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GRTC Connects: Route 5 – Carytown To Downtown

Wyatt Gordon | February 21, 2020

Topics: bus routes, car culture, Cary Court Shopping Center, Carytown, Downtown Richmond, GRTC Connects, GRTC Route 5, Kanawha Plaza, Nate's Bagels, parking lots, public transit, RideFinders, shockoe bottom, Sugar & Twine, The Byrd Theatre, Transit app

The eleventh and penultimate installment in a monthly series in which a hometown Richmonder who has spent over a decade abroad explores the many different neighborhoods accessible by GRTC bus lines to discover the ways transit connects us all.

Carytown:

Given just one day to show a tourist around town, it’s hard to imagine any classic Richmond visit would be complete without a stroll through Carytown. This eclectic nine-block stretch of locally-owned businesses represents the city in a way few neighborhoods can. Its effortless blending of chic and quirky have become iconic for Richmond’s rebranding from the former capital of the Confederacy to a modern hipster mecca on par with Austin or Portland.

Serving as the anchor of the area, the Byrd Theatre has proudly stood watch over nearly a century of change. Built in 1928 in the French Empire style at a cost of $900,000, Richmond’s premier movie palace embodies the community spirit that has preserved and promoted Carytown’s transformation into a cultural and commercial destination.

Cary Court. Via the Valentine archive

The opening of the Cary Court strip mall in the 1930s felt like a revolution at the time. Back then the beloved corner stores that still abound in the Fan and Church Hill were the only way to shop. Cary Court’s grocery with a dedicated parking lot out front was a first for the city. Although the stores in that strip mall have continuously evolved over the years, the culture of car-centric planning that the development ushered in has held on.

As the Henrico suburbs to the city’s west proliferated during the post-World War II era of white flight, Richmond’s leadership began kowtowing to the needs of commuters from the counties rather than preserve the city’s walkable neighborhoods for those residents who remained. In 1955, Cary Street was flipped to be a one-way corridor channeling cars straight to downtown. The change proved detrimental to the area’s ambience and air quality, and the increased traffic caused homeowners to move away. Their former abodes transitioned into the shops one sees today.

This corner of the city only came to think of itself as a cohesive neighborhood with a shared identity 46 years ago. Willow Lawn — Richmond’s first mall — slowly sapped the life out of retail strips across the city, triggering this stretch of West Cary to undertake a rebrand in 1974. To fight back and generate a new buzz and energy, residents voted in favor of a new name for the area: Carytown.

The decay continued throughout the 1980s, however, until locals no longer deemed the area safe for shopping. This emptying out of Carytown created new space for up and coming businesses like gay bars and dance clubs, but after a sex shop opened its doors along the strip, local business owners quickly joined together to shutter the establishment by dramatically cutting off all electrificity to the structure. This action proved a clear signal residents and shop owners aimed to steer the neighborhood in a definitively family-friendly direction.

These days all kinds come to eat, shop, and people watch along Cary Street. For the longest time, this stretch of retail proved the only safe space for same-sex couples to hold hands in Richmond. Thanks to Carytown’s laissez faire culture of acceptance and its smattering of gay bars — of which only Babe’s and New York Deli remain — many locals estimate that the neighborhood has become the closest thing to a “gayborhood” the city offers.

The Byrd Theatre. Photo by Wyatt Gordon

Carytown’s lasting success derives from its branding as a place not just to shop, but to experience. Even as chain stores and national brands have slowly crept in to Richmond’s “Mile of Style,” most of the area’s 230-plus outlets remain in local hands. Spas, unique eateries, and charming local shops like Mongrel and World of Mirth have set the tone for the neighborhood as a friendly, welcoming place to explore all the creativity and charm of the city.

What holds Carytown back from being a world class destination is the area’s addiction to car culture. Although most people stroll its blocks from end to end, the experience of someone on foot feels far from safe. Drivers speed down Cary with abandon, crossings are inadequate, and the majority of the street is planned for cars, not people.

A braver Richmond would overcome the trauma of white flight and rework its premier shopping destination into a place that people could traverse without fear of a car plowing over the sidewalk and into a local business, as happened to the Daily Kitchen & Bar a few years back. Residents and business owners’ calls for traffic calming measures like speed humps went unanswered.

They haven’t painted the lines on Cary St in Carytown yet. Still time to stripe bus only lanes down the middle and multi use lanes on the curb 👀👀👀👀

— Doug Allen (@DFRSH757) November 28, 2019

New York City recently tackled its notoriously awful 14th Street by converting it into a busway with wider sidewalks and lanes for bikes and scooters. It’s not hard to imagine something similar working in Carytown.  Gone would be the curbside car storage, and in its place, a grand pedestrian promenade. GRTC’s Route 5 bus would still pass through, but Cary would be a far quieter, more enjoyable, and safer street for all to travel.

The Ride:

With a scone in my belly and a coffee in hand, I departed Sugar & Twine with a smile on my face. The people-watching in Carytown can be hit or miss on a Saturday morning, depending on whether you show up before or during the time when the brunch crowd reigns supreme. After a leisurely stroll on an abnormally warm and sunny winter day, I opened the Transit App to catch the 5 downtown.

By sheer luck, the next bus was just two minutes away. The 15-minute frequency of the 5 feels like such a carefree luxury compared to the hourly routes that serve as the only lifeline to communities on Southside and in Henrico. There’s no need to plan ahead for your departure when your average wait time is just seven and a half minutes.

Boarding the bus I got a friendly hello from a stylish driver with golden horn-rimmed glasses. I quickly scanned my monthly pass from my phone and took a seat over the wheel well, a perfect perch from which to survey my fellow riders. The bus was full; its cast of characters seemed split between heading home after a late night and getting an early start to their day.

We cruised down Cary Street, never going more than five miles per hour over the speed limit as cars whizzed past on our left. The transformation of Cary and Main from neighborhood streets into mini crosstown highways proves most visible around Allen Street. Bagel lovers marching to Nate’s as part of their weekend ritual too frequently get caught in a game of Frogger, dodging speeding vehicles to reach their everything with cream cheese and lox.

Alighting the 5 next to the Pocahontas Building, which houses the General Assembly until its new abode is complete, it’s easy to forget that the ease of this 18-minute trip is not standard across the capital of the Commonwealth. This route is just one of five in GRTC’s entire system which achieve such frequency.

In many ways Route 5 is a vision of the transit service every neighborhood in the region deserves. Its 15-minute frequencies — at least Monday through Saturday till 7pm — from end to end are also a rarity. More buses generally translate into more riders. More heavily traveled routes like the 1, the 2, and the 3 only achieve that distinction when you add up all their alphabetical variations.

Studies have shown people are first willing to give up their car for transit only when a bus comes at least once every fifteen minutes. Gaps any longer than that start to add up when your bus doesn’t come, or you just miss it, especially if you have to time a transfer perfectly. The frequency of the 5 means freedom for the communities along its path. 

My friend Amber, who lives in Carytown, told me she couldn’t imagine moving to a place off of this route. Compared to her $60 a month bus pass, the expenses of owning, repairing, parking, and fueling a car feel daunting. Thousands of people just like her in the Fan, the Museum District, Randolph, Oregon Hill, Downtown, and the East End rely upon this bus for their mobility, not because they have to but because it’s a more affordable, social, and comfortable way to travel. 

Frequent service like that of the 5 shouldn’t just be a perk of living along its path; its 15-minute intervals should be a baseline expectation for bus service citywide to foster a more equitable and sustainable capital city.

Virginia’s Capitol building. Photo by Wyatt Gordon

Downtown:

Long before English colonists claimed the banks of the James in present-day Richmond, the area around our downtown already served as an important settlement of the Powhatan Confederacy. Located perfectly along the boundary between Virginia’s Tidewater and Piedmont regions, geography preordained Richmond to become a key economic and political center.

Following the Revolutionary War, the newly independent state shifted its capital from Williamsburg further inland to Richmond to protect its government and commercial capital from sea-faring attackers. Just two decades after this designation, the increasing concentration of political and economic power in Richmond triggered a building boom.  

Powered by Shockoe Bottom — the largest and most famous slave trade market in the nation — Richmond rapidly exploded into one of the fledgling country’s biggest and wealthiest cities. With the South’s traitorous declaration of secession from the Union, the city descended to the status of a military town. Soldiers, spies, and ad hoc military hospitals abounded until the Confederacy’s cowardly retreat, in which they engaged in a literal scorched-earth campaign to burn Richmond to the ground before it fell to Union forces. Northern troops fought back the blaze, but 80 percent of the city already lay in ashes.

During the prosperous and unusually democratic Reconstruction era that followed, Richmond once again flourished. Finance, retail, and banking took the place of the slave trade, filling downtown blocks with ornamented homes and businesses of brick. The 1920s ushered in a proliferation of Art Deco skyscrapers like the 19-story First National Bank Building.

Richmond City Hall. Photo by Wyatt Gordon

Suburbanization and the rise of car culture struck here too, marked by the gradual closure of the area’s many high end department stores, like Thalhimers, Sears, and Miller & Rhoads. Hundreds of structures were demolished over the course of the 1960s to 1980s to make way for 600-plus new buildings and their associated parking garages and surface lots. Most notable among these are City Hall, the aluminum-covered Federal Reserve Bank, and the hideous James Monroe Building, whose second tower never materialized when the boom of the early 80s turned to a bust.

Kanawha Plaza — the neighborhood’s most central green space — is a perfect allegory for the downtown writ large: it looks stately and bustling during the day, yet it becomes eerily empty after five o’clock. The downtown’s reliance upon and catering to commuters for decades has created a dead space at the heart of the city. New apartments and amenities have begun to slowly trickle back to the area, but the hollowing out of what was once Richmond’s most vibrant neighborhood will not be overcome until housing takes priority over parking.

One study of Downtown’s parking offerings commissioned by the City of Richmond revealed a glut of 24,017 spaces available to drivers. Peak demand for parking in the area is just 17,000, however. That means every day, over 7,000 parking spots sit empty, wastefully consuming space that could be new offices, apartments, and businesses.  

RideFinders’ public parking map, via richmondgov.com

RideFinders’ map of public parking lots Downtown shows an overwhelming amount of Richmond’s surface area is dedicated to the storage of private vehicles — used, on average, just five percent of the day. This map tells nothing of the hundreds of private parking lots across the neighborhood, nor of the blocks covered in street parking. Americans’ addiction to their cars is so extreme that in some U.S. cities, there are over ten times as many parking spots as people.

As our region’s affordable housing crisis intensifies, we need to begin rethinking how we allocate the very limited 60 square miles of Richmond’s land. Removing our parking minimums and letting the market decide how many spaces are needed for new apartments would prove a great first step. No matter how Navy Hill is ultimately redeveloped, the plans for its future should prioritize people, not vehicles.

Carytown and the Downtown are both great neighborhoods as they are today, but they could be so much greater. Former curbside parking could evolve into bike lanes, parklets, and sidewalk seating. Surface lots and towering garages could transform into new housing, shops, and greenspace. Much as Americans rave about the walkability of European capitals, future visitors to Virginia’s capital could tell tales of our city’s world class quality of life, if only we place the needs of Richmond residents over those of commuters from the counties.

Top Photo by Wyatt Gordon

NYC Comedy Invades Ponies and Pints

Justin Mcclung | December 3, 2019

Topics: comedy, shockoe bottom, stand up, things to do in RVA, thingstodoinrichmond

Ponies & Pints presents a night of stand-up comedy from two of the best and funniest comedians from New York City who just so happen to be brothers, The Raybould Brothers, for one weekend only! This show promises to be a night full of hilarity and laughs and will undoubtably be a night to remember!

What: LIVE STAND UP COMEDY

Where: PONIES & PINTS

When: DECEMBER 7. DOORS – 7:30. SHOWTIME – 8:00.

Who:

JORDAN RAYBOULD (New York Comedy Festival, Anxiety Now Podcast)

BRET RAYBOULD (Bridgetown Comedy Festival, Stand-Up New York Comedy Festival, The Raybould Brothers)

Tickets are $15 online, $20 at the door

—-

Based out of NYC, Jordan and Bret Raybould are two of the funniest-comedians in the city. Together, they have created the popular YouTube Channel, the Raybould Brothers, that has been featured on Funny or Die, Huffington Post, and at the top of all sorts of comedy subreddits. For the past several years, they’ve been touring up and down the East Coast as part of their “NYC Comedy Invades” series, performing in bars, coffee shops, and small theaters – all unconventional independent venues. Their goal is to give you that comedy club side-splitting laughter without the comedy club prices.

No matter the venue, they deliver.

Spiraling Outward: Lickinghole Creek Brings Sustainability To Shockoe Bottom

Julia Raimondi | October 28, 2019

Topics: Alex Marley, CBD oil, Firesides, hemp growth, hydroponics, Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery, Lisa Pumphrey, shockoe bottom, sustainability

The Goochland-based craft brewery is ready to brighten up Shockoe Bottom with the grand reopening of their Richmond location next month.

Renovations have been steadily underway for Goochland-based brewery Lickinghole Creek’s Richmond location, which is nestled among the myriad of restaurants, bars and cafes in Shockoe Bottom. By next month, those renovations will be complete.

Among the controlled chaos of renovation inside the brewery, an outline for a mural sits on an otherwise bare white wall. When it is finished, Lickinghole Creek CEO and co-founder Lisa Pumphrey hopes everyone who visits will notice.

The mural will be an outward spiral highlighting not only the history of her business, but also its impact on the greater community and environment. Through that symbolism, Pumphrey wants patrons to use the mural as a starting point for conversation on how they too can contribute good to the world.

“Everything cycles together,” Pumphrey said. “And in our case, we like to say that it’s not full circle but a spiral outward.”

For Pumphrey, that spiral begins with the origins of Lickinghole Creek at its main farm in Goochland County, Virginia. Before the company even began to brew, environmentalism was on the forefront of its mind. The farm was originally a soil reclamation project. First, Pumphrey grew crops such as sunflowers and soybeans to make the soil fertile again.

Then, in 2010, Lickinghole Creek began growing hops. From there, Lickinghole Creek grew into a successful brewery selling craft beers, and now, with the legalization of hemp in Virginia, CBD products. With this economic success, Lickinghole Creek has been able to use portions of its proceeds towards philanthropic projects, such as bringing clean water to Jamaica and supporting nonprofits like Pipe Hitters Union Motorcycle Club.

This is part of what Pumphrey calls her “spiral economics” model, wherein she hopes to use what she has found to be economically successful to teach others how they too can both economically and environmentally benefit.

Printed canvas pictures that Lisa Pumphrey took during visits to Jamaica sit waiting to be hung in the Shockoe Bottom location next to the Lickinghole Creek products that go towards their Jamaica clean water project. (Photo by Julia Raimondi)

In the case of the farm, Pumphrey helped push for legislation that would allow small farmers such as herself the ability to produce and sell alcohol on their property — a more profitable venture for small farms than other produce options. She also advocates for the growing of hemp, which she views as not only a better plant for soil fertility, but also one that will help push farmers away from using harmful pesticides, since those pesticides will harm the purity of CBD products that they can profit from.

The latest extent of the spiral comes to Lickinghole Creek’s Shockoe Bottom location, which will finalize its renovations in a grand reopening ceremony on November 15. While it has been open since August 2017, it hasn’t reached the fullest potential that owner Lisa Pumphrey believes it can achieve.

Pumphrey has plans for there to be a stage in the back of the main floor where local and touring musicians can play. These will include Jamaican musician Alex Marley, a business partner of Pumphrey’s who will be performing at the November 15 grand reopening. Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney will give the keynote address at the reopening.

“Our goal at Lickinghole Creek is to serve healthy and wholesome food options, live music, and microbrewed beer,” Marley said. “It will also help bring peace to the community and show people what Shockoe Bottom could be – a nice mix of people.”

Upstairs will be more lounge-style seating. Food will be served on both floors by one of Lickinghole Creek’s business collaborators, Firesides. Firesides is owned by chef Milton Lee Gutierrez, who prides himself in using local ingredients in creating his recipes, which are seasonal and paired with whatever Lickinghole Creek has on tap.

“I want to support local businesses and farms that are alongside me,” Gutierrez said. “I want customers to be able to grow, in the sense that they learn about their beer and how to pair it with good food.”

Near the entrance, Lickinghole Creek’s drink products, hemp products, and other merchandise will be available for take-home purchase.There will also be a microbrewery in the location, where brewers will create experimental brews that they might otherwise not have an opportunity to do at their Goochland location or elsewhere. In the basement, there will be a hydroponics garden that will be used for their brews and food products.

All of this, Pumphrey said, is in an effort to use Lickinghole Creek’s popularity to help revitalize the Shockoe Bottom community.

“Instead of seeing people running away from the problem, we go and face the problems,” Pumphrey said. “We work together with the community to bring safety, security, a better quality of life, and economic stability.”

The outline of the mural is sketched out on the side wall of the Shockoe Bottom location. Patrons will pass it as they go on the staircase to and from the lounge area. (Photo by Julia Raimondi)

Part of working with the community includes recruiting new employees from the local area and training them to become craft brewers for Lickinghole Creek. As time goes on, these brewers will grow and possibly even branch out on their own to start more businesses in the area, Pumphrey said. The hydroponics garden in the basement will also help teach locally recruited employees how to use urban agriculture in their own community. Pumphrey’s ultimate goal is to help members of the local community live more stably.

“I’m a big proponent of helping people making the right choices of their own accord, not because the government or someone else forces them to,” she said. “But if we can facilitate all of us coming together to make the community better, that’s when it works.”

Top Photo by Julia Raimondi

GRTC Connects: Route 4 – Shockoe Bottom to Fulton

Wyatt Gordon | October 28, 2019

Topics: Canal Walk, Devil's Half Acre, Fulton Bottom, Fulton Hill, GRTC, GRTC Connects, Historic Fulton Oral History Project, James River Flood Wall, Lumpkin's Jail, Montrose Heights, omari al-qaddafi, public transit, shockoe bottom, Slave Trail

The seventh installment in a monthly series in which a hometown Richmonder who has spent over a decade abroad explores the many different neighborhoods accessible by GRTC bus lines to discover the ways transit connects us all.

Shockoe Bottom:

The vacant storefronts scattered throughout and the empty parking lots that encompass entire city blocks belie the Shockoe Bottom of two centuries ago, when this neighborhood was the heart of Richmond’s economy.  Tobacco Row ⁠⁠— today a stretch of nearly waterfront condos and apartments ⁠— got its name from the long line of buildings that warehoused Virginia’s most valuable export.

This patch of Richmond was shaped just as profoundly by our country’s most profitable import: enslaved Africans. Tucked away behind Main Street Station on the far side of an endless asphalt expanse lies the Devil’s Half Acre. Just three blocks from Virginia’s capital, this rectangular patch of greenspace once hosted the largest slave holding facility in the Commonwealth: Lumpkin’s Slave Jail. 

Over 350,000 people were sold into slavery in Shockoe Bottom between 1830 and 1865, making Richmond the second-largest slave trading center in the United States. Besides some meager markers and an online Slave Trail map, precious little has been done to commemorate this part of our history. The only efforts to educate Richmonders about this dark chapter in our city’s history come from civil society groups such as the Elegba Folklore Society, who offer interactive tours.

Shockoe Bottom survived the Civil War and its torching at the hands of the fleeing Confederates, but what such a bustling urban neighborhood couldn’t overcome was the advent of the private automobile. Starting in the 1920s, the area began to sink into a state of disrepair. The 1950s brought the clearing of entire city blocks of historic homes and warehouses in favor of the hideous parking lots that plague the area to this day.

Only in the last two decades of the twentieth century did Shockoe Bottom begin to bounce back as a vibrant urban neighborhood, in fits and starts. A fledgling art scene anchored by (the original location of) 1708 Gallery, the completion of the Canal Walk, and the end of periodic flooding (save Hurricane Gaston in 2004) thanks to the James River Flood Wall planted the seeds of today’s growth.

Three large projects have transformed the fabric of Shockoe Bottom, helping to reverse decades of neglect. The Virginia Capital Trail, the redesigned 17th Street Farmers’ Market, and the Pulse BRT station all signal that Shockoe is once again embracing its roots as a city neighborhood built for people, not cars. Whether the area can not only confront its contributions to America’s “peculiar institution” but harness this dark history to attract curious visitors remains to be seen.

The Ride:

At the corner of 23rd and Franklin lies the only stop in Shockoe Bottom along GRTC’s Route 4. Imagine your correspondent’s consternation when he saw that the stop was “closed due to filming.” Despite the lack of a camera crew anywhere in sight, the buses were now picking up passengers around the corner.

This singular stop marks the only point at which Routes 4A and 4B overlap.  4A leaves Shockoe Bottom to loop around Montrose Heights, while the 4B takes a more southerly route to Fulton and back. No other route in GRTC’s entire system operates in this manner, where the variations are essentially entirely separate bus lines. This distinction can prove confusing.

Photo by Wyatt Gordon

After accidentally boarding the 4A with new GRTC Transit Advisory Group Vice Chair Adam Lockett, our bus embarked on its eastward journey towards Montrose Heights — speeding along, as the route lacks a single stop along Main Street by the many apartments or beloved businesses, such as Millie’s Diner and Poe’s Pub. If you head eastbound on the 4B you’ll hit another spot lacking connectivity; there are no stops along Main Street, forcing people to walk up the hill towards Shockoe from the Riverfront Pulse stop in order to catch the 4.

Before the Great Richmond Reroute last year, Greater Fulton was served every fifteen minutes by the 6 bus, which ran down Broad Street all the way to Willow Lawn. After the redesign, the replacement route⁠ — the 4 ⁠— was dropped to 30-minute frequencies. The redesign also shifted Fulton’s access to GRTC from an arterial (a route that runs crosstown) to a circulator (one that loops around a neighborhood collecting people to bring to a more frequent route). 

Exactly this combination of changes triggered community activist Omari Al-Qadaffi to file a federal civil rights complaint against GRTC. In a filing with the Federal Transit Agency, he asserts that the redesign unduly burdens low-income and minority bus riders. GRTC’s attempt to use savings from the Fulton cuts to expand service in the more affluent West End, at the behest of Councilwoman Kim Gray, compounded this perception of inequity. Such moves have damaged the trust of a community that already felt cut off after a mooted Pulse stop in the neighborhood was eliminated in favor of a stop serving the conglomeration of condos known as Rockett’s Landing.

For those who make the same mistake as your correspondent, thankfully the 4A and 4B come tantalizingly close to overlapping the further east you go. Alighting from one of the system’s older diesel buses (they still have the blue lights inside), it took but a short walk down a wooded stretch of Government Road to reach the heart of Fulton.  

Fulton:

Sixty years ago, residents of this part of Richmond used to draw a sharp distinction between Fulton Bottom and Fulton Hill. Today, no matter which you search, all that comes up is Fulton, due to the area’s dark history of displacement. 

In the 1970s, Fulton Bottom was deemed a slum by city government and targeted for “urban renewal.” Revisionist history wants you to believe that severe flooding in the early years of that decade made what was an already unsavory neighborhood absolutely uninhabitable. The narrative goes on that residents took payouts from the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Act (1970), and gladly moved.

In actuality, by the 1960s, Fulton Bottom had become an oasis of affordable housing for the Black working class. When the plans to demolish the Bottom became clear, residents were resistant. The compulsory nature of the evictions, and subsequent razing of the Bottom, came with a promise of better housing for Fulton’s residents in the near future. After the city converted much of the former neighborhood into Gillies Creek Park and dragged its feet on the promised new construction for over a decade, Fulton Bottom’s former residents gave up all hope of seeing their community restored. 

Map comparison image Via Church Hill People’s News

The loss of a neighborhood also led to the loss of a local culture, history, and sense of place. To preserve the stories and personalities that made Fulton Bottom so unique, in 2011, Virginia LISC, The Valentine, and the Neighborhood Resource Center of Greater Fulton came together to create the Historic Fulton Oral History Project. The interviews of nearly a dozen former community members can today be streamed online or found as a physical copy at ten sites across the city.

Over the past 30 years, Fulton Bottom has once again filled up with housing. Instead of the dense, walkable community of row houses and corner shops that resembled Shockoe Bottom, today the area is devoid of personality and looks like any subdivision in Chesterfield or Henrico. Fulton Hill, on the other hand, still effuses the character of an urban neighborhood⁠ — albeit one that feels far enough away from Richmond’s hustle and bustle for residents to still talk of “going into the city” when they drive downtown.

There’s also plenty for the rest of the region to discover in Fulton. Flush on the Henrico border lies Richmond National Cemetery, a nearly 10-acre site where close to 10,000 Union Soldiers who died in the siege of the Confederate capital are majestically interned under marble headstones. Beer enthusiasts can delight in the spacious eastern outpost of Triple Crossing Beer. The outdoor patio will leave you feeling like you’re no longer in the city at all. Those looking for a bargain should head to Fulton’s oldest eatery: Krispies’ Fried Chicken. Where else in Richmond can you get a two-piece snack for just $3.39?

Surrounding such sites and amenities, the federal row houses, Sears catalog homes, and low-slung bungalows of Fulton Hill (today the only Fulton left) serve a similar purpose to the housing that was bulldozed in the bottom half a century ago. Although Fulton remains predominantly Black, working class residents of all races have begun to move in. As the prices of single-family homes in Church Hill, Blackwell, and Northside rise beyond the reach of the middle class, Fulton still offers historic homes for $150,000 to $200,000. Thanks to the likes of local musical talents Trapcry and Alabama Thunderpussy, the neighborhood increasingly has a reputation as a haven for creatives.

Over the past century, both Shockoe Bottom and Fulton have proven themselves to be urban neighborhoods as vibrant as they are resilient.  Unfortunately, those thriving elements of the two communities have taken root not thanks to the City’s policies but rather in spite of them.  The experiences of Shockoe Bottom and Fulton should serve as a warning to Richmond’s leaders who think the best of our city can only be realized through grand plans.  What makes these two neighborhoods and the whole of the River City a delight to call home are its people.

Photos via Wikipedia, the Valentine archives, and Venture RVA, unless otherwise noted

Unicorns & Steampunk: Bryant’s Cider Crafts Their Own Path

Noelle Abrahams | October 17, 2019

Topics: apple cider, bars, bryants cider, cider, community, craft beer, craft cider, Jackson Ward, jerry thornton, Local, local business, restaurants, shockoe bottom

Ahead of their move to Shockoe Bottom, Jerry Thornton of Bryant’s Cider talks new recipes and future plans for the family-owned cidery.

“We’re the new beer,” says cidermaker Jerry Thornton, owner of Bryant’s Cider. It’s a bold statement, but it fits the vibe of their Jackson Ward tasting room. On its graffiti-covered walls, “Change the rules” is spray-painted in all caps below an image of a black cat and skull.

There may be some truth to Thornton’s words in regard to popular dietary trends. Bryant’s Cider produces small batches of uniquely-flavored hard ciders that are sugar-free, low-carb, keto-friendly, and made with whole, organic ingredients that are local whenever possible. Everything currently on tap at the Jackson Ward tasting room is also vegan and gluten-free.

PHOTO: Bryant’s Cider

With chalkboard paint atop tables that customers are encouraged to decorate, along with board games, card games, and adult coloring books, Bryant’s has a quirky (but edgy) vibe that marketing director Vanessa Gleiser maintains in their social media presence.

But days at the quaint Adams Street tasting room are numbered. Bryant’s just announced their purchase of 2114 E Main St. in Shockoe Bottom, where they’ll be relocating their Richmond tasting room to a mixed-use building that will also serve as a production facility. They hope to make the move in January 2020.

Right now, all of Bryant’s production happens in their other tasting room location, at Edgewood Farm in Nelson County, VA. The 386-acre property has been passed down through Thornton’s family since as early as 1850. His grandmother was born and raised there, and Thornton spent some time growing up there as well. After taking care of his grandmother for several years until her passing in 2014, Thornton took over the farm, because no one else in the family wanted to deal with it.

“For about four years, I didn’t know what to do with it,” says Thornton. At the time, he was working downtown at BB&T, in budgeting and forecasting analytics — “douchey stuff,” as he describes it. So while affording the farm wasn’t an issue, having the time to care for it was. Thornton is a single dad who raises his five-year-old daughter half of the time, so it wasn’t possible for him to work 80 hours a week, between the office and the farm, while also parenting a young child.

PHOTO: Bryant’s Cider

Nelson County is in an apple-dense region, so Thornton started growing cider apples at the orchard on his farm and quit the corporate-suit life to experiment with making cider. He got Bryant’s off the ground out of pocket, with not a single investor. “I still think I’m crazy,” says Thornton. As his family likes to remind him, he had a good job making good money with a guaranteed comfortable retirement, and he threw it away to make alcohol.

But he did so for honest and relatable reasons. “I’d just like to be human,” he said. “My objective isn’t to get rich. I just want to take care of my kid and my farm and not… hate life.”

Thornton went to cider school in upstate New York, but considers himself mostly self-taught. He likens cider making to cooking — you learn by experimenting, by trial and error. And what’s on tap at Bryant’s is certainly experimental: some batches on regular rotation are the chai-spiced Chaider, the cucumber- and habanero-infused Coolbanero, and the cold brew coffee-infused Red Eye.

Thornton is always playing with new flavors and testing them out in small batches. Right now, you can try the seasonably-appropriate Punkking, a pumpkin-spiced cider, and Still Swingin, which is infused with bourbon and peach. There’s an Old Fashioned-inspired batch in the works, and their next autumnal special planned is the Bryant’s Dirty Chai, a pairing of the Red Eye and the Chaider.

Their best-selling cider in retail is Bryant’s Unicorn Fuel, which has garnered somewhat of a cult following among customers. “I feel like more people know the name ‘Unicorn Fuel’ than ‘Bryant’s,’” says Thornton, which doesn’t necessarily bother him, but he cites the current location of the Richmond tasting room as to why they haven’t become a household name yet. “Jackson Ward is a great neighborhood, but no one knows we’re here,” says Thornton. “I could put a fucking unicorn suit on and stand on the corner, and maybe that would get a couple people in, but I don’t want to do that.”

PHOTO: Bryant’s Cider

The hope the move to Shockoe Bottom will expand their customer base since they’ll be in an area with higher foot traffic, right off the beaten path, and surrounded by popular bars and restaurants. “It’s an up-and-coming neighborhood, and really dense in terms of housing — just loft after loft,” says Thornton. “Whenever I’m down there, I see all these people walking their dogs and just hanging out. It’s the right type of people for us.” (Yes, both tasting rooms are dog-friendly!)

Bryant’s will also be preserving their safe distance from Scott’s Addition, where the only other craft cideries in the River City are located: Blue Bee, Buskey, and Courthouse Creek. Generally, the crowds in Shockoe, Church Hill and the East End don’t want to travel all the way to Scott’s Addition for a hard cider, so Bryant’s is hoping to corner that market geographically.

They considered moving to The Fan, but the historic quality of the building in Shockoe Bottom helped seal the deal. Built in the 1850s, Bryant’s liked that it’s about the same age as Edgewood Farm. “It’s super old and super cool. It fits our vibe,” says Thornton. “I didn’t want some generic, super-modern place because that’s boring.”

Thornton wants to do a steampunk theme at the new tasting room, which should gel nicely with the vibe of Shockoe Bottom, with the Canal Walk and Great Shiplock Park just a block or so away. He’s nervous about the move, but excited that he was able to buy instead of rent, because he has complete creative freedom in how to use the space. “There’s no landlord. If I want to break things, I can break things,” says Thornton. “Which I do, frequently.” He already has an idea for a light fixture: he wants to build a spider web chandelier across the entire ceiling using iron piping and Edison bulbs.

PHOTO: Bryant’s Cider

Byrant’s long-term goal is to split production between the farm and Shockoe Bottom. First, they’ll work to get more distribution and build the brand so Thornton can operate on a regular production schedule. Currently, Bryant’s has 85 active accounts in the Richmond area. “It’s getting there,” says Thornton. “We’re on rotation at a lot of places, but it takes time to build up.”

While Bryant’s is a young, independent business, they’re also an intimately small one. Thornton makes all of the cider himself and works on sales when he can. The only other full-time employees are the respective managers of the two tasting rooms, Afton Massie at the farm and Vanessa Gleiser in Richmond (who also directs marketing operations).

If you’re curious about where you can buy Bryant’s, they update their retail locations weekly. But what they really want is for you to visit the tasting room, and try some ciders that you wouldn’t normally order from a bar or buy in a six pack.

“We do weird stuff,” says Thornton. “You gotta come down and try it.”

Top Photo via Bryant’s Cider

The Richmond Night Market Brings Community At Its Finest

Norrin Nicholas | September 30, 2019

Topics: 17th street farmers market, black culture in Richmond, black-owned businesses, Richmond Night Market, shockoe bottom

Taking place the second Saturday of each month at 17th Street Farmers Market, the Richmond Night Market lights up the evening with the music, art, and culture of Richmond’s black community.

“The Richmond Night Market provides a fresh open-air gathering for handmade, independent artists and small businesses, while highlighting the city that surrounds it. Nestled in the heart of Shockoe Bottom at the 17th Street Market, RNM highlights creativity, commerce, and community in Richmond at one of the world’s historical sites. It is a staple experience in the city so you want to join us for this free, family friendly social shopping experience each month.”

As the day shifts to dusk on the second Saturday of every month, the bland, gray cemented center platform of 17th Street — right in the heart of Shockoe Bottom — transforms itself into a new-world marketplace. More people than you could count on four sets of hands and feet stroll the compact strip as if it were a mile long, each person looking for that small piece of culture that brought them outside.

The vibrations of music shake through the ground — noticeable from multiple blocks away. A DJ spins his records for the enjoyment of the entire area, smiling as he watches the crowd interact with his music picks and their agreement with his decision. Behind him stand members of a band, tuning their instruments and connecting their equipment as they prepare to take over the show. As the DJ continues his set, the band form a circle around each other to say a quick prayer before hugging and laughing among one another.

The energy deriving from this space seems celebratory; the sounds of indistinct chatter and laughter rise in volume as you inch closer and closer to the cemented marketplace. A good time could be sensed by someone passing in their car, and this good time was visible as well.

Photo via Richmond Night Market/Facebook

The smell of spiced food and homegrown herbs fill the air, lifting people off their toes towards the source of their curiosity. Dozens of tents lined up with people scanning their surroundings for anything of interest or relevance to them or their loved ones. The shine of hand-crafted jewelry shines bright against the faces of its viewers, enticing them with styles they’ve never seen before. A woman laughs in excitement amongst her friends as she poses in a dress suited to her perfection.

At a tent across from these women sits a painter, surrounded by his own works — talking with his audience as they question him in admiration. The smile on his face is that of a man presenting his true passion while being met with the positivity and review he truly wants. One after another, people stop by to stare at the works, eventually getting in a few pictures or buying a piece due to their infatuation.

In a distant corner, cheers and applause arise from a crowd of people as they watch models walk down an urban runway — strutting and posing as they walk a straight line, face empty of emotion, towards the cameras in front of them. Among these models are women with artistically-crafted braids, each style speaking to its audience in its own way. Camera flashes and shutter sounds emerge like breaths from the audience, merging itself with the aura coming from the marketplace.

Photo via Richmond Night Market/Facebook

“I originally was brought here by a friend, didn’t think I’d really like it too much. Next thing I know I’ve bought a necklace, two candles, and a painting for my living room. Everything I didn’t even know I needed.”

The sound of coins clattering, bills fluttering against one another, and phone alerts from money services parade the atmosphere, and behind that sound sits the very definition of happiness — community. You wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it. However, I am here to show you that you can see this on a regular basis right here in Richmond.

This marketplace-style community was a curated effort by none other than the Richmond Night Market, an organization dedicated towards the progression of black arts and culture in the City of Richmond. Their goal has been to create a space where a multitude of black-owned businesses and creatives can come together to provide an amazing, innovation experience for all of Richmond’s locals — and from what I’ve seen so far, they’re doing an amazing job at keeping it afloat.

Their most recent event, which took place on Saturday, September 15, featured an amazing assortment of creative organizations and vendors: Chanel’s Cookies & Crumbs, Love Mila Brand, Adiva Naturals, Arley Cakes, Soul Taco, Afrikana Film Festival, Yoga Joy, Cool Kids Science Club, and more, as well as performances from artists like HighDefinition Band, Ron Stokes, and David Marion. What seemed like a rare experience was simply another Saturday for the members involved with the Richmond Night Market — and seemed to be a big success.

For those of you feeling bad because you missed this event, have no fear. The Richmond Night Market happens every second Saturday of the month at the 17th Street Farmers Market in Shockoe Bottom. The next event will take place on Saturday, October 12, from 5 til 10 pm.

“Honestly, I wish this were something that happened bi-weekly. I’ve lived here all my life but whenever the second-Saturday Night Market comes around, then I start to really feel at home. I start to feel like a real Richmonder.”

If you want to see the community at its best, that’s what you’ll find at an event like this. So make sure you come out — you wouldn’t want to miss your chance at a rare treat like this.

Top Photo by James Loving, via Richmond Night Market/Facebook

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