ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997 TAG: 9704070096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY THE ROANOKE TIMES
A park is all that remains of a street destroyed in the 1985 flood. Area residents are hoping to have that park linked by a greenway to nearby Washington Park.
A block party held Saturday on Shadeland Avenue in Northwest Roanoke had its roots in the fatal flood of '85. The people who attended were looking to create something positive out of that natural disaster: a simple bike path that might help tear down racism by connecting city neighborhoods.
Shadeland is off 10th Street, between Orange Avenue and Williamson Road. Two women, Dorothy Blair Brown, 59, and Hazel Atkins Robertson, 72, died in homes on Shadeland in the flood when the usually placid Lick Run reached a height of nearly 20 feet, demolishing 25 houses.
The Rev. Clinton D. Scott recalled Saturday how he heard the women's pleas from his nearby home on 10th Street.
Shadeland is now a green park that Scott and others want connected to the adjacent Washington Park by a greenway and bike path.
From the 41-acre Washington Park - named for black educator and Franklin County native Booker T. Washington - the greenway could move through downtown to link the park in the predominantly black Shadeland area with parks in neighborhoods that are whiter.
People who bicycle together might get to know one another better, said Jeanette Manns.
"I'm black, but I still bleed red," she said.
A heavily wooded section of Washington Park and a stream that flows through it are all that separate the two areas. Create a path and a bicycle and foot bridge, and youngsters who now ride down busy 10th Street could have a safe trail, Manns said.
A group, Inner City Coalition for Selective Development, already is trying to get neglected Washington Park spruced up and transformed into a better recreational facility.
Scott and Manns head the Washington Park Alliance for Neighborhoods, which sponsored the gathering.
Manns' grandson, Burlington Elementary School fifth-grader DeVaughn Hall, read the 23rd Psalm when the crowd gathered near noon to honor the deceased women. William Fleming High School sophomore Alvin Baytops sang two solos, showing off the talent that won him two roles in a student production of "The Wiz," which plays April 30 at William Fleming High School.
Throughout the day, the crowd was treated to a mix of music thanks to volunteers D.J. Hootie Mack (Clifford Ramey) and Clarence Gravely of All Out Productions and Forceful Productions. Gravely also was looking ahead and used the occasion to enlist prospective participants for The Talent Show, planned April 19 at the Virginia Western Community College Auditorium.
Tryouts for the show are Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at Tony's Orbit on Moorman Road Northwest.
Also among Saturday's volunteers were members of Make a Different Society, an interracial, nondenominational group of girls ages 12-16 who meet monthly to work on self-improvement and tackle common problems of their age group.
The girls, led by Linda Henderson, had baked items for sale. Nearby, Mary Ann Mallory and Lena Snowden fried chicken and hamburgers and laughed when asked if they were caterers.
Not except when called upon to support a community event, Snowden said.
"Ask us to do it, and we do it," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JANEL RHODA/THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. Children play with aby CNBparachute at the Shadeland Avenue block party Saturday. The event
was held to remember two women who died when their homes on
Shadeland were flooded in 1985 and to lobby for a greenway to
connect Shadeland and Washington parks. color. 2. Helen Smith and
others gather to listen to her nephew, 3. 17-year-old Alvin Baytops,
sing "Silver and Gold" and "I Won't Complain" at the Shadeland
Avenue bloc Washington Park Alliance for Neighborhoods.