
DATE: Saturday, June 28, 1997               TAG: 9706280340

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  147 lines

CHURCH STREET HOPES FOR A NEW BEGINNING

Deserted store fronts, run-down and faded, sag along the west side of Church Street in the 1600 and 1700 blocks.

But the array of blight is broken by a few businesses that somehow have managed to operate amid the decay.

On the corner of Church and 17th streets, the Acey-Ducey Restaurant, a down-home cafe, has served fried chicken and fixings for 30 years.

The Goody Goody Barbershop offers haircuts and conversation a few doors away, and Faulkner's Game Room remains open on an adjacent corner.

But even they will soon be gone, clearing the way for a wider road that is hoped will lead to a rebirth of Church Street, the historic heart of Norfolk's black community.

Church Street, once called the Harlem of the South, in recent years has struggled to rebound after a long slide into blight.

The street will be widened from two to four lanes along a 1.25-mile artery, with landscaped median,between Goff and Granby streets. Many residents and business owners view the $18.5 million project as a key to renewal.

``I look at it as progress,'' Claude Brooms, owner of the Acey-Ducey, said Friday. He'll be moving out next month.

``If you're going to develop the city, something old's got to go to bring in something new.''

Lillie Taylor, president of the civic league in the adjacent Olde Huntersville community, said, ``The sooner they widen it, the happier I'll be. It's embarrassing to drive down it and have people see that street the way it is now.''

But the evolution won't come without heartache.

About 31 businesses and at least 20 families will be displaced by the road work and other proposed redevelopment. And the disruption of lives and livelihoods has brought to the surface old resentments in the city's black community, where some say they've borne the brunt of past redevelopments but shared little of the benefits.

Some, like Junius Thompson, owner of the Goody Goody, believe the real reason the city wants to widen Church Street is not to revive the surrounding Huntersville community but to ease access to the coming downtown MacArthur Center and to the Granby Street zoo, which is undergoing a multi-million dollar expansion.

``I'm being forced out,'' Thompson said. ``This has been a haven for black people to be on the payroll and not on the welfare rolls. We've never asked for a handout. It's sad all these years we've paid taxes and no provision has been made for us.''

Thompson said he's stretching out the fourth extension he's been granted by the Virginia Department of Transportation, which is buying up property for the additional lanes and right-of-way. Construction won't begin until next summer.

A VDOT official said Friday that officials hope to have all businesses out of the way by Aug. 1.

Thompson said Friday he has no idea where he'll go. He's been leasing the building where he works, so he won't get paid for the property. He said he doesn't have the financing to build a new shop and hasn't had luck finding another spot.

Thompson has been uprooted twice before, once during a city-backed urban renewal project on the southern end of Church Street in the late 1970s. He's been at his present location for 10 years.

``They're now telling us to get the hell out by sundown with no place to go,'' he said.

The Broomses have been luckier. They found a place for their eatery two weeks ago in the Church Street Plaza downtown. There's plenty of parking, Brooms said, and he and his wife hope to benefit from the downtown growth.

``I didn't have any intent of going out of business,'' Brooms said.

Still, leaving their little restaurant is tough. They live on the second floor above it.

``I've been here so long, I really hate it,'' Ernestine Brooms said of leaving. They're moving to an apartment in Virginia Beach.

City officials say they plan to create space to rebuild a business district along the widened Church Street corridor.

This week, both the City Council and the Planning Commission reviewed proposals to open up land for a shopping center and other commercial and office space on the west side of Church Street and to clear blighted buildings for parking, new single-family homes and commercial space along a six-block section on the east side of the street.

``There will be thousands of people driving up and down that road, and this will help beautify it and change the impression that what is there is not good,'' City Councilwoman Daun S. Hester said. ``We do want to get some business opportunities back on it.''

A plan on the table by the Redevelopment and Housing Authority to expand the boundaries of the Huntersville redevelopment area calls for buying and demolishing four aging duplexes near C Avenue on the east side of Church Street and several other vacant and dilapidated buildings.

Nellie Babb, 62, who grew up on Church Street when it sported bustling hotels, nightclubs, clothing shops and grocery stores, said she hates the thought of moving from her duplex apartment.

She pays $255 a month in rent. But she views the changes as needed.

``When I was growing up this was really the apple of the eye for the black community,'' Babb said. ``Now it's like a ghost town. But there's always hope. Maybe if it's not my generation, maybe the next generation will pick up the pieces all over again.''

Her son, Richard Babb, 35, who lives with his family in one of the duplexes, knows the downside of the blight, which residents say has bred crime, drugs and prostitution. Last year, someone in a car shot Richard with a shotgun as he stepped out to empty garbage around 11:30 one night. The police never caught who did it. His 16-year-old nephew was gunned down last February a few blocks away.

Richard said he's already started looking for another place to live, but finding one he can afford to rent is tough. He's lived in the duplex for eight years.

Michael Davis, a business contractor, lived in Huntersville for 14 years before fleeing to Chesapeake with his wife and then 3-year-old son two years ago, frustrated with the slow pace of redevelopment. Now, he'd like to open a business office on Church Street and help with the revival.

``If Church Street can be revived properly and if it's well planned, it'll be a grand business district for the community and the entire city,'' Davis said.

There are competing visions among residents and officials about how Church Street is to be redeveloped, city officials said. Among the questions: how much commercial activity can the community support and how much redevelopment should occur in the surrounding residential neighborhoods.

Hester said those issues will be hashed out in the coming months.

``We will put everything on the table and try to pull it together,'' Hester said. ``There will be meetings and the public will be involved. We will come up with a plan we can agree on no matter how long it takes.'' ILLUSTRATION: WHAT'S HAPPENING

An $18.5 million project will widen Church Street from two to four

lanes between Goff and Granby streets. As a result, 31 businesses

and at least 20 families will be dislocated.

WHAT'S NEXT

The Virginia Department of Transportation is buying the property and

wants the businesses removed by Aug. 1. The city plans to rebuild

the business district.

[Color Photo]

IAN MARTIN/The Virginian-Pilot

Junius Thompson cuts Marcia Smith's hair in the Goody Goody

Barbershop on Church Street. In addition to haircuts, the Goody

Goody offers friendly conversation. Thompson is the owner of the