RECENT COMMENTS

New homes coming to Fulton

The RRHA has announced plans to build 32 new houses in Fulton off of Admiral Gravely Boulevard as part of a $5.5 million public/private initiative being funded in part through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOPE VI Revitalization Program.

Houses along Denny Street demolished in the 1960s and 1970s.

A victim of the urban renewal of the 1960s, Fulton was once an area with as much history and character as anywhere in the city. Photos from before the ‘renewal’ show houses comparable to the Fan, Church Hill, Union Hill, etc. set on narrow cobblestone streets.

In the 1960s, though, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority designated the majority-black Fulton as Richmond’s most blighted area. A large majority of the area was deemed to be “deteriorated enough to require clearance” and so the RRHA began to buy as much of the neighborhood as possible. Many of the people living and working there took the money offered and moved away. A few fought to stay into the 1970s. Ultimately, though, the buildings were demolished and the rubble cleared.

This once-historic neighborhood to the east offers a warning and a vision to all of the Church Hill area. One day the housing projects will come down and redevelopment of these failed experiments will have to include other low-income housing. Redevelopment of the tattered streets that abut the projects can either wash away what remains of the neglected historic neighborhoods or create something new of lasting value.

The history for this article comes from Richmond Times-Dispatch articles mirrored at Richmond Then and Now. That site offers a unique voice on Richmond’s history and has a wealth of writing and photography.