ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996 TAG: 9601260090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
A DOZEN black residents charged that city government and business leaders have plotted quietly to control the historic site without consulting the people who made it famous.
Black Roanokers urged Henry Street planners Thursday to back off their hurried timetable and let the people who once owned and patronized the street's businesses say how they would like to see it revived.
At a community briefing at the Gainsboro library, a dozen black residents charged that, once again, city government and business leaders have plotted quietly to control an historic site in Roanoke's oldest black neighborhood without consulting the people who made it famous.
The Rev. Noel Taylor, Roanoke's former mayor and chairman of the city-sponsored Henry Street Revival Committee, came under attack by some for endorsing a land-use plan unveiled this week. He formed the committee 12 years ago and praised the plans at a news conference Tuesday.
Taylor wasn't at Thursday's meeting, but said afterward that suggestions on Henry Street are most needed now and that he would be glad to talk with anyone. He said he has tried to do his best.
"If somewhere along the way someone is not fully satisfied, I'm sorry," he said. "I hope the Lord is pleased."
Government leaders, architects and consultants pushing an $18.5 million Henry Street entertainment district planned to take their outline for club, shop, office and restaurant construction to City Council on Feb. 5. But after hearing the concerns, Neva Smith, executive director of the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, said the authority and other backers of the street may hold a large community meeting before going to council.
Black consultants, including Roanoke architect Ed Barnett and Roanoke native Thomasine Williams, worked on the land-use plan most of last year with Memphis' Beale Street developer, John Elkington, and Roanoke design firm Hill Studio.
They studied the history and architecture of Henry Street - now with only three buildings left - and they met with some black Roanokers. But it was obvious Thursday that many people were not consulted.
"Henry Street belongs to us. What I see is total ownership by investors who are not black," Vernice Law said.
"This is being done for the [Hotel Roanoke and] Conference Center," she said. "They're not going to encourage us to go there. They couldn't care less."
"We have been associated with this type of unfairness all of our lives, and now you come right in the midst of where we live. ... This is not fair," said her husband, retired physician Maynard Law.
Several people reminded Smith, Barnett and Hill Studio architect Don Harwood that the city seized most of black Roanoke's oldest streets years ago to build the Roanoke Civic Center, industries and highways. On Henry Street, the housing authority now owns all but Total Action Against Poverty's Henry Street Music Center and a few other parcels.
Smith said the city asked the authority to buy up Henry Street about 1986. It was before she came to Roanoke so, she said, "I cannot tell you what was on someone's mind."
George Rogers, a retired letter carrier, noted that black Roanokers failed to save much of the original Henry Street. "If we can't do it ourselves, we can't be too critical of other people," he said.
Perneller Chubb-Wilson, president of the newly formed Roanoke chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and others blamed Taylor in part for leaving many black Roanokers out of the Henry Street loop. "I'm sick of Mayor Taylor and his mess," she said, "and I'll tell him so."
Several people noted that Taylor didn't grow up in Roanoke. "He wasn't here when Henry Street was in its heyday," Law said.
"Some black people thought we shouldn't say anything because he was black and he was our mayor," Chubb-Wilson said after the meeting. "But some of our black leaders have sold us down the drain. We slept the '70s and '80s away."
Elkington has hopes of becoming Henry Street's developer, but Chubb-Wilson said she's asked the SCLC for a nationwide list of black developers and contractors who might want the job. Other cities have preserved old neighborhoods and yet, she said, "Roanoke just tears down and tears down."
Consultants aim to market Henry Street as a tourist magnet of music clubs and restaurants and turn it into a city revenue-generator. Elkington's Beale Street reported $16.4 million in sales last year.
But Historic Gainsboro President Evelyn Bethel and others asked that a drug store, beauty shop and facilities for neighborhood children and elderly people be built there, too. There are no retail shops now in the surrounding neighborhood of Gainsboro.
Harwood acknowledged there should have been more public meetings by now. Asked if there would be strong minority management and ownership of new Henry Street businesses, he said, "There'd better be."
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. Mary Curtis Steptoe,by CNBwearing a beret, looks at a rendition of the Henry Street buildings
at Thursday's meeting. 2. "What I see is total ownership by
investors who are not black," says Vernice Law, sitting in front of
two old photos from the Gainsboro community at Thursday's meeting.
color.