Downtown Suffolk

[streetsahead]

Does anyone know a generalized history of downtown Suffolk? Being that Suffolk is an old city with an organic, historical downtown core, I know that it was on one of the bigger social centers of the area in the first half of the 20th century. It's been in decline for a few decades now (although some great redevelopments are planned), so I'm interested in finding out more about how it was in its prime. 

 

I can't seem to find much info about downtown Suffolk on other forums and websites, so can anyone give me some more information about its history (pictures would be fantastic too)?

[Brent]

I can't really help but I grew up in Tidewater and just recently visited downtown Suffolk. I was surprised by how developed it is. What a great looking downtown. It doesn't look much like the rest of Tidewater though. It looks more like a central VA town (Farmville, Petersburg, Charlotresville). I wonder if it was a rail town thus having more in common with other rail towns instead of port cities?

It really needs to be more celebrated. You can't even find photos of the city on the web. When mentioned in a coastal VA brouchure a photo of a field is used to represent it. It is too pretty to be so obscure.

[Helium3]

I went through downtown Suffolk on Google Maps and I'm actually surprised at how urban its fabric is; you won't find an area this urban in Virginia Beach or Chesapeake. There are even a few mid-rises! Who knew. I hope Suffolk is paying enough attention to its downtown, to waste it would be such a huge shame. I took a snapshot of Google Maps street view as an example (I apologize for all the Google Maps symbols of course).