Smugly Passionate

I had no idea people were so passionate about Dogtown.

Having been to plenty of the Valentine's Community Conversations, I knew we'd be seeing historic photographs before hearing from longtime residents and experts on the neighborhood. That much I knew.

What I hadn't anticipated was all the discussion (bordering on arguing) about what exactly qualifies as Old Manchester. Many people were not happy to learn that it's only the formerly industrial area that is historically designated as such.

To be specific: east of Commerce and north of Gordon. Plenty of people were unwilling to take that for an answer, despite it being non-negotiable and merely a factor of where the historic designation was assigned.

Interesting side note: 74% of the people in the room did not live in Manchester. As my grandmother used to say, it's really none of their beeswax.

Luckily, many of us accepted the parameters, moved on and really enjoyed seeing wonderful old photographs such as an 1865 panorama of Manchester from downtown.

Imagine my surprise to see that there had once been a fountain at Hull Street and Route 1 and here was an image of genteel-looking women taking water from it.

The picture of the old Ninth Street bridge with a closed sign across it after the new bridge was built resulted in Valentine director Bill Martin sharing a story about how part of the Consolidation agreement annexing Manchester to Richmond required that there be a free pedestrian bridge.

City fathers had apparently forgotten this stipulation until late in the bridge's construction which is why the walkway ended up in the middle of the bridge, an eleventh-hour adjustment.

A picture of the flood of 1985 showed men in boats paddling down Stockton Street. That was the year before I arrived in Richmond and I'd never heard of this flood.

Part of the community conversation process is determining who is in the room and it turned out to be the usual predominantly white, predominantly city dwellers, with slightly more females.

The top reason (30%) people in the room went to Manchester was for the flood wall. Only 14% went for restaurants. That needs to be addressed.

Once we knew who we were, it was time to break into small groups for discussion. Here I totally lucked out because in my group was a music friend, the city planner for Richmond and a woman who'd lived in Dogtown for 65 years.

Her bona fides were acquired through marriage to a Dogtown boy (as she called her first husband), clarifying that meant he'd been raised in Manchester. As a new bride, her mother-in-law told her that when her husband (also a Dogtown boy) had moved her to Dogtown, "I thought people there were awful, but after three months, I was as smug as the rest of them."

This charming woman was now on her third husband (having outlived #1 and #2 - she was already my hero), but she recalled that first Dogtown husband buying a lot in Forest Hill to build them a house, only to discover that the other nine lots on the block had all been purchased by Dogtown boys, too. She still lives there today.

"Dogtown boys are always very loyal to their neighborhood," she said, then summed up, "Folks north of the river had lots of attitude but folks south of the river had a whole other attitude."

From the city's planning director, we heard how impressed he'd been with Manchester when he'd moved here ("I'd move there tomorrow if my wife would") for the strong sense of neighborhood, all the open spaces and because of so much opportunity.

"It's absolutely the next great neighborhood," he proclaimed.

We ran out of time before we had to reconvene with the entire room to share stories. One guy who plans to open a restaurant in Manchester come summer recalled "taking paddlings at the old Maury Elementary School," which is apparently now a home for seniors.

Another woman swore us to secrecy before sharing that Mayo's bridge on the Manchester side is the best place for miles around to catch stripers. Old news, honey.

Our first speaker was researcher Brian from HOME (Housing Opportunities Made Equal) who shared some of his amazing factoids.

In the 2000 census, there had been exactly one (!) person listed as living in Old Manchester.

"Is that person in the room?" he asked hopefully. "All day long, I've been really hoping that person would be here." Alas, it was not to be.

The  big news was that by 2010, a whopping 637 people were living in Old Manchester, a huge change not just for the percentage of increase but because of the great diversity of who'd moved in. That number had probably doubled since then.

It was at this point that some heated discussion about what constituted Manchester erupted again.

Our next speaker, Harry "the Hat" smoothed things over with his theatrical take on how the area came to be dubbed Dogtown (most boy gang names ended in "cat") and how trash-talking southsiders only encouraged more southside loyalty.

Fun fact I learned from Harry: all the main streets - Bainbridge, Hull, Decatur -in Manchester are named after Navy admirals. Who knew?

Kim, our final expert (and a woman, finally!), turned out to be an underling of Mark, the planner in our group, and she'd dug through the Valentine's archives to come up with some terrific images.

A 1913 photograph of Mayo's bridge showed a trolley car whizzing down the center of it and a horse and buggy sedately trotting along beside it.

I was amazed to see photos of Manchester's mansions (long since gone), part of a wealthy community between Semmes and Hull Street built by Irish tobacco traders.

According to a Manchester resident in the audience, one of the houses had been moved to Bon Air, but only after removing the dozens of honeycombs that bees had built in the walls.

One of the most charming shots was of tree-lined Porter Street and the attractive single family homes that lined it. It looked the way I remembered Richmond when I visited my grandmother as a child.

We learned that it was in 1997 when the historic tax credit program began that suddenly Manchester's industrial buildings became wildly desirable. Amazingly, 70 buildings have been renovated in Dogtown since 2001.

"That's an explosion of new buildings because there's so much usable land there," she explained.

Harnessing the brilliance of young minds, she'd brought plans created by an urban studies graduate student from VCU. In it, she'd devised a system of graduated heights for buildings leading to the river so that as many people as possible could benefit from the view.

Another of her brainstorms was the 7th Street Plaza Center (a dreadfully generic name that would be best replaced with an historic name tied to the area), a generous green space park on 7th Street between Porter and Perry. "It's essential that we develop the Porter Street corridor," she said.

Kim made a strong case for the canal being the most under-utilized element of Old Manchester's real estate, something I had never even considered.

But then, I don't have to. I can take advantage of the Valentine's engaging community conversations and meet fascinating people like Betty Ann (and hear about life as a Dogtown bride and tour guide) and Mark (and hear about his hope of seeing windows installed the minute historic tax credits expire to appealingly open up Old Manchester's industrial architecture) and learn more than I could ever come up with on my own.

In the meantime, I'll just keep eating, drinking and experiencing art in Old Manchester as my contribution to revitalization.

Betty Ann seems to think I should keep my eye out for a Dogtown boy along the way. I hear they're incredibly loyal.

A Woman of Many Parts

Wait, there was a 008?

That just goes to prove why it's about time I'm getting around to seeing the James Bond series, courtesy of Movieland's Movies and Mimosas.

Two weeks ago it was Dr. No and today, after walking to the theater on an exquisite morning, it was "Goldfinger."

Or, as Shirley Bassey sings it, "Goldfingahhhh."

The movie got my attention (and no doubt that of women for the past 50 years) in the opening scene where James is wearing a bathing suit and getting a massage.

When he stands up wearing those fitted '60s-style swim trunks, that's an impressive hunk of man.

I was especially tickled when he then put on a romper, zipping it up to his hairy chest and belting it.

When's the last time you saw a guy in a romper?

Of course, he was still full of 007 technical information, like, "My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, like drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!"

His advice still holds on the first, although never on the second.

When the location moved to Goldfinger's stud farm in Kentucky, things got all southern.

There was a huge Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the background ("Colonel Sanders' secret recipe") and James refers to "bourbon and branch water."

When all was said and done, I didn't like it quite as much as "Dr. No" because it seemed like James spent less time romancing women.

That said, I was terribly impressed that the actress who played Pussy Galore was 37 at the time, especially since back in 1964, 37 was not the new 27 like now.

Once Bond had saved Fort Knox, parachuted from a failing plane and was rolling around making out with Pussy under a parachute, the credits told us that it was the end of "Goldfinger" but that Bond would be back in "Thunderball."

Which probably means I'll be back at Movieland, hoping for a few less dead bodies and a lot more drinking advice and action on the sheets.

Walking back home beside the endless throng of workers always at Redskin Park, I got in the car to go to Manchester.

Blue Bee Cider (Virginia's only urban cidery) and Anderson's Neck Oyster Company (which I'd had at Dutch & Co.) were doing a tasting all afternoon and having recently tasted (and enjoyed) some Blue Bee Cider, I wanted more.

The tasting room had a lively crowd when I arrived, mostly guys but a few of my people.

There were two cider choices, Charred Ordinary, a more traditional cider, and Aragon 1904, an off-dry cider more reminiscent of champagne.

With a glass of the light and crisp (and not at all cloying) latter, I wandered over to the shucking table where I had a dozen Eagle Flats awaiting me.

"How's your day going so far?" one of the shuckers asked.

I told him I'd just seen "Goldfinger" for the first time at the theater.

"Wow, "Goldfinger" then oysters and cider? That's a really awesome Saturday!" he enthused.

Don't I know it.

Earth Day Hip Hop

Okay, I admit it; I went to the Earth Day Festival for music BUT before you judge me too harshly, know that I did take in a lot of the festival too. I am a gardener, I do compost and recycle (including clothing; I never buy new), and I bike and walk whenever possible. So I'm not anti-earth by any means.

But, yes, I went because I wanted to hear Photosyntheizers play outside; I saw them first at WRIR's birthday bash, but in a too-small room, so I wanted to hear what live hip hop could sound like in the great outdoors. The answer: amazing. There was so much room for that sound and the audience kept growing throughout their set.

At one point, the track the DJ was playing was a live one so it ended with clapping. "See, we bring our own applause in case you guys aren't feeling it," Barcodez joked, not that appreciation was a problem. Their other vocalist, Samsun brought her smooth soul vocals to his and the audience ate it up.

After my music jones was satisfied, I walked the festival, running into people and stopping at what interested me. I picked up a sweet pea seedling while a couple of girls next to me argued over whether or not it's too late to be planting. Ladies, it's April 25th, I think we're safe to still plant. Maybe the early warmth has fooled people into thinking we're already to summer but that's just not the case.

I signed up to join the local chapter of the Slow Food Movement and discussed its recent formation with a volunteer. I'm excited to be in on the early stages of this group's arrival in rva. They had a plate of Belmont Butchery's country pate on bread and it was so good it made my eyes close in enjoyment as I ate it. Mmm, slow food good.

I picked up handfuls of seed bombs, the better to improve some of the uglier vacant lots in J-Ward and fired them off on my way home. I've been a big proponent of seed bombs for a couple of years now, as a couple of my friends can attest. ("He's so BAD at this," is all I'm going to say, guys.). So easy and so effective.

I even ventured out onto the Mayo Bridge where they had equipment for the rod-less to try fishing. As many times as I've seen the regular fisherman on that bridge, it was really cool to be one of them for the first time. And no, I didn't catch anything, but now I know what the view looks like and how it feels to be one of the guys wiling away an afternoon on the bridge. My dad was the type who kept our family supplied with a freezer full of rockfish and bluefish year round (Irish Catholics; fish every Friday, don't you know?), so I know he'll be so proud, even with no catch to boast about.

It was the first year for beer at the festival, not that I drink beer, but it seemed to make a lot of people more earth-enthusiastic, so I say, hey, whatever it takes.

For me, it was music, but then who out there is really the least bit surprised about that?