Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 3, 1991 TAG: 9103030092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEVE MUNDY/ RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
DATELINE: RICHMOND (AP) LENGTH: Medium
Much has changed since the 1940s.
The hum of the clippers, the snip of the scissors and the small talk associated with barbers are the sounds of a healthy business - a marked contrast to the eerie silence of the closed hotels.
The barber shops have kept the names of the defunct John Marshall and William Byrd hotels, which have remained dark since they went of business in the 1980s.
On West Franklin Street, the John Marshall Hotel Barber Shop has been in the same spot since it opened Oct. 30, 1929. Eight large leather chairs and the smell of shaving cream still fill the shop.
"We've had three shaves today," said Hugh Campbell, co-owner of the shop. "That's more than what we usually do in a whole week." Usually, the shop operates by appointment, does both men's and women's cuts and offers manicures. A regular cut costs $10.
The shop's main clientele include doctors, businessmen, lawyers and governors. Campbell said that former Gov. Gerald Baliles had been in recently for a haircut.
Walking across the shop's original light-and dark-gray floor, Campbell retrieved a photograph of his partner, Herman Hicks, now a part-time barber there at 73, standing in front of a plaque in the hotel.
The plaque has a list of the famous people who stayed at the John Marshall. Elvis Presley, Gerald Ford, Gary Cooper, Winston Churchill and John Wayne are some of the names.
Hicks, who has worked there since 1947, said he cut boxing great Jack Dempsey's hair once.
"I could tell somebody all the names of governors whose hair I cut," he said, "but they might not know them. Everybody knows who Jack Dempsey was."
While the shop was doing well in 1988, Campbell said he and Hicks "got a cold chill not knowing what was going to happen" when the John Marshall closed.
The shop survived and now works independently of the hotel. "We could function just as well up the street," Campbell said. "But why bother moving? Everybody knows where we are."
A lot of people know where the William Byrd Hotel Barber Shop still operates, too. It has leased space on the east side of the hotel building since 1926. The shop's red, white and blue sign seems to be the only light on at the hotel these days.
Owner William R. Carlton, 64, has owned the shop since 1961 and cut hair there since 1948. The native of West Point and his four barbers, two of whom have worked there for about 30 years, still use the shop's original ceramic sinks and wooden cabinets. The back wall is cracked and chipped at the top. Behind the door on the left side of the shop are two shoeshine chairs. A shoeshine costs $1.50.
The smell of the polish overpowers the hair tonics and shaving cream. Carlton said his shoeshiner, Philip Branch, is always busy and at times has them waiting in line.
"Sometimes in the morning about 7:15," he said, "kids come down from Benedictine [High School] before their inspection so they can get haircuts and their shoes shined all at once. This place looks like boot camp."
The barber shop's $8 cuts also attract doctors, lawyers and businessmen, along with a lot of Fan District residents.
In the 1950s, it was a different scene.
The William Byrd Hotel housed traveling salesmen, who came to Richmond through Broad Street station. Most of those men, Carlton said, would stop in for haircuts before going out on calls.
"When the trains ran, this place [the hotel] was 98 percent full," he recalled.
But increasing competition from newer hotels and the 1975 shutdown of the train station weakened the Byrd Hotel. It closed in 1984. Meanwhile, the station building, across Broad Street, became the Science Museum of Virginia.
Carlton said about 30 or 40 people a week ask him what's being done with the hotel. He doesn't know.
When the hotel closed, Carlton said he "didn't feel too good about it. You don't know what's going to happen.
"I probably could have got cheaper rent elsewhere, but business would have dropped more," he said. "A barber has to stay in one place to build up a supply of customers."
Yet, Carlton said that if he owned the hotel, he would convert it into efficiency apartments and a nice restaurant. "That way they would need a barber shop close by."
by CNB