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.