Norfolk Pictures

[HRVA]

[EJ_LEWIS]

I was down in Norfolk for the Grand Illumination Parade and I really like the growing urban feel of Downtown.  Me and my partner stayed at the Main and all I have to say is this Hotel is probably one of the best Hotels I have ever stayed in.   Here are some pictures from in and around Downtown Norfolk.

[BFG]

From 60 years ago. I know it’s because people moved to the suburbs and all, but I always wonder what would’ve happen had downtown Norfolk kept building on its energy from the 60s to today, and if Norfolk and PA County remained countries. This looks like something out of New York. 

[EJ_LEWIS]

Here is a painful picture of the beginning of urban renewal in Downtown Norfolk.  They sure loved the wrecking ball back in the early 60s. 

[Willy18]

Geez...looks like Germany during the war. 

Would have been pretty cool to still have the mid-rise buildings over there near Harbor Park. 

[wrldcoupe4]

Sad to see. Glad we have better planning principles today. 

[carolinaboy]

Norfolk went from dense, urban cityscape to (almost) barren wasteland pretty fast. Which makes where it is today all-the-more impressive. Would love to have some of that old character back.

[Norfolk757Kid]

Yeah it's ironic that what the city says it wants to be nowadays, and what they're trying to build in Saint Paul's and Church Street, is what they tore down 50 years ago. 

[carolinaboy]

Source: The Virginian Pilot

I'd say Norfolk has come back nicely since 1966.

 

[urbanlife]

Just imagine where Norfolk would be today if new buildings were built mixed in with all the old buildings without having to tear down massive amounts of the urban core.

[EJ_LEWIS]

Norfolk went way overboard with urban renewal destroying buildings simply because they were old.  That being said there was a good reason for the creation of NRHA.  Norfolk once had the bad designation of having the worst slums in the country.  Slum clearance was the mantra in the 50s, 60s and 70s.  Norfolk's zeal to be a modern city led them to tear down some nice old buildings like the Monticello Hotel.  They could not imagine the drive to preserve old buildings that came about in the 80s, 90s, and the 00s.  Glad the city preserved such gems as the Royster Building, the new Savoy and the Norfolk YMCA building (the Rockefeller).

[Norfolk757Kid]

Wonder why Portsmouth managed to keep much of its old neighborhoods intact while Norfolk took the bulldozer to theirs. 

[BFG]

I look at that 1966 picture and think that while downtown has come a long way, I don't think they used their space properly. Imagine if they keep some of the warehouses (the ones that weren't condemned by that point) and Granby kept growing. So much space could've been saved had they built taller, skinnier buildings along Waterside Dr. and Main St.  Personally, I would've built the Scope entirely on that plaza, making it larger, then placed Chrysler Hall across the street where the Wells Fargo tower sits.

Now imagine if they had kept the streetcars from the '40s, along with the Union Station near Harbor Park. Norfolk and Hampton Roads would've had a much different look. This area really seemed to be on to something in the 50s, then stagnated after the late-60s.

[Norfolk757Kid]

Virginia Beach started to receive most of the region's growth around then.

[Norfolk757Kid]

What a complex, downtown I think where Nauticus and the Wisconsin are now

Actually this is what happened to it: https://www.harbourplacecondominium.org/p/Photographic-History

[Virginia City]

Such a beautiful building. The 60s-80s were such a bad time for urban communities. 

[Willy18]

Wow! That would have made for an amazing waterside/warehouse district. That wasn't the thought process back then though. Looking at all the scrubbing they did of beautiful buildings I truly do think DT has really come a long way. Sure, we can all agree that it should have been done differently. I'm just happy that it bounced back after all that destruction from the 60's. 

[BFG]

I was on Youtube and stumbled across an old video (see below) from WAVY News 10's video archive. It's from 1978, and talks about the possibility of a new post office. What blew my mind was the opening shot, which looks like the opposite corner, where BP gas station currently stands. I ended up checking out the Norfolk library photo archive, and ended up going down a black hole on the history of Church Street. I'm fascinated at how it looked 30+ years ago, and how much it has changed. It looks like a completely different area!

 

[Willy18]

…..I was 2  Makes me feel old. 

 

[Norfolk757Kid]

oh the irony

[BFG]

I get that those buildings were well beyond disrepair (the NRHA archive shows just how bad they looked in the early-80s), but I wish more could’ve been done to maintain those buildings. It would’ve gone nicely with SPQ.

[vdogg]

Should have a nice little skyline going once River Tower and CHKD start to rise.

 

[BFG]

This is at my friend’s office, Granby c. 1937. Any time I see pics like this, I think of an alternate universe where Norfolk is a big city that grew from the 30s on to the present. I can only hope downtown continues growing to something close to this again. 

[EJ_LEWIS]

Not sure when this photo was taken, but it looks like the late 20s.   

Edited October 8, 2019 by EJ_LEWIS

[BFG]

The Wells Fargo tower went purple and gold in remembrance of Kobe Bryant.