Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 3, 1993 TAG: 9309030059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last week, they pulled the Roanoke Gas Co. from the jaws of a revenue-hungry city.
Thursday, Southeast Roanoke celebrated the saving of the Dominion Bank branch at 9th Street and Bullitt Avenue.
Customers sent florists' bouquets. A bank official sent red roses. And as usual, tellers had a Milk Bone for Tiny Boy, a 6-year-old Chihuahua who rides though the teller lines on the shoulders of his owner, Versie Hall.
"Say, `They give me a biscuit. They always do,' " Hall instructed her dog. "This is a more friendlier bank than all of them," she said.
People flocked there Thursday to do their first-of-the-month business, some on motorcycles, one rattling in on an aluminum cane and many walking from homes nearby.
Those who have walked to the bank for decades rose in distress last month when First Union National Bank, Dominion's new owner, said it might close the branch.
It's the kind of place where older women walk from home on a hot summer day in their white sandals with their white matching pocketbooks.
"See this little thing here?" Mossie Fulford, 63, said of her grandson, beaming from his stroller as they entered the bank on their morning walk. "When he goes in, he loves seeing them all. Say, `I'm Joshua. I'll be 1 the end of this month.' "
Charles Atkinson, 82 ("I feel like I'm 108"), was wearing a snappy straw hat Thursday morning and had a section of the morning paper rolled up in his back pocket.
He used to be a roofer. "I painted that roof right yonder two times," he said, spying a steep green one on Bullitt Avenue.
For 76 years, Atkinson has lived on nearby Montrose Avenue, and he's always walked to the bank. "Never owned a car." He was glad the bank didn't close.
So was Odessa A. Matthews, 72, a retired store clerk. Her sister drove her there Thursday. "My sister and I both bank here," said Matthews, "because it's close to where we live [and] because we might have to take a taxi eventually. I'm losing my eyesight, and she's losing hers."
Accounts like those, a bank-loving crowd of 150 at an August community meeting and a careful study of branch business saved it when 115 other branches around the state are being closed, said Byron Yost, Roanoke-area president for First Union.
"It was not a bad branch," Yost said. "It was not an unprofitable branch." But it doesn't make as much money as the bank desires. Nor is it expected to grow. Household incomes near the bank are one-third lower than the city's median.
Yost's grandparents lived on 8th Street near the bank. His grandfather and father worked at Southeast's premier industry and rayon plant, American Viscose. It was Yost, a branch employee said, who sent the red roses sitting on the tellers' counter Thursday.
In the end, Yost said, "The needs there were greater than the benefits that we would receive from closing it."
Ralph Fitzgerald catches the pulse of Southeast from his manager's perch overlooking the aisles at Ninth Street Galaxy supermarket.
"I've never seen so many smiles since yesterday," when the bank announced its decision, he said. "As soon as I heard about it, I got on the intercom and told everybody.
"When you're in a community like this, you're in a family. If I knew of a better place, I'd be there."
Not everyone was aglow from the bank's news. A man waiting to go inside Thursday complained that it needs longer hours. And Lana Duke, doing her wash at the Valley Cleaners laundromat down 9th Street, said she didn't care that the branch was saved. "I don't bank at Dominion. I think it's a rip." She paused and asked, "Can they sue me for saying that?" "Free speech," assured a friend.
Marie Dull, who works at Valley Cleaners nearby, picked up breakfast biscuits at Hardee's for bank workers. "They're a great bunch over there," she said.
Other Roanokers look down on Southeast, she said. "You mention this part of town and their nose goes up, but it's a nice part of town."
And one that can amass some clout, like to save this bank. "Just shows you," she said, "what people can do when they band together."
by CNB