THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 2, 1995 TAG: 9510020036
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
Atlantic City lives.
Not its old homes or streets, which the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority tore down nearly 40 years ago, but in the memories and hearts of the people who gathered Sunday at Northside Park.
They are the folks who once sat on front porches on Poole Street and talked after supper on warm summer evenings, who earned their livings shucking oysters at Ballard's fish house. They are the people who bought Nolde's bread on credit at Finklestein's corner store, walked to Patrick Henry Elementary School on Colley Avenue and filed into LeKies Methodist Church on Sundays.
``Everybody knew each other, and everybody talked to one another,'' said Mary Consolvo Dore, 72. ``It was a better time, in many ways, than today.''
It was the feeling of closeness that everyone remembered most Sunday. Whether it had been a product of the place or times gone by, they could not say, but in Atlantic City, people watched out for each other.
``Everyone had a sense of pride,'' said Tommy Manners, 58. ``You were from Atlantic City. And you told everybody you were from Atlantic City.''
Pride is what has brought the former residents - now white-haired and slower of step - back to Northside Park. About 50 people attended Sunday's reunion, one of the better turnouts in recent years.
``It's so good to see you!'' said Dore, who calls people to remind them of the reunion each year, while embracing an old friend.
Atlantic City was a working class neighborhood adjoining Ghent. It predated its more upscale cousin by a decade or so. Atlantic City's style was similar to Park Place, Ernest Consolvo said, its streets lined with frame houses sporting big front porches. Although a few homes were terribly deteriorated and had outhouses, others were well-built and in fine condition.
Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and the medical complex now sit in the heart of the old neighborhood, while the modern four-lane Brambleton Avenue and Midtown Tunnel cut through other sections. Some land remains vacant, awaiting development - four decades after being cleared.
Just why the neighborhood was torn down remains a controversial subject. Norfolk in the 1950s, like many cities around the country at that time, leveled centuries worth of buildings, streets and neighborhoods in the name of progress.
By one estimate, Norfolk demolished the homes of 20,000 people during just one phase of urban renewal.
Forrest R. ``Hap'' White, now with the Norfolk school system, advanced the thesis in his 1992 book ``Pride and Prejudice'' that the city tore down Atlantic City and other neighborhoods to avoid integrating the schools.
``Why would a city suffering an acute shortage of adequate and sanitary housing units suddenly turn to destroy more than 3,500 units with decent plumbing?'' White asks.
At that time, federal courts were ordering white schools to admit blacks that lived nearby. One way to avoid integration, he said,was to tear down neighborhoods, such as Atlantic City, that showed signs of integrating.
Although some land in and around Atlantic City was needed for highway projects and the medical center, far more land was cleared than necessary for those projects, White said.
Many of the people who attended Sunday's reunion were philosophical about their neighborhood's destruction. They are pleased that a modern medical complex was built, but resentful that Atlantic City had been labeled a slum.
``To tear down the whole place, I don't think it was necessary,'' said M.C. ``Brother'' Wood.
``It made you feel like you lost a part of yourself,'' said Dot Vann.
By 1958, with the community completely demolished, residents scattered to Norview, Park Place, Ocean View, Ingleside and other neighborhoods in Norfolk and surrounding cities.
But once a year they still come together, friends and family.
The Consolvo clan was there Sunday, or at least some of the 11 brothers and sisters who once roamed the neighborhood. So were Frank and Dot Vann, the brother and sister to now-deceased John Paul Vann, the subject of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, ``A Bright Shining Lie.''
There was one more thing about Atlantic City: No one locked their doors.
``It was the greatest place I ever lived,'' Frank Vann said. In the homes on small lots, ``Everyone lived right together. But you got closer to people that way.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
Staff photos
Former residents of Atlantic City neighborhood gathered to reminisce
Sunday at North Side Park.
Pride in their old neighborhood is what brought about 50 people to
Sunday's reunion - one of the better turnouts in recent years.
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
Staff
Linda Waterfield Ashbey, left, Mary Ingram Upton and Mary Sherman,
front, look at old photos. Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and the
medical complex now sit in the heart of the old neighborhood.
by CNB