Factors contributing to change

Sears moved in and brought with it a great many jobs, unfortunately it moved off West Main around the same time Safeway (another large employer and a staple for the neighborhood) moved away. Republic Plaza now stands where Safeway was, but it did not provide what had left.

Barracks Road shopping center offered a one stop shop location outside of town, with cheaper prices and more availability.

Sources

Central Peidmont Urban Observatory. West Main Street: Present Conditions and Future Prospects. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia, 1977.

The Daily Progress 13 April 1962.

Preservation Studio (Walker C. Johnson, AIA Instructor with students). Charlottesville 2020: A Thirty Year Vision Balancing Development and Preservation on West Main Street and the Mall. University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Spring 1988.

Bridging the Community

Alicia Lugo (2002)

Alicia Lugo, former Director of the Teensight program, was honored on the Drewary J. Brown Memorial Bridge for the work that she has done with young people in the community. Teensight began in August of 1988 as an outgrowth of FOCUS, a local organization formed to empower women. It specifically focuses on men and women under the age of 18 in an effort to provide services such as helping people to finish school, finding jobs, and becoming self-sufficient citizens. Teensight also runs programs in the school to reduce pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, as well as those that prevent high-risk behavior such as substance abuse. She has also had great influence through personal contacts in the community.

Sources

Daily Progress Staff. “Distinguished Dozen,” The Daily Progress, 23 October 2009, http://www2.dailyprogress.com/cdp/lifestyles/local/article/distinguished_dozen/47930/ (accessed 26 April 2010).

FOCUS: Women’s Resource Center. “FOCUS Teensight.” FOCUS: Women’s Resource Center. <http://focus.avenue.org/teensight.html> (accessed 26 April 2010).

Lugo, Alicia. Interview by Naomi Jacobs and Cynthia Terrell Richardson, 26 April 2010, Personal Collection, Charlottesville, Va.

Paul Gaston (2005)

Paul M. Gaston currently holds the position of Professor Emeritus in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia and has won various awards for both his academic and community work. He has written about growing up in the single-tax colony of Fairhope, Alabama started by his grandfather Ernest Berry Gaston and continued by his father Cornie Gaston, as well as his experiences with the Civil Rights Movement in the American South beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the present day. He is perhaps best remembered by historians of the Charlottesville as being one of the first people assaulted on the fourth day of “stand-out” protests at Buddy’s Restaurant on Emmet Street in 1963, along with Reverend Henry Floyd Johnson (then President of the local NAACP) and William Samuel Johnson. Professor Gaston was also instrumental to the creation of the Afro-Americans Studies program at the University of Virginia and holds the distinction of teaching the school’s first class devoted to Black history.

There are many ways to build bridges, and Paul Gaston has done so across lines of not only race but also community. His participation in the 1963 protests and later fight for Black Studies is significant because complicates the traditional divide perceived between people associated with the University of Virginia and the community of Charlottesville. Gaining insight from his unique upbringing, Professor Gaston made a lasting impression at, and between, two distinct but intimately connected communities.

Sources

David A. Maurer, “Fair Hope for the Future,” The Daily Progress, 29 November 2009.

Gaston, Paul M. Coming of Age in Utopia: The Odyssey of an Idea. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2010.

Gaston, Paul M. My South—and Yours. Pamphlet: Charlottesville, Virginia, 1997.

Gaston, Paul M. “Sitting In” in the ‘Sixties: An Historian’s Memoir. Pamphlet: Charlottesville, Virginia, 1997.

Jack Chamberlain, “’Stand-ins’ Are Suspended: Out Hurt, Four Arrested In Outbreak at Buddy’s,” The Daily Progress, 31 May 1963.

Rectors & Visitors of the University of Virginia. “Paul M. Gaston – Corcoran Deprtment of History.” University of Virginia. http://www.virginia.edu/history/user/85 (accessed 25 April 2010).

Drewary John Birchard Brown (1998)

Mr. Drewary J. Brown was a leader and activist in the Charlottesville community, promoting programs for the poor and underprivileged while building bridges throughout the city and surrounding counties. For a period in the 1960s, Brown served as the President of the local NAACP chapter and was one of the founding members of the Monticello Area Community Action Agency. Throughout his lifetime, Drewary J. Brown was dedicated to helping those in need and promoting social justice in the area. Writing in The Daily Progress on April 12, 1998 after Brown’s passing, Bob Gibson commented, that “for many a resident of the city, the intersection of black and white Charlottesville started with Brown.”

As a memorial to Drewary J. Brown’s legacy, the city named the bridge on West Main Street over the train tracks for this local hero “in honor of those people who succeeded in building bridges in our community.” Every year recipients are honored for their work, and a plaque with their name is placed on the bridge’s railing. Although the award was conceived as going to African Americans who had built bridges across racial barriers, it soon became apparent that there were many people in this city, Black and White, who had contributed to mending race relation in Charlottesville.

Our investigation into the West Main Street area and our participation in a class co-taught by the University of Virginia and the Quality Community Council is our own small way of attempting to build our own bridges between the University and Charlottesville communities. Our attendance could never come close to comparing with the achievements of the citizens who have been honored on the Drewary J. Brown Bridge, but we hope that the relationships we have begun between the these two communities that have been historically been separated will at least have a small impact on relationships between Charlottesville and the University of Virginia.

Sources

Bob Gibson, “Brown Was Linchpin of Community,” The Daily Progress, 12 April 1998.

Hook Staff, “Photophile – Bridge Builders: City Honor’s Drewary Brown’s Legacy,” The Hook, 16 June 2005, <https://www.readthehook.com/Stories/2005/06/14/photophileBridgeBuildersCi.html> (accessed 26 April 2010).

Lugo, Alicia. Interview by Naomi Jacobs and Cynthia Terrell Richardson, 26 April 2010, Personal Collection, Charlottesville, Va.

Maria Sanminiatelli, “Tribute to Man Who ‘Helped Us All.’” The Daily Progress, 12 April 1998.

Monticello Area Community Action Agency. “Drewary Brown Reception.” Monticello Area Community Action Agency. <http://www.macaa.org/events/DB_reception.html> (accessed 26 April 2010).

Car Shops

616 West Main
843 West Main
Starr Hill Automotive 864 West Main
Empty lot at West Main and 9th Street, used to be Bradley Peyton III




315 West Main
1311 West Main323 West Main

Where Main Street Market is today

Team Tires

1001 West Main

These pictures and ads from 1962 help to show that there were a number of auto shops along West Main, but over the years have mostly relocated to suburbs like Pantops. Empty lots are left on the street, not creating a sense of space or a community, leaving West Main as a corridor.

Sources

The Daily Progress 13 April 1962.

KELLERCO Inc. for the City of Charlottesville, Virginia. West Main Street Corridor and Downtown Traffic Circulation Studies. Tysons Corner, Virginia: KELLERCO Inc, 1988. Prepared for: City of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Kane Furniture

Although this building has been modified, Kane furniture was moved to its current location after the demolition of Vinegar Hill, but has always been on West Main Street. It is a good example of the types of businesses that one can expect to find along the corridor; stores that are not needed everyday, stores that offer larger rarer services.

The University's Impact

This building is largely under utilized and houses medical center computing and a web center for University of Virginia Health Systems.




Although this building was a house, it is now the building for the UVA medical foundation, however it retains its original historic architecture on the outside.
The University has expanded onto West Main Street, with the hospital being one of the largest buildings and largest employers in the city. Despite this, it does not seem to be the University's intention to overtake this corridor, it has developed relatively few plots and there do not seem to be major plans for it to develop anymore presently.

Lugo, Alicia. Interview by Naomi Jacobs and Cynthia Terrell Richardson, 26 April 2010, Personal Collection, Charlottesville, Va.

Sources

Department of Community Development: Charlottesville, Virginia, 1976. Historic Landmark Study: Charlottesville, Virginia. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Michie Company, 1976.

Preservation Studio (Walker C. Johnson, AIA Instructor with students). Charlottesville 2020: A Thirty Year Vision Balancing Development and Preservation on West Main Street and the Mall. University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Spring 1988.

University of Virginia. "U.Va. Web Map: Stacey Hall (Health System)." University of Virginia. (accessed 20 April 2010).

Marriott Courtyard Charlottesville

The area is an architectural design control district, however it has not been made into a historic district, hence why the one hundred year old houses could be knocked down to make way for the Marriott (1203 and 205 West Main Street) in 1998-2000.

Although these are not the houses in question, they are of a similar time period and remain along West Main.

Sources

Department of Community Development: Charlottesville, Virginia, 1976. Historic Landmark Study: Charlottesville, Virginia. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Michie Company, 1976.

"West Main Street" Vertical File, Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society: Charlottesville, Va.

First Baptist Church

First Baptist Church

632 West Main Street

(First Baptist Church Christian Education Center)

The original congregation of the First Baptist Church on Park Street was interracial, with African Americans seated in the balconies above the White congregants. After the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in 1863, the black members requested to leave the main body of the church to form their own congregation under the guidance of Francis Fife’s father, which met in the original structure’s basement until 1868.

On August 20^th of that year, the new group purchased the Develan Hotel at the corner of 7^th Street and West Main Street. This structure, also known as the “Mudwall” building because of the color of the Albemarle clay used in its construction, was home to the Develan Baptist Church until it was torn down in 1876 to make room for a brand new building. The actual construction of the new structure was significant because the African Americans did not want to take out loans and take the risk that White creditors would be able to take possession of the building of they feel behind on the payments. Instead, congregants worked on the building whenever they had time, with whole families becoming involved with women serving food and children carrying bricks for the men. The new church was completed on October 12, 1883 and dedicated the next year as the First Colored Baptist Church of Charlottesville. It is unclear when the term “Colored” fell out of use, but it is not mentioned in the 1962 200^th Anniversary Edition of The Daily Progress detailing the congregation’s history.

The First Baptist Church has had fifteen pastors over the course of its history, many of which have been active in the community and acted as pillars of society. The Reverend Benjamin Bunn served the church for 36 years into the early-1980s and was also responsible for establishing the local chapter of the NAACP, which was instrumental in the fight to desegregate local schools against Massive Resistance legislation, to desegregate local businesses though sit-in demonstrations, and to resist more Urban Renewal projects after Vinegar Hill. The Reverend Bruce A. Beard served for sixteen years beginning in 1993 and developed Transformation Ministries, which is dedicated to bridging the gap between the church and the community until moving to Atlanta.

In 1979 the First Baptist Church became the only African American church in Charlottesville or Albemarle County to join the Southern Baptist convention, and in 1982 the building was recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sources

Bryant, Florence Coleman. Rebecca Fuller McGinness. A Lifetime: 1892-2000. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Van Doren Company, 2001.

Lugo, Alicia. Interview by Naomi Jacobs and Cynthia Terrell Richardson, 16 April 2010, Personal Collection, Charlottesville, Va.

Lugo, Alicia. Interview by Naomi Jacobs and Cynthia Terrell Richardson, 26 April 2010, Personal Collection, Charlottesville, Va.

Members of the Albemarle County Historical Society Publications Committee. “Tour F: West Main Street/Ridge Street Driving Tour.” In Historic Charlottesville Tour Book: 10 Tours of Charlottesville, Virginia, edited by Frank E. Grizzard, Jr, 43-51. Charlottesville’s Historic Resource Task Force in conjunction with The Albemarle County Historical Society: Charlottesville, Virginia, 2002.

Progress Staff, “First Baptist Church Was Organized in 1831,” The Daily Progress – Charlottesville’s 200^th Anniversary Edition 1762-1962, 13 April 1962. “Churches and Temples. Religion – Baptist – First Baptist, Ch’ville.” Local History File, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

Saunders, James Robert and Renae Nadine Shackelford. Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2005.

Steve Stinson, “Integration Comes Slowly To City Churches,” The Daily Progress, 28 July 1974. “Churches and Temples. Religion – [Miscellaneous; General] – Local.” Local History File, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

Virginia African American Heritage Program. “Site: First Baptist Church, Charlottesville.” African American Heritage Virginia. <http://www.aaheritageva.org/search/sites.php?site_id=597> (accessed 22 April 2010).