8/4/17

Williams: The 17th Street plaza is (another) missed opportunity in Shockoe Bottom

Michael Paul Williams
Richmond Times Dispatch
Aug. 4, 2017

"The city’s leeriness about moving beyond the Lumpkin’s Jail site to establish a slave memorial park on adjacent acreage is puzzling, given the consensus around the idea and the lack of appealing options in a flood plain with development constraints."

"The renovation of the 17th Street Farmers’ Market into an open plaza was an opening to provide these disparate projects with a cohesive element. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision visitors to a memorial park easing into the plaza for food and libations, creating a win for everyone involved. But as with the train shed, the city appears reluctant to tie this project to the heritage effort, an undertaking it treats more as an obligation than a potential tourism boon."
Excerpted from the full story.

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Monument Avenue Commission Public Meetings

6:30 pm, Aug. 9 and Sep. 13
Virginia Historical Society on N. Boulevard

The American Civil War Museum has produced a booklet and website called On Monument Avenue provides a range of historical voices on the establishment and meaning of the statues, and on the ideas raised by the current re-examination of monuments and memorials in the context of calling for their removal. The website will grow as the museum mines its collections for related images and resources.
onmonumentave.com

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Walter Plecker, one of the most virulent and destructive eugenicist racists in Virginia history, was hit by a car on August 2, 1947 and killed. It was just one year after retiring from a 35-year reign of vital records terror during which he authored Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924. Bad man.