THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606210194
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: 79 lines
In 1993, when I returned to work in Portsmouth after a stint in The Virginian-Pilot's Elizabeth City office, many wonderful things were happening on High Street.
One of the most important was the late Phil Brodie's new $250,000 facade.
Three years ago, I wrote about Brodie's determined stand against the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority's plan to take his buildings as well as those of other thriving businesses in the 800 block of High Street between Effingham and Chestnut streets.
Brodie was a self-made businessman who started his business at age 17 and had been at the threatened location for 34 years at the time. It didn't make sense to him for PRHA to destroy thriving businesses - his furniture store with sales of than $1 million a year; Morse-Parker, a motor parts distributor that dates back to 1909; Sutton's appliance and furniture store; and Sydney's pawn shop, which has been in business more than 50 years.
Even after Brodie started raising questions, PRHA bought and razed the Sutton building, which actually was one of the most interesting downtown buildings still standing. When I see the activity in the area in connection with the Vision 2005 plan, I really cry over spilt milk. That building on the corner of High and Chestnut once had a movie theater in the center, with shops around the lobby and shops facing the street all the way around. It probably was Portsmouth's earliest version of a shopping center, and the basic movie theater was still there.
But that's not why I chose to write this column today.
Phil Brodie is my subject. Two years after he showed me around the store he was remodeling, Brodie died of cancer at age 74. He hardly had time to enjoy his investment in the future of Downtown.
I wrote in 1993 that his decision to spend $250,000 on a building facade was an important bit of optimism that should inspire others. I noted that Brodie was a tough businessman who didn't spend that much money for sentimental reasons. Instead, he saw it as an investment.
Actually, his action paid off for the city. First, Sidney's pawn shop remodeled. Then Morse-Parker started work on its facade. Suddenly the 800 block seemed reborn.
``He loved what he did,'' Lee Brodie, Phil's wife, told me recently. ``He really was proud of the store.''
Lee wanted to tell me about the unveiling today at noon of a memorial marker on her husband's grave at Gomley Chesed cemetery. She has some good stories to tell about their 46 years of marriage.
``We were married three times,'' she said. She explained that first they eloped to North Carolina. Then they had a Jewish ceremony. Finally, when their son was 12 years old and ready for bar mitzvah, they were remarried in a synagogue to enable their son to have the ceremony.
She said today's ceremony will honor ``a kind and generous'' man.
``His customers were his friends,'' she said. ``He was selling to a third generation of some families.''
The Brodies sold the store to Meyers & Tabakin after Phil became ill, so the store continues to thrive in the same buildings still owned by the Brodie family.
With the Gindroz plan pushing for a mixed commercial and residential area to make Chestnut Street a center of the Effingham-Elm portion of Vision 2005, Brodie's store and those of his neighbors make a good beginning. Continued work in that area should inspire the owners of buildings across the street to spruce up. Those buildings are interesting reminders of the past that could help continue the turn-of-the-century ambience of High Street to the 800 and 900 blocks.
As reported in a recent issue of Currents, Randy Vaughan already has refurbished the old Laderberg's department store building on one corner of High and Chestnut, and Club de Porres is doing another corner.
Actually, when you stop to look at High Street from Effingham to Elm, there are a lot of thriving businesses. It makes you wonder who thought PRHA should take any of the buildings that were still solid and used profitably.
When PRHA took the buildings on Effingham and County in the same block with Brodie, it took many that had been allowed to deteriorate. It also took some that probably could have been saved. But that, too, is spilt milk.
For the moment, I am just thankful Brodie took a stand and spent his money and energy to hang on to his property. That block of High Street always will be more interesting because of him.
Besides, the stores are a better jump-start on the future than empty land would be. by CNB