Designing the landscape of the memorial park
Richmond Remembers, with help from Waterstreet Studio
Published June 25, 2025, in Landscape Architecture Magazine, the Magazine of the American Society of Landscape Architects
Designers, historians, and community members collaborate on a landscape plan for the city’s neglected sites of enslavement.
By Kim O’Connell
" On a typical weekday, the historic Main Street Station in Richmond, Virginia, is a blur of motion. Passenger aOnce known as “the Devil’s half acre,” the jail site is part of Shockoe Bottom, a historic area where the long-buried and channelized Shockoe Creek once wove around the city before emptying into the James River. Shockoe Bottom is now the center of the city’s effort to reveal and commemorate its history of enslavement.
" On a typical weekday, the historic Main Street Station in Richmond, Virginia, is a blur of motion. Passenger aOnce known as “the Devil’s half acre,” the jail site is part of Shockoe Bottom, a historic area where the long-buried and channelized Shockoe Creek once wove around the city before emptying into the James River. Shockoe Bottom is now the center of the city’s effort to reveal and commemorate its history of enslavement.
This endeavor comes after prolonged efforts by community activists to acknowledge and restore Black history in the Shockoe Valley area of Richmond. The project includes recognition of the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground, the older of the two African burial grounds in the immediate area, with interments thought to have begun as early as 1750. The second, about a mile away, is the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, which dates to 1816 and is thought to have held a total of 22,000 burials at its peak. It has sat desecrated and unmarked beneath railroad tracks, a gas station, a large billboard, and layers of city bureaucracy and disinterest for decades."
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