THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608230111
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 60 lines
Two officials from the MacArthur Memorial are puzzling over a patch of wood bricks uncovered this week that could be part of the original road now called City Hall Avenue.
The discovery was unearthed by workers excavating part of the roadway for the upcoming MacArthur Center mall construction. The well-preserved bricks were found about three feet below the pavement near the MacArthur Memorial, between Court and Bank streets.
If the creosoted wood bricks are the original avenue, they could date to before the Civil War.
But the two MacArthur Memorial officials disagree on the probable origin of the find. One says the bricks are likely to be a road remnant; the other believes they may the foundation of a long-gone building.
``I really think it was a road,'' said Col. Lyman H. Hammond Jr., executive director of the General Douglas MacArthur Foundation. ``It looks like a road.''
Added W. Preston Burton, education coordinator for the city's MacArthur Memorial, ``I walked out there and couldn't believe my eyes.''
``I know we used to have plank roads, but I've never . . . I was amazed when I saw this,'' Burton said.
He later said that he suspected the wood bricks were not part of an old road but the bottom of a building or pier that dated to a time when much of downtown was a waterway.
Hammond's perspective was different.
``It's not the bottom of a building,'' Hammond said. ``It is right where the street was, so I doubt it was a building. There was a stream there, and besides, what kind of a building would have been there right next to City Hall?''
Burton had city workers remove a section of the wood bricks, which were set on a bed of tar, for preservation. He hopes to learn the nature of the construction so he can include it in his lectures to students on the history of Norfolk.
The black wood bricks measure about 4 inches wide, 3 1/2 inches deep and vary in length from 7 to 9 inches or so. They are so well-preserved that the rings of the trees they were cut from can be seen on their tops.
Hammond said that the downtown area of Norfolk was, at one time, ``almost an island,'' but had been filled in over the years.
Burton pointed to a building across City Hall Avenue from the old Royster building that Hammond said had ``slid'' on the fill when excavation for the Royster began.
Burton calls the building ``the leaning tower of Norfolk'' because, he says, it slants 8 degrees. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
The black wood bricks measure about 4 inches wide, 3 1/2 inches deep
and vary in length from 7 to 9 inches or so. They are so
well-preserved that the rings of the trees they were cut from can be
seen on their tops.
Area shown: Wood bricks found here.
[For complete copy, see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: MACARTHUR CENTER MALL CONSTRUCTION by CNB