Carolyn Hawley and James McBride interview (2000-02-21)

              [Total time: 1:15:53]
CARVER LIVING NEWSPAPER PROJECT: ORAL HISTORY
Interview with Carolyn Hawley (CH) and James McBride (JM) Interviewer Trina Davis, VCU student
Date: February 21, 2000
(Interviewers questions are bolded)
State your name, your occupation, and where you live.
(CH) My name is Carolyn Hawley, I live 919 W. Clay Street, and I am an auditor with the SCC soon to be a homebound business person.
(TM) My name is James McBride, I live 904 W. Clay Street. I work with the City of Richmond, Department of Utilities, Waste-water Operator.
Miss Hawley, how long have you lived here?
(CH) I've lived here, in this particular house, since 1991. But I was born and raised in the community. I was born on 803 West Clay Street.
Mr. McBride didn't know that, that's the house he lived in before he lived here.
(JM) Right, right. Well, I've been living here since 1987. I moved at 903 West Clay Street. I moved to 904 West Clay Street in 1993. I'm sorry, 803 West Clay Street. Did I say 903?
Can you tell me something about the Carver area as far as businesses, from past to present?
(JM) Well, like I said I came here in 1987, so what I've seen from 1987 until now, I've had some dealings with Bassfield Motors, because he worked on my cars, so I've had a real interesting relationship with Bassfield. I also go up to the John's Corner Store on the corner. Basically, those two businesses are just the only two businesses that I've actually had any dealing with in the Carver area since I've been in the area.
(CH) I was born in 1959, so that means I'm 40. And when I was a little girl, with me living there at 919 West Clay, right across the street, I guess it's 1000, Gee's Shoe Shop was there, and that was a real treat to go around and measure your growth as you were growing up to see if you could sit in his booths and not need the little stool, and eventually as the years went on you could sit in the booth and just put your feet flat on the ground, and a father and son ran in business, and they were really nice, and it was just a pleasure to see people coming in and talking. And the corner stores we had, Bermer's which was a Jewish store right at Marshall and Gilmer, and eventually T.H. Smith, who was a black business owner. You know Mrs. Smith, she lives right next door to Bassfield.
(JM) Yeah
(CH) She and her husband own the store right at Gilmer and Marshall on that quadrant in that block on the Southeast corner. They have that store there, and they went back across the street and opened up a little gameshow room, and that pool hall. We have pool halls around here. So there are quite a few businesses. Mr. Burke's restaurant, right down on Gilmer and Leigh, and grown folks would go in and sit around weekdays as well as weekends and the kids would
always have a treat in the bologna burgers. And then Lorenzo's was here, and then Esquire's. So a lot of little places for adults, and the fun thing was that at a reasonable hour when the kids went there it would still be great because the owners would buy us ice cream and things like that. And
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then there was Mack's barber shop right over on the 700 block of West Marshall, and that was a gathering place for a lot of men in the community. So there were quite a few businesses I had growing up here.
What about the buildings that were around here when you were growing up? How did they look?
(CH) The buildings? Where people worked or where they lived?
Lived and worked.
(CH) Well, it seems like Clay Street was always a well-kept area and I grew up on Gilmer, although I was born and raised on 903 West Clay, I was there until I was about 4, and then we moved to Gilmer, they were fair, they weren't anything to brag about. We lived in apartments. My grandparents lived in one set, my aunt and her kids lived in another, and my mom and us lived in the other. I have two brothers and two sisters. And the buildings were fair. Anything needed to be fixed and the landlord would come by and as far as home ownership, in my particular block, I think there were 2 or 3 people who owned their homes. Mostly everybody else rented. Which we rented of course. And then it seemed like on Clay Street you had more home ownership as well as on Marshall Street. But the buildings, a lot of them aren't here any more. None of them are here on Marshall Street. But the buildings were in fair condition. Oh, another business I forgot was Mr. Harris' lawnmower shop. Right on Gilmer Street. John S. Harris. He always had the lawnmowers going on Saturday. To this day if I hear a lawnmower on a Saturday and the sun is shining bright, I still think of Mr. Harris. Any kind of a motor. And Mr. Harris would always send the kids to the store to sell this kitchen and get him his lunch and he would always let us keep the change. Mr. Harris was a black business owner. And he often looked for some of the kids in the neighborhood to teach the trade, but everybody wanted to play ball.
(TM) Just listening to Carolyn, it's hard to follow something like that I guess for the time that she has been in the neighborhood, but honestly speaking, the things that I have observed and the renovating in the community, and also the addition of the 34 townhouses, so basically, the cosmetics of the neighborhood has been basically the same for me in the last ten, twelve years.
What about the housing? You grew up in the neighborhood, right?
(WI) Well, no, well I moved here in '87. I came and my brother was living in 803 West Clay Street. And after a divorce I came to live with him. And I didn't have any intentions, honestly speaking, my intentions wasn't to be up here for no length of time. You know, I'm still here as a homeowner. But I've been blessed, I've truly been blessed. I've met some wonderful people while I've been here, a few of them are deceased, but it's a real interesting community because originally I'm from Church Hill, and as far as being around a group of people, I think that in the last couple of years it just seemed like for me that the comraderie has come around because basically people just stayed to themselves, maybe it was just me, but first I just couldn't get into the groove, maybe because things I was doing a lot of people wasn't doing, so with the grace of God, since I've been here in the community I've been born again and I've been reconnected with Christ. So it's been a religious experience in the last five years for me. So anything I see is beautiful now.
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You said you were born and raised in Church Hill? How does Carver hold up to Church Hill?
(JM) Well, it's no comparison as far as comparing Carver with Church Hill. The area that I lived in was a city within itself. Church Hill I define as a city within a city. You know, you have a city within the city of Richmond. Church Hill had its own uniqueness. Church Hill has its own legacies. Church Hill was just a place where, it was before its time. WE had blightness, we had some of the same problems other communities dealt with. But it was just a really transitional thing for me to see a lot of the guys that I grew up with, their mind set. That's what I'm really trying to get out. The interest in trying to better ourselves or the interest in just staying on top of things. It was just so easy to be discouraged, it was so easy to get into a clique, it was so easy to be followed by some forces that weren't really productive at all.
You grew up in the neighborhood, correct? What about your house? How did it look?
(CH) Well, the first house I grew up in was at 803 West Clay. My Aunt Carrie owned the house. She had a beauty salon downstairs, and we lived upstairs. I think it's a three bedroom. That was my mom, actually my father's sister-in-law had actually owned the house, then he and my mom separated and my mom was there. And it was my brother and I. And then when my sister came
along, that's when we moved. But it was, as a 3 or 4 year old, what can you really remember about your family? So my brother and I remember my mother giving us the oranges with the peppermint stick on the end, and sitting in front of the tv looking at I Spy, that's when Bill Cosby was on it. But it was in this housing and it was fair. And then when we lived on Gilmer it was funny because it was a three bedroom apartment and by this time there were four of us, and then there were 5 of us, and we're in a 3 bedroom apartment. I'm sorry, I mean a 3 room apartment, with one bedroom. We had a cart and a bed and my mom slept on the sleeper sofa in the living room. And then my mom was going to move. And Mr. Shifflett was the owner of that unit, and by this time the family that lived under my grandparents, my grandparents had passed away, my grandmother had passed away but my grandfather still lived up there and underneath them was another family but they moved and we were going to move but the man convinced my mother to stay and in the bedroom he nut a door in the wall and connected the two apartments. And that was really funny. To this day my sister and two brothers and I laugh and joke when we talk about going to the other side. So you can be in one apartment, which is what we were accustomed to. So going to the other side has a special meaning for us. We still had a front door, we just had the bunk beds right against it. And that's how we grew up. And then we moved to 406 which was a house, that's when I went away to college, and that year my momma and my family moved over to there, and we stayed there until I came back, well my family stayed there and I graduated and went away and lived in Chicago for 3 '/2 years, then I came back and lived with my mom and I was going to work one morning, and I had seen something on a telephone pole or an electrical pole, a sign about Carver and a meeting and zoning down at City Hall. And I said well let me just go down here and see what that is all about. Cause I said I wanted to get more involved in things when I moved back And so I went there to the meeting and I saw all, well not all, but I saw Miss Peters, and Sandra Ross, Barbara Abernathy, all these people down at City Hall, and I said what are these people doing down here. And as it turned out they were the Civic League, and that's how I got involved in the Civic League, because I saw them down at the City Council meeting that I had gone to, and then getting involved with the Civic League and finding out about urban homesteading, and Miss Peters was the one, with this house I live in now, she was the one who
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kept encouraging me to apply, and I said well I don't think I will, I don't think I'm qualified, and she kept encouraging me, and finally I did apply and got this house here. So you talk about just the transition and the status of what buildings look like now. When I saw this house before, this house was abandoned, it was tore up, tore up, and had I not seen my neighbors house that had been renovated, I could have not had a vision for this house being renovated. It's a great concept, and I thank God for the work that they've done, it's just so amazing thinking about the Civic group, and here are people who have labored and when the blessings come to people, we say thank you, thank you, this truly is a blessing from the Lord, and then we've got to get back and realize that people right here on the earth are the ones that went down to City Council and went down to City Hall and got financial arrangements for renovations and all sorts of things. Designations as a conservation area for the community so that we could get special funding for renovation and R&R. The whole concept now is just decent and affordable housing for the community. Decent and affordable. Those are two words that have a lot of meaning. Cause a lot of people even in houses that are affordable, they aren't decent. So yeah, what was my house like when I was growing up? We had memories there. And my mom would, when I smell PineSol I will reflect to one particular time when I came home, because my mom was a domestic worker, and so I came home one evening, and she kept the apartment neat and clean and smelling good. But one particular day it just smelled so fresh, the air and everything, that I ever could imagine.
What did you do for fun as a child?
(CH) What we did for fun, what I did for fun as a child, we had a lot of outdoor activities. We played, we would play, boys and girls played together all the time, what we would mainly do was play rolypoly, which was baseball, and I guess some people might call it stickball, we would play roly poly, we would get little bricks and draw lines in the street and play batting across the line, play four square, play hop scotch, but you know you didn't have too many boys playing hop scotch with you. But we would play handball and fussbox, that was his name, his name was Austin Smith, he was the grownup in the community, he taught almost all of us how to play ball. We would play a lot of baseball, a whole lot, and pitching pennies up against the wall, we would climb trees, we would get old tires and race them down the street. Tin can alley. We would play porch games, we would sit on the porch and play o'clock, lots of things. We had a lot of kids, a lot of children. And they weren't just kids, like 4,5,8 or 9. I mean 17, 18, 16, 12. We played a lot. WE did a lot of ripping and running. Outside.
I'm going to get to you in just a minute Mr. McBride. What schools did you attend? (CH) I graciously and proudly say that I attended G.W. Carver Elementary School, and Miss Austin, 902 was my 4th grade teacher I'm pleased to say, and Martina Lewis lived in Mr. McGwire's house, and she and I used to study 4th grade. To this day we know how to spell responsibility with our eyes closed. And so GW Carver, and then we walked down to BA Graves, now in the 6th grade, BA Graves went from the 6th to the 8th grade, but my classroom went, there were 4 6th grade classes down in the annex for Carver, and mine was one of them, so still a part of Graves. Then I went to Maggie Walker high school. And so all of my schools were in the community, we walked to all of them. It's a sad shame that two of the three schools have closed in this community. But it was grade. I took French in the 4th grade, Madame Johnson, no she was Mademoiselle Johnson, now she's Madame Archer, and she taught us she would come in for about an hour about once a week from 4th grade on we would take French, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th grade. So school was great. Especially when you knew the people in the community
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who went to your school, and you met people from Highland Park, from BA Graves, and then at Maggie Walker you met people from Church Hill and the West End. So school was great. I can tell you wonderful things about school. But those are the three schools I went to. And for instance, I will always remember at GW Carver, Mrs. Austin would put on the plays at the school, and we did Cinderella. I wasn't' in any of them, but there was this great big pumpkin, I mean it was so big and so real. I wasn't in it, I was a little girl then, I was in the first grade. And we had blue jeans on and blue tops, light blue tops. We used to have JP1 and JP2. JP stands for junior primary. Now they just call it kindergarten, 1s`, 2nd, 3rd . Signor, one of our neighbors, in another play was Mary Poppins. And from her I really learned how to say Supercalifragilisticexpyalidocious. They really pulled out the talent of a lot of people. And BA Graves was a lot of fun. We were the scorpions, and we had our basketball teams, and earth science was a great subject. Maggie Walker was an awesome school, such a family environment. I was a cheerleader in high school. I played softball, I played left center field. I did not backcatch Mr. McBride, I did not play right field. I was forced to play right field. We had a fantastic team, although there were only three teams in the capital district at that time. But high school was a lot of fun. We had great leaders, the teachers really cared about you. They were down to earth, and they kept the standard, as well as at Carver. For some reason at BA Graves that connection wasn't there the way it was at the other 2 schools. And our football games we played at Hovey Field at this time, and then when I was a cheerleader it was great to have the band and the football players would go, the game would start at 7, at 6 something we'd march down Lombardy Street to Hovey Field, and then we started playing our games at City Stadium. No, we always played our games at Hovey Field, we just played the big game at City Stadium. So it was great, it was wonderful. Silver Coach was across the street. And the teachers taught you a lot, you made great friends, it was just a really great spirit, and we were the capital district, the schools in the City of Richmond. Looking back on it now, when you were in high school, it doesn't seem to me like there's much you can do, in an administrative setting, but in hindsight, I'd wish I'd had the wherewithal) then to prevent the combining of the schools. Because there were 7 high schools in the city, and then they combined the schools to 3, and most of the schools were predominantly black. Why would you do that? John Marshall and Maggie Walker, they combined them. Jefferson, Huegenot and Wythe, and then Armstrong/Kennedy. None of the buildings were closed, they just said they were consolidating the schools because they wanted to save money, yet they were shifting the students throughout all the schools. So it was extremely illogical. And then when they unconsolidated all the schools, they kept them all open except Maggie Walker. So I am thoroughly convinced in my heart, decisions start with people, they start with ideas, it was a conspiracy. I daren't say what and why, but it was a conspiracy to close Maggie Walker high school. No matter how long, if it took ten years, I didn't matter, as long as they closed the school. It's a hurtful thing, you look back on it, you see generations and generations and generations of people going to the same school, and there's no continuity. Someone said to me once before, this person lived in the county, it seems like the city schools the kids don't have much spirit when it comes to sports. They have to beg the kids to play. I said basically, you broke the spirit. Here you have schools with longevity, history. Then you combine the schools. Then you separate them again. How do you develop loyalty over 4 or 5 years ago. So a lot of times strentgh comes from connections from the past and they didn't really have a past to connect to. And how could the faculty instill a sense of pride and spirit into the kids, and they too have gone through the same changes that the students have gone through. So it's really interesting, and I'm real sorry that it happened, that they closed Maggie Walker, and they still
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have TJ, Armstrong, Kennedy, Huguenot, George Wythe, you know, all those schools. Hopefully the city schools, you know, they still have the spirit. What I like currently about the way that the athletics are in the region, now playing a school like Manchester, or Henrico, or Highland Springs, it doesn't seem like they're that far out. The thing that I do like is that it's connected the city and the counties more. One good thing that's come out of it I think that's what it is. So there is nothing for a city school student to think of playing and challenging a county school and seeing them as real rivals instead of seeing it as an out of district game, so it really doesn't matter. Do you know what I'm saying? So those are the three schools I went to.
How do you feel about them reopening Maggie Walker and shifting the Governor's School to there?
(CH) Well, there's a lot to say, I mean I agree with the fact that the school should not have been allowed to get in the state of disrepair that it's in now. Overall, I feel disappointed that the school is being renovated and reopened and not for the sole purpose of it being called Maggie Walker high school. But I can gleam some joy out of the fact that the building will be revived, and that it will be the governor's school. And I see that the city has signed to school over to some foundation, and that makes me wonder how much control will the city have with that foundation in terms of disposition of the school. Because truthfully you know with the school having a predominantly white population, I really don't see, and it being I the middle of 2 black communities, see I'm thinking long range, I'm thinking 5, 10 years from now, I'm curious to see how long that will last. I really am. Because when people are concerned about the environment for their children, and I don't think these environments are harmful, but it would depend on what your mindset is, and I would ultimately want to know what the disposition of that building would be, and my secret goal, my secret desire, is that the school would get renovated, get all of these tax credits, would go to whatever organization it needs to go to, and the governor's school would say, okay, we're ready to go out into the county and out into the boondocks, because we don't want our kids here, and the school would be renovated and ready to be reopened as Maggie Walker high school, and that there would be enough students in the city to repopulate the high school. So how do I feel about it? I have mixed feelings about it. But the bottom line is that the school will no longer be a blight and that's a good thing. But I can't imagine, why would you let a high school named after own of your very own city people, your city heroes, why would you let it close? Does that make sense? That does not make sense at all. That defies common sense. Period.
You said that you moved into the neighborhood in the 80s.
(JM) Yes.
So how was the neighborhood different from now.
(JM) Well, just listening to Carolyn, it's been changes, I mean, and I think what has happened, it's just personal to say what have I seen, I've seen changes, and I've also seen some things that need to be changed, and I think change brings on fear. I also would have to just thank Miss Peters, bless her heart, because she actually inspired me to become a homeowner, she inspired me to become part of the civic association. So when I hear the term "paying back" or "giving back" this is where I'm at right now, and I think my thing is to give back to Carver. Also to show my appreciation for Mrs. Peters, for just inspiring me to just be a part of this community. Because it's a lot of work to be done. I mean it's a lot of work to be done, it's work that hasn't been done, it's things that have been set up, and I think it's so important to carry on the legacy to
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carry things on, but in order to carry some things on, some things need to be changed, and in order to be changed, in order for this change to happen, that's the only way I can see for the community to go on forward. Sure, just listening to the past, just listening to what's happened in the community, it's good, but also it's like what will be my responsibilities, what do I owe to Carver, what do I owe to the community. Sure, I owe something to these people up here, I owe something to myself, and when I see something wrong, I'm not just going to lay back and say that it's right. Because it's a lot wrong that God knows, it's going to be made right. And I think in order to just stop playing the games that we play as people, we need to just be sincere and we need to just remember where we've come from and look at where we are today, because it's up to us to really pave the road for these young people, and we cry a lot about what's wrong with the young people, well what's wrong with the older people? What's wrong with the older people to not be able to set up some programs? What's wrong with the older people to not be able to go to these big companies and these big schools and tell them what we want? I mean just, that Maggie Walker thing. Lord knows, I'm glad you said it. But I'm not even going to get into that at all, because it's just a disgrace the way this thing was handled, and it's also a disgrace to have some of these big time people or institutions to come in and insult the neighborhood and insult the intelligence of the neighborhood. Because we need to stop playing games. It's very important, because if we're playing games with ourselves, we're playing games with our children. And that would really just kill us as a race of people, you know, because we talk about the equality of life in this community, we're sitting on a gold mine, I mean I look from one end of Clay Street to the other, and from Broad to 95. Working together, this thing can work, but if we don't work together, we'll be just like we're sitting here now, talking about what it used to be. You know, on the outside looking in. And this is what I'm working so hard for right now. I'm going to be honest. So we can sit down and tell our stories. That it will be stories. There will be some Carolyn Hawleys. There will be some other people in the community that can say well hey, this is how it used to be. But all I can say is what I've seen in the last 12 years. And I'm saying hey, in the last 12 years I've seen some things, but also I think that things could also move a little quicker or faster, if I may use that term, than what I've seen last 12 years.
Well what have you seen?
(JM) Well I've seen, you talk about renovating, you talk about restorating, I've seen the blightness, I've seen some of that disappear, I've seen a lot of the, well I've seen a lot of arrests, of people being arrested for just doing the wrong thing. I don't see a lot of people walking down the street drunk like I used to 3 or 4 years ago. I don't see a whole lot of robbing, killing, I mean it's probably going on, but the point I'm trying to get at is that in the last couple of years, the cleanness, the cleaning up of the community, I can sit down on my porch, I feel comfortable in the community. I give a lot of thanks to the VCU police department working along with the City of Richmond. But also some citizens, like Carolyn Hawley. We have a real strong civic association and I think you really need to take your hat off to the civic association. And the only way that we can continue to be a strong civic association is to really get the involvement of the whole community. Once we get the involvement of the whole community, a lot of our decision making, a lot of our goals, a lot of our desires, will be met. But the way it is with just a few people, we're just at a standstill, that's what I see. But as long as you get the participation of more and more people, I think this vision, this dream, will really grow and come to some reality as far as Carver. Not something of the past. Not the desolation and the blightness. You would hear of a community that has been reborn. You would see a community and hear of a community
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that you look back and you see some things has happened, not just a whole lot of talk, but you would say well this building used to look like this, and now this building is that. This street used to look like this and now this street is like this. It's a lot of work. And just to listen to how it used to be and God knows, they've come along way. But I still think it's a long, long road. And personally I'm not satisfied with what's happening right now.
Do you have children, Mr. McBride?
(JM) I have children. My children never lived in Carver. I have a son and a daughter, a daughter 22 years old and a son 21. So as far as quality of life, they were never here with me. They come and visit at times but as far as to sit down and ask would you someday like to own this, we don't get into that. It's just like two worlds because of the blightness. They're not accustomed to living the way that I'm living when I came into Carver, because it was just, if I may use the term, a step down, Carolyn talked about 803, God knows I was glad to get out of 803 West Clay Street because of just the going backward part for me. Now at 904 West Clay I'm happy, and what makes me so happy, I'm saying I have a shower, I don't have to close one room off when it's cold, those types of things, and that's being real. To say it's hot and you can't put nothing really but a fan in the house because the house can't hold, the wiring is not suitable for an air conditioner. So I'm just saying, just to look at the quality of life for me, and also look around and say if I'm living like I'm living now, and we're talking about affordable and decent housing, I mean, this is my thing. Affordable and decent housing for everyone in the Carver area. And I mean that's my dream. And whatever it's going to take for me to do whatever I need to do. And I mean God knows whatever it's going to take for me to do what I need to do as far as bringing up the quality of life, improving the quality of life for a lot of people that's interested in living in Carver, because sure I can say in the last 12 years what I've seen, but the trend is now that you are getting people to come I the community, and when you invest in, put 90 to 100,000 up in a house, you expect to be here for a while. When you start putting that kind of money up in property, you start expecting to see some other things change as well. This is where we are going right now. You talk about his renovating, you talk about this restoration, you talk about this and that, but you're going to be bringing in a different type of person, you're going to bring in a different group of persons that have different values. So how do you bring all this diversity? How do you make all this diversity come in and still call it Carver? This is what I want to see. Some things are going to change, but how do you still call it Carver? Just like how Carolyn mentioned about the Maggie Walker thing — how can you still call it Maggie Walker with the legacy that Maggie Walker held, and bring a whole new setup in there and call it Maggie Walker. It's not Maggie Walker. You are going by something that was, and it's not Maggie Walker. So where are we going to be with Carver? What are we going to do as residents? How are we going to control our community? And this is the realness. When you talk about plays, when you talk about sitting down and writing papers, what can the community do, what can the community hold on to, what must we hold on to, what must we let go. And that's growth. You're going to have to let some things go. You're going to have to shed some clothes, shed some things, in order to grow. And we're on the situation now, we have a pretty good opportunity now, working with the university and working with some other interested people in the community or I'm saying in the city, to really keep this thing Carver. When we say Madelyn Peters and Miss Smith, I didn't have the opportunity to meet this lady and I wish I had, but these two people when you talk about Carver, these are two people whose names that come up. These are people that has pioneered that road, have laid the road out. And God knows to really make
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these people turn over in their graves behind a lot of things that will happen, and God knows I hope that it won't happen as far as just saying well Carver is just something in the past. It's sad, it's sad, you know.
(CH) Our Council Person, that's one thing that he always admired about Mrs. Peters, she always knew where the money went. When she would go down to city council and speak, she would have their undivided attention. And it would behoove a lot of us to delve back into her commitment to the community, because the whole goal, and 89 was when I got involved in the civic league, and they were going strong, and I didn't bring anything new, I just joined in with the force that was already there, and the goal and the push was home ownership, decent and affordable housing. Now with the university and things like that, we're getting things cleaned up in the community and I'm real grateful for that. But God knows it would be a hurting thing, and we've done some things with Mort Gulock, and they've identified the property owners of the abandoned homes, and we need to do some follow up on that, but the goal is not to identify them, and I'm not saying that's what he said, but we need to make sure these people realize that the vision of the community. It's their money, it's their pocket, but it's not to turn Carver into a major rental facility for university students. And university students are individuals, just like Jim and I, just like you, but when you get back into the concept the mindset is different, it's the transitional thinking, and we're looking for the longevity of the community. So we really have to keep a watchful eye on that. People want to build apartment buildings and all like that. You're talking about your tangibles, and things that what we really have no major control, but we have avenues to deal with different issues, like zoning, because even if areas are zoned for multifamily, you still have to get a variance from that because of the density. So we still have voices on that. So the whole thing, we love our community, we really do, and the idea is that to have a continuity to it on an ongoing basis, and not just buildings, because if you don't have, you don't have stable environments, 15 years from now, maybe 20, you'll be right back to the blighted situation. And you'll be right back fighting city hall. Not fighting, but you know fighting initially, then carrying on with the connections to get more money to redo what was already done, and we probably need to look at communities like Washington Park, and all like that, because Roy West was over there, he was their civic league person, and I think in a period of time they got Washington Park completely redone. That's a black community over in the northside. And you have people who rent, yes, but it's a family setting. It's not this rooming house here, rooming house there, people just walking up and down the street, you can't control that, but you try to get some people to walk up and down the street over on Hanover Avenue... So we as community people, I think we're dealing with intangibles, and there's a lot of power in the intangibles.
(JM) But Carolyn, also in looking at Carver and thinking about Church Hill, I saw a change, and God knows I don't want to see the change that I saw in Church Hill be the same type of change in Carver. Because what happened, when you're talking about renovating and restorating, it was a whole different, the community had just dissolved, the whole quality of life had dissolved, because you had people coming in that had money that could afford these houses, so when they came in to renovate, if they didn't want to see Mr. So and So across the street because he had a whole lot of shopping carts, then Mr. So and So left. They had to get rid of him. I'm hearing the term, it shocked me the other day to hear the term about sanitizing. And it really disturbed me to hear this type of term being used as far as on the university level. Because like I said earlier,
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we're sitting on a gold mine here in Carver. Now what the community do, what the civic leaders do, to really keep this thing going, it's very interesting to see where we will go as a community because if it was up to the university, Carver would just be a name of something that used to be, because of just the growing of the university, and you can't stop growth, but also when you talk about growth, you don't want to tear down tradition also. And you know you can't break it down to brick and mortar. It's more than brick and mortar here. Carolyn goes back 40 years, I'm going back 12, 13 years, so this is my home, and I have no intentions of leaving on my own. And I don't have any intentions of just sitting around and seeing young people not having the opportunity to better themselves, not have the opportunity to go over to the university. Because this is something I would like to see. For a lot of our young people, if there's some kind of way with the community's help and with the university's help, get some scholarships for our young people to be able to attend this thing, or to be able to attend Virginia Commonwealth University, I have some mixed emotions about that Maggie Walker, God Knows I do, and just the governor's school, but I'm saying if the university wants us to be a part or partners with them, then we want the university to be partners with us. We want some things for our children. I'm not looking for anything for me. I want some things for the young people. I want for them to be able to not be afraid of when they hear VCU. I want them to be able to not be identified as "those people" and this type of thing. It's some real issues that we have to deal with, not as a race, but as a country, and in order to deal with these things we have to really be real about just who we are, what we are, and where we intend to go.
Carolyn, do you have any children?
(CH) Yes, I have a son, he's 22 months old, Isaiah. He's my baby, he'll be 2 in April.
Is there anything else you two want to add? Is there any stories that come up, good or bad about the neighborhood, any activities that went on in the neighborhood when you were growing up? That you would like to see come back?
(CH) Well, I know, right on, that throughway, in the 800 block of West Clay, Mrs. Thompson, I think she was the civic league president before Mrs. Peters, because apparently there was a Carver area civic improvement league and there was a West of Belvidere which this community was called. Well Miss Thompson, you know where Curtis Brown lives? She lived in that house, and she was a schoolteacher too, and my mom used to always say that nothing but schoolteachers lived around in this area anymore. Now a lot of these homes were owner occupied. And they kept them up really nicely. And of course you walked down the street and you spoke to everybody. And so you sitting on your front porch, and somebody passes by, and really realistically, most of the times the men remember, most of the times you'll find the men who will speak, and children may not, but before when you were younger, you would always speak to people who were going by. But the point I'm trying to make, Mrs. Thompson had a block party over here once before, and for some reason I always remember the bread and the chicken, but it was a really nice thing, and I think we need to do more of that.
(JM) The opportunity is there, and I think once, and I really can't put my hand on it, but I think it's some forces that's kind of infiltrated a lot of communities, and I don't think I'll be at liberty, I don't think it's time to really talk about some forces, but to whatever it's going to take, and I don't think it's going to take a rocket scientist who says well how can we get back to where we were, how can we get back to the basics. And I'm kind of interested, and this is going to be a
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play? I'm kind of interested to see how this play will actually come off, and how it will actually inspire the residents of Carver, because the residents don't mean just me on Clay Street. You're going over there to Hartshorn. People forget about Hartshorn. When you talk about Carver, you're not just talking about Marshall Street and Clay Street, and Leigh Street. You're talking about Hartshorn.
(CH) That's true. And people over there are definitely homeowners, and they have real nice communities, and swimming pools. So it seems like in the play, the message I would want people to get is strength and character, and the importance of carrying on that which is good.
(.TM) Right, I like that. Carrying on. Because it's already been laid down. It's laid. So whoever is in certain spots or certain positions, all they have to do is walk in these people's footsteps, it's not to walk backwards, it's to walk in their footsteps and to bring on interesting new ideas, and bring in new blood. Because that's the only way it's going to work.
(CH) And students say on the other side of Broad Street. (Laughter) So how's the weather. (TM) It was getting cold in here. (More laughter)
Do you expect Isaiah to grow up here in the neighborhood, in the Carver neighborhood?
(CH) Well, that's a very good question. Isaiah is 22 months, and if I move, I plan to keep this house, so I will always have connections here, and even if I move he can always come back when he is older. Cause I sort of think I want him to have more space to run around in and things like that. I would always, god willing, keep this house, and I would sign it over to him. And he can come back. Let me tell you this. This is really interesting. Now I'm a single parent. But his father loves his son. He lives 929, Henry Timothy is his dad. This house, 919, Isaiah's daddy is from South Carolina, his family is from South Carolina. Isaiah's grandfather, who is deceased, worked the railroad. His stops were Florence and Richmond. Do you know he stayed in this very house when he stopped over in Richmond. Isaiah's room is the room his granddaddy slept in. And that's the main reason why this house has to go to him. And when his aunt came when he was first born, and she said I remember coming down here to visit my dad, I would stay right in this room right here with my dad. So that is absolutely amazing. So this house will go to him. But like I said in his growing up years, God willing, I would like to move somewhere else so he can have more space. But I would never leave the community in heart. Now in might be 5 years from now, it might be 10 years from now, or I might just stay here. And then we'd just take him to the park a lot. I'm proud that we have a relationship with the university, and I think we have a lot of great opportunities. The main thing that I'm concerned about are the people who own property in Carver who don't have the vision of the community, and they want to renovate the housing, or bring it back on line so they can rent it out to students. This is not a student community. I don't have anything against people. But sometimes students have moved in and I'm proud to say they have done well. But I hear up in another block they had a lot of noise and things like that. But the VCU police officers are I think at our disposal as far as responding, and I think that they would take care of it, so I think there are a lot of things in place that if we had any difficulties with the students we could get them corrected. Because I know that across the street, some students had their live band practice over there. I'm talking about the guitar going wah, wah, wah, wah, and the drums, and I just want over there and asked them, and she said they had
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to start late. Like 8. I said, but still, could you stop them. And they stopped. And even the guys I hear they used to sell drugs, they'd be out here, my son's window was up in the summertime when it's not hot enough to have the air on, and I don't curse, and I don't want my son hearing all that garbage, and I called the police a couple of times, and thank God they're not out there anymore. They're cleaning up.
(JM) They have. They've done an admirable job, the VCU police.
Do you feel that some of the owners that abandoned their properties are not doing anything, so VCU will come and buy their property from them? As far as renovating.
(CH) Some of them have, and some of them I can't imagine what they were thinking. Some were holding on to their property because they were holding out for a higher price and things like that, and some people aren't just good managers with their property, and I can't see what financial benefit it is to them to have a piece of property that you aren't going to do anything with when you're just accumulating tax debt on it. To me, if they were wise, they would sell it to the housing authority so it could go on the list of houses for urban homesteading and things like that. But the reports even that Mort's class did I know I need to thoroughly, thoroughly go over them because they did a big abandoned property study, and then some students did a five year plan of that Marshall Street corridor and how they see Carver. Mort, John Accordino, they have really done a lot, we have really been blessed.
(JM) We have been blessed, I mean, to see it on paper, but also if I had anything to do with it, just to say Okay, whatever you want down at that end, whatever end you want, whether you want the Moore Street end, or whether you want the Belvidere end, and just let the university deal with that.
(CH) Excuse me, I object. On Marshall Street?
(JM) Anywhere, just give them an area. I'm just saying just give them an area, and let them fight with it, toss with it, but when you start talking with them, because the idea that's going on now and the point that was made as far as VCU buying up property, if it doesn't look like VCU it will smell like VCU. You know what I'm talking about? And the thing is, they need housing. (CH) My board member knows your board member.
(JM) Hey, but don't mention VCU. Cause still you'll see students.
(CH) And like you said, it smells like VCU. And like the 700 block of West Marshall, they have completely torn out every house.
(JM) Give them that.
(CH) Heck no. They want to put in some apartment complexes up there. When you know, okay, Ms. Brown lived at 728 West Marshall, Ms. Donella Ashford lived 726, and then Mr. Carter, when I lived in Gilmer street, he had a dog who could go out on that back porch, he had a dog that I swear to god looked like a horse, and they said it was a great dane, but it was a big, big dog. And Mr. Carter lived there, then Mr. & Mrs. Barlow lived there, and then I could see Calvin, I can't think of his last name, but he lived there, and I can't think of the name of the people that lived at 716, and then there's Georgia lived in one house, and I don't know the name of the lady who lived in the next house, and then on the corner the McFaddens lived there. (JM) Well then what would you give to the university?
(CH) Give them, what do you mean give them?
(JM) Area. Where they can just grow?
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(CH) Nothing, nothing, nothing north of Marshall. Nothing. Because that needs to be shored up and preserved as a part of the community. And even God forbid I should say all of Marshall Street, because Miss Smith, Miss Alexander, they still live there, they are the only two houses from Belvidere up to Hancock, right where Baskerville lives, that was a vacant lot for a long time, but then there was a house right next to there before you got to the glass shop. And then where the store is going east of Gilmer and Marshall, where the store is and there's a barber shop, then there were houses on there. Up until you got to Merrick Oldsmobile. So I don't think we need to give them anything because it would slowly change the complexion of the community in terms of it being a residential area. And sure we have a lot of industries here, but Marshall Street still needs to have solid, solid residential.
(JM) So it's zoned for what? Light industrial and residential?
(CH) Yes. And then they tell me that the 700 block of Marshall is multi-residential. But there's a specific density. They have to get a variance from that to get like a 47 unit apartment building in it, and it's ridiculous. That's not how it's designed to be. This is a residential community. The students, I don't know, I think the university should consider building strong foundations so they can build up rather than out. You know, go straight up to the sky. So we were working on it with the housing authority. You know, we didn't even talk about the housing authority. Dwayne Finger, and now Mike Ettienne. I was confused when I first came on board, because I kept trying to look up something in the library to find out how the housing authority worked, cause I didn't know. I've learned a lot sir, ce then. I thought they ran things. But they are our fiscal agents. I didn't know who was in control. I didn't know if it was them or if it was the community. But I learned that they both are in control.
(JM) Where does the city come in? Where does the city, the money comes from the federal government to the city of Richmond, but I'm lost after that. Well, and then they have, now with neighborhood in blooms I think the process has changed. But prior to that, the money would come from the federal government to allocate to the city, and the city would have these hearings, the city strategy teams would have these meetings, and different people would present their proposals for how much money they wanted. Then it would have to go to the city manager, and he would have to approve of disapprove, and then it would get presented, these requests for funding, then it would get presented to the city council. Then the housing authority, then they're the fiscal agent for all of the development in the city, and I know that they're the developers for the city, but they're the fiscal agent for the funding that comes for Carver, and I have always been amazed since I have been involved at how involved these people are as individuals. I mean, this is their job, yes, but they develop relationships and friendships, and they get cursed out, not in words but in attitude, and they still come back.
Can you talk about whether the abandoned property owners have been notified, and what are they going to do with their property?
(CH) Yes. There was a letter that Dr. Trani sent out to the property owners to let then know, because the notion was that these people were holding on to their properties so that the university could purchase them at these escalated prices. And the letter went out from Dr. Trani to the homeowners letting them know that was not the case, worded in a way that was appropriate. And a couple of people came to the civic league meeting and said something that was off line because they just had a chip on their shoulder anyway. Thinking that the university was just trying to bulldoze, but that wasn't the case. So yeah, something really great came out of it in terms of the letters going out to the property owners. In other words, letting them know that you can release
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your property because the university does not have any intention of purchasing the property so they wouldn't hold on to it and in essence slow up progress in the community. I think we had 30, almost 40, urban homesteading houses, either through strict urban homesteading or through some grant provisions and on and on. Yeah, but that class, they've done great, done an economics study. I think it's great experience, especially for the urban planning department, to get real hands on experience with a community that is in a transitional and growth state. Because just to skip way back, and I wasn't involved then, but Barbara was telling me that the city wanted to just clear out the area, and they had designated this area as a blighted area, and they just wanted to wipe it out. And that's how the fight and the meetings til midnight and all of the situations were worked out so that this area was designated as conservation to receive funding for renovation. So when anyone talks to Barbara or anything, you know who you all need to interview? Cassandra Calla Duray (?sp). Because she was involved before, and her husband Pre Duray is a visionary, and she was heavily involved in the civic league back when they were tearing the houses down and getting ready for the townhouses there. And she knows about the makings of this area being designated as a conservation area. And that really needs to be delved into. Carver as we call it, which to older people is know as Sheep's Hill, but to see how the funding is now being poured into the community, and the housing authority is the fiscal agent. Like this house being renovated. You would think oh, this broken down house, you're going to move into it and they're going to remodel it, who is going to tell you how to design it. They have people who do all those things. All you have to do is sign your name on the line. And they come by and watch over your work basically. You're not that hands off, but if you wanted to be that hands off, you could. But I think there's a lot that we can learn from each other and a lot of progress we can get done. And one of the students even said, that was on a project of doing the 5-year plan for the Carver neighborhood, even said that definitely the community would change if more and more students started moving in. Because students don't, it kind of upsets me when I think about it, cause VCU has been there forever and a day. I remember when it was RPI, cause I was born in 1959, in 1969 it was RN, and then VCU growing, growing, growing. Four or five years from now they didn't have that many students over here. So you have to ask yourself why is it now that Carver is becoming a place for students to want to live?
Whose promoting it?
(JM) Oh, no Carolyn, it's an urban university.
(CH) When did it become an urban university?
(JM) It's always been an urban university.
(CH) Okay, so why the sudden change?
(JM) Because it's a gold mine, it's the area.
(CH) So who is promoting Carver as a place for, and I've heard some people say well we don't even want to come over there anyway because it's dangerous, it has the highest statistics for crime, and things like that.
(JM) I don't hear these things.
[discontinuation in tape]
(CH) We're just talking about the community and the concept that we're selling each other out potentially. Well, this apartment building they're talking about putting, I can't think of the gentlemen's name, but putting an apartment building up at, up near the old Jefferson building, I think it's right at the corner of...
(JM) Were you at that meeting?
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(CH) I got there late after the presentation.
(JIM) This was in December. How many people were there?
(CH) In this latest newsletter, our president said that she was going to do a revote because there weren't enough people there to make a decision.
(JM) How do you vote? How does stuff like that stand up?
(CH) That's what I'm saying, the issues being revisited. But what has subsequently happened, because some in the community wanted the apartment building there, some didn't. Some didn't necessarily wanted, they just acquiesced.
(JM) Well how do you vote on something like that? It hits the agenda. I mean, I missed one meeting and I missed a lot. Seems like I missed a whole year.
(CH) But I think your sentiments were heard. And I say that because the vote will be revisited because there weren't enough people there.
(JM) But how do you vote?
(CH) You don't understand what I'm saying. You come to the meeting, and if you can't come to the meeting and the issue is there...
(JM) But how is it there if it isn't on the agenda? If it's not in the bulletin, how do you know it's going to be voted on?
(CH) If it wasn't then that was a mistake. And I don't know how often that happens, I don't think it happens that frequently. However, there were people who objected to that vote up there, to that apartment building, and it had to go before the planning commission. Ms. Bennett and Ms. Johnson and the pastor from Moore Street Baptist Church went down there before the planning commission, and as it turned out, well in other words, the planning commission was supposed to vote on yeah or nay. They lout a hold on it for 45 days because people from the community... (JM) Would you cut that off?
[Tape is turned off here, and then turned back on later]
Is there anything else you all want to add to this?
(CH) Well, just in summary, I'm looking forward to the play, and I watched last night on PBS Morgan and Marvin Smith, they were photographers in New York, who were from Kentucky, and just looking at the documentary and seeing history being captured, I'm looking forward to the history being captured in Carver, and I hope the people get the impression that Carver has fine citizens and people that really care, people that, we have black and whites living here, but basically we are talking about the African American community and the people have a pride about themselves. And statistically, people might look and see our median income was or is this, and might categorize us. I think they say now the median income in Carver is $18,000. Where in the greater Richmond area it might be something else, I think based on Chesterfield and how high there income bracket is. But we have to continue to carry ourselves with a Godly pride, and a Godly humility, and strength, and know that we have a lot to preserve in our community. And I'm glad that the racial mix of our community is changing, and we're interacting with each other, and beyond racial lines, and I'm sure we have some restrictions in our communication in terms of level of honesty, because sometimes we haven't gotten beyond what we're seeing versus what we're hearing in terms of well this black person said this or this white person said this and therefore it's a black thing or a white thing. So I think a lot of times we get on real issues, and I look forward to a lot more heart to heart communication. Sometimes I think we restrain because it gets too much of a race thing. And not that we're racially minded, it's because we're learning new levels of comfort. So that's what I have to say.
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And you Mr. McBride?
(CH) Mr. McBride is still thinking about our off-tape conversation.
(JM) No, I'm not thinking about that, but I would like to say that however this film thing comes off, the truth thing will preserve the integrity, the history, and everything will stay intact. Whatever the truth is, let the truth come out.
Well I thank you all for the interview.
(CH) You're welcome. Thank you.
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