THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 6, 1995 TAG: 9504050217
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS
SOURCE: MIKE KNEPLER
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Next week, old Ocean View will be boxed up and stored in an attic.
That's because Ocean View Station, the community's little museum, closes Sunday - but hopefully only for a short while.
Museum volunteers hope to have a new location soon. But they have yet to find a site.
``We'd like to be back in business in the next four to six weeks,'' said Don Williams, a co-founder.
The museum opened in May 1990 in a storefront at 9623 Granby St. It has not had to pay rent or utilities, thanks to landlord Red Thornton.
The agreement was good only until Thornton found a paying tenant. That day came; a women's apparel shop will move in.
Museum volunteers have no hard feelings. ``We've been very grateful to Red,'' said Dave Lawrence, coordinator. ``I don't think we could have asked for anything better.''
And, Thornton was sorry. ``There's been a lot of interest in the community,'' he said. ``Anybody who's been there talks about it.''
They talk of memories, spurred by photos and memorabilia from Ocean View's heyday as a popular resort before World War II.
Here are streetcars, grand hotels, the old Rosele Theater, fishermen with their catches, crowded boardwalks, winters when the Chesapeake Bay froze over and the great Ocean View Amusement Park.
There're photos of the original Ocean View Station, the trolley depot and museum's namesake.
Exhibits don't just recall Ocean View's long-ago past. There is a mounted fish - a 40-pound striped bass - caught by John Lapetina in 1975, and a collection of photos from the 1990 ground-breaking for the new Ocean View Park.
A museum often is more than nostalgia.
It can reflect a community's idiosyncrasies. Here's a photo of the huge King Neptune statue - the day it was perched near the Fishermen's Wharf restaurant.
This museum reminds us that a community is more than houses, shops, streets and parks. Here's a 1930s photo of the Ocean View Orchestra. How many neighborhoods now boast of a community band?
The relation between a museum and community can be hard to express. But not in Ocean View.
Here, if you recognize someone in a picture, you post a message next to the photograph. One reads: ``Rogers Johnson 1947, boy on the right.'' It refers to a beach scene in which Johnson, as a young boy, was helping to haul a wooden row boat.
Dave Lawrence, now 83, points to boyhood scenes of himself and classmates at Ocean View Elementary School.
There's information on civic life, such as the original gavel from the Ocean View Democratic and Social Club. ``I was a charter member in 1938,'' Lawrence said. ``There's not another member of the charter committee living today. I'm the last.''
A counter features papers from the Ocean View Merchants Association. A binder contains the history of the Ocean View Civic League.
A museum promotes conversation.
Docent Beth McSpadden, an Ocean View resident since 1948, enjoys talking with old and young - especially students from high schools and colleges.
McSpadden almost cried when she learned the museum was closing for a while. Then she took down two photographs she contributed - scenes from the day the old roller coaster was blown up.
``I hate to take my pictures out of here,'' she said. ``I'll bring them back when it reopens. Or I'll leave them to my son with the condition that he gives them back. . . . We need to preserve our heritage.''
To help the museum find and equip a new site, call Don Williams, 583-0000. by CNB