marketplace - 1969 Architectural rendering

Happy New Year everyone! Vintage Richmond is back from a short hiatus, and I've got a ton of great stuff planned for 2011: Some before and after posts, videos, and more concert flyers and ads to name just a few.

We'll jump right into things with this architectural rendering of the "Sixth Street Mall" from 1969. It probably would have been better to go with an open air design, then the city wouldn't have had to spend all that money demolishing the enclosed mall (built in 1985) a few years ago. Or did they initially go with this open air design, then later build the enclosed mall? Anyone care to give some insight?