Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 5, 1995 TAG: 9501070071
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
He found several photos showing part of the walkway. None showed the entire structure, but they showed enough to give a good impression of how it looked.
After Wood submitted his picture, which is reproduced on the cover, Jimmy Reynolds visited the Vinton public library and found a picture that shows the entire structure.
It is spread over pages 118 and 119 in ``Roanoke Past and Present,'' by Carolyn Hale Bruce. This is the most complete picture of the old walkway that has turned up, but the book gave no indication of a photographer or who owned the print.
A new overhead walkway is in the works to span the tracks between Salem Avenue and the proposed conference center being built in conjunction with the refurbished Hotel Roanoke.
Wood, who has other pictures of local historical interest, is retired from the Virginia Department of Transportation, where he worked for 33 years. He said he remembers the walkway well and walked over it many times.
He also remembers a second walkway that connected the former Norfolk and Western Railway passenger station and Salem Avenue. It sloped from the high level of the passenger station down to street level at Salem Avenue.
The passenger station walkway was fancy for its day. It was covered and had lots of windows and a gift shop, according to the recollections of Frank Humston of Roanoke.
He remembered it from the mid-1920s when he was a boy and traveled occasionally with his family to Roanoke from West Virginia. The passenger station walkway was removed long ago, but the date has been forgotten.
Another who recalled this overpass was George Overstreet of Salem, a retired furniture company official. He said the floor of that walkway is now the footbridge over the Roanoke River near Victory Stadium.
All of the people who responded to the walkway article remembered the Jefferson Street and passenger-station walkways and the now-defunct underpass that replaced them.
But one caller remembered more than that.
Howard Chapman of Vinton recalled that at one time - until shortly after World War II - there had been six crosswalks over the tracks in or near downtown Roanoke.
He remembers them well because he worked in the NW shops in Roanoke for 40 years.
The six crosswalks were in use at the same time, he said, but only two of them were open to the public - the ones at Jefferson Street and between the passenger station and Salem Avenue. The other four were for railroad employees only, and two of those still exist, he said.
None of the people who called could place exact construction dates on the various walkways.
There apparently were other pictures of the Jefferson walkway in circulation at one time, but most of them have disappeared.
Another caller who remembers pictures from the past was Ben Ogburn, who works for Norfolk Southern Corp. in Roanoke.
He remembers at some time in the past seeing pictures of the walkway and said he has the impression they were of 1920s vintage. They appeared to have been postcard pictures, he said.
Ogburn, who came to Roanoke in 1968, also remembers the underpass, which was built under the railroad tracks at Jefferson Street after the Jefferson walkway was torn down. It lasted only a few years before becoming a hangout for derelicts and muggers. Many people who worked downtown were afraid to use it even at midday.
Several of those who called had definite opinions about the whole matter of conveyances across the tracks in downtown.
Hoskins M. Sclater, a longtime Roanoke resident, remembers the passenger-station walkway and opposes building another one, saying it would ``ruin'' the view from downtown of Hotel Roanoke.
``Anywhere the skywalk is built, it will mar or disfigure the Hotel Roanoke, the most famous structure in our city,'' he said.
His campaign is to save the remaining unobstructed view of Hotel Roanoke from the south side of the tracks.
Sclater speculates that only a few tourists at Hotel Roanoke would use the walkway. He said most tourists are ``a lazy bunch'' who would prefer to ``loll around in the hotel lobby.''
Sclater said a better plan would be to rebuild the Hunter Viaduct, half of which has been torn down.
The ``movers and shakers'' in Roanoke today, Sclater said, ``probably mean well, but they just don't have good taste regarding architecture and landscaping.''
Another definite view came from Howard Chapman, who thinks it would be better to reopen the underpass. Chapman remembered that no one seemed to have the job of cleaning the underpass, and it became littered with trash.
He said he has never understood why the city and the railroad didn't get together on a plan to keep the tunnel clean and safe.
They could do so now, he said, if they reopened the tunnel.
Among others who remembered the Jefferson walkway and underground tunnel were Dorr Tucker of Roanoke, who recalled the walkway from his childhood. Tucker, a railroad enthusiast, watched trains from the vantage point of the walkway as a child. He said he remembers the steps at each end being ``very steep.''
The Rev. Robert T. Copenhaver of Salem also remembers the walkway from his years of growing up in Roanoke. He said he walked over it many times and remembers it ``very well,'' as does his wife, Mimi.
Copenhaver is rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Salem.
by CNB