Where am I? (Part 10)

The test of your knowledge of Richmond continues, and this time, I suspect, it won’t be so easy.

Or maybe it will. So far, somebody always gets the right answer -- and quickly.

Check out the architectural design element in the image above. Do you know what building it adorns? You might, if you’re particularly observant.

If you know, click on the word comments below to give your answer.

Walter, my oldest friend, and Mike, my nephew, came up with the correct answer just minutes after I posted yesterday’s image in Part 9. Walter beat Mike to the punch by a hair’s breadth. The image shows the western entrance to the tunnel under Church Hill that collapsed in 1925, killing a handful of laborers and burying a work train and its locomotive.

The story has a personal connection for me, as many of you who read this blog know already. You can refresh your memories by clicking here.)

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Where am I? (Part 9)

Take a look at the image above. Click on it to enlarge it. Do you know what it is? You’re a real Richmonder if you know this one.

If you know, click on the word comments below to give your answer.
   
Congratulations to my niece Annette, who correctly identified the image in Part 8 as a portion of the defense line around Richmond during the Civil War. The odd thing -- to me, anyway -- is that this miniature piece of history sits in a very modern parking lot. You could walk the perimeter of the site in a couple of minutes. Its very close neighbors are a tire shop and the parking lot in front of the Martin’s grocery store at 5700 Brook Road.

A parking lot might be an unusual place to encounter history. On the other hand, we preserve our history where we can. Wanting to know more about our past in Richmond is what also leads me to favor archaeological research in Shockoe Bottom. I can only imagine the wealth of information that lies just below the surface there.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Where am I? (Part 8)

Richmonders are passionate about preserving history. Do you know where this particular part of the past (in the image above) is located?

If you know, click on the word comments below to give your answer.

My niece Terry has been nailing the last couple of images, correctly identifying them. She did it again, letting us all know that the image posted yesterday was of the former Home for Needy Confederate Women, now known as the Pauley Center at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The image showed the façade of the building, which faces Sheppard Street on the west side of the museum’s sculpture garden.

After spending several million dollars renovating the building, the museum opened the Pauley Center in 1999. From then until I retired in 2010, my office was in the north wing of that building. The Confederate ladies who once lived there, mind you, could not bring themselves to call it the north wing. Since the building is symmetrical, with wings to the north and the south, it would seem logical to have called them the north and south wings. But the Confederate ladies defied logic and called them the east and the west wings. Their husbands, fathers and brothers had, after all, fought for the South.

My job, of course, was to write for the museum, and here’s a portion of what I wrote as VMFA was preparing to move into the refurbished building. I offer it because I enjoyed doing the research, and it gets the facts straight.

The Home for Needy Confederate Women was chartered in 1898 by the Virginia General Assembly to provide a home for needy widows, sisters and daughters of former Confederate soldiers. The home originally operated at 1726 Grove Ave until 1904 when it moved to 3 E. Grace St.

After a fire in 1916, the home’s Board of Managers decided to build a fireproof structure. The substantial Sheppard Street facility was built in 1932, and the architect, Merrill Lee, modeled it after the White House in Washington. The dignity of the structure was meant to suggest that its occupants should be regarded with respect by society and to provide the residents with pride in their home.

By 1989, only nine women remained in the home, which was no longer economically feasible to operate. The residents were moved to a special wing of Brandermill Woods nursing home in Chesterfield County and control of the building reverted to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Shortly thereafter the property was conveyed by then-Governor Gerald L. Baliles to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Where am I? (Part 7)

You guys who read this blog are too good! I’m running myself ragged from one end of Richmond to the other to take pictures as I try to stump you.

Maybe the image above will slow you down. What is it? Where is it?

If you know, click on the word comments below to give your answer.

Terry quickly identified the image I posted yesterday. The task was to identify the location of an old Uneeda Biscuit advertisement. Terry correctly said it’s painted on the side of a building at the southeast corner of 25th and Broad streets.

Uneeda Biscuits, which were actually crackers, first showed up on the market in the late 19th century, a product of Nabisco. It was touted as a cracker that was flakier and lighter than competing versions. It was the first to be packaged in what Nabisco called its “In-Er Seal” package to preserve freshness.  Before the Uneeda Biscuit hit shelves, crackers were shipped in barrels and sold in paper bags. In 2009, Nabisco discontinued the Uneeda Biscuit, saying the product was no longer sufficiently profitable.

I haven’t been able to determine when the advertisement was painted at 25th and Broad.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Where am I? (Part 6)

How long has that Uneeda Biscuit advertisement been on the side of that building? I don’t know, but it was faded even when I first saw it many decades ago. There used to be a lot more such advertisements back in the day. This one seems to have survived long enough to qualify for permanency.

I drove by it again today. Then I circled the block and came back to shoot a few photographs.

So that’s today’s question. Where is it?

If you know, click on the word comments below to give your answer.

Congratulations to Becky and Terry for correctly naming our last location: The Azalea Gardens at Bryan Park. The park itself is named for Joseph Bryan, the founder and publisher of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It was a gift to the city from the Bryan family in 1910. The azalea garden was begun by volunteers in 1952.  In the next 15 years, those volunteers planted some 450,000 azaleas in 50 varieties.

When the azaleas are in bloom, as they are now, the garden is a beautiful sight.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Where am I? (Part 5)

After yesterday’s difficult question, here’s a softball for you. I took this picture (above) Thursday afternoon. Where was I?

If you know, click on the word comments below to give your answer.

Now here’s news about our last winner. My niece Terry deserves an E for effort for researching the name of the figure atop the Jefferson Davis Monument on Monument Avenue: The figure is Vindicatrix, but post-bellum Richmonders took to calling her Miss Confederacy. The imposing monument to the president of the Confederacy was designed by two Virginians, Edward Valentine and William Noland. It was said that 200,000 people attended the unveiling, which was a highlight of a Confederate Reunion here in 1907.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Where are we? (Part 4)

In Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this Cogito series about Richmond places and things, you readers have been really knowledgeable about the city.

So let’s make it a little harder this time.
   
Look at the picture of the Roman wearing a toga in the picture above.

Who is she?

Yes, she actually has a name. Don’t ask me how I know this bit of trivia. But I do.

If you, too, know (remember that Google can be your friend if you use the right search words), click on the word comments below and let me know.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Going back to yesterday’s image and question, my nephew Mike got it right -- both times. The Bill’s Barbecue that had stood on that now-empty lot for decades is gone. The company shut down its operations in 2012. And Mike was right when he said the restaurant was called Virginia Barbecue before it became a Bill’s Barbecue.

I should point out that Mike and his wife spent some time in their kitchen creating their own version of Bill’s famous sauce. They worked backwards from the ingredients on the label of a bottle of the real thing. The label didn’t list proportions. But after much experimenting, Mike and Becky came up with a version so good that I can’t tell it from my memories of the real thing. They shared bottles of it with the family. I still have half a bottle in my fridge. I’m using it sparingly to make it last.

Thank you, Mike and Becky.

Where are we? (Part 3)

Jenny wins again in Cogito’s series asking readers to identify well-known Richmond places and buildings. She was the first to say that the Part 2 image was of the 124-foot tower of Boatwright Memorial Library at the University of Richmond.

She even included in her comment a link to a Web page with lots of info about the UR library, in which I and others in the family spent many hours studying for our undergraduate degrees.

Now, here’s an easy one for Part 3 of this fun exercise. And it’s a bit different. Clearly, in the image above, an empty lot is in the foreground. Here’s the question: What used to stand on that empty lot just a couple of years ago? It might not fit the standard definition of a landmark, but it certainly was one for more than a few generations.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Where are we? (Part 2)

Congratulations go to Jenny for correctly identifying St. John’s Episcopal Church despite all of the scaffolding in yesterday’s photo. Walter followed close behind with the same correct answer.

St. John’s is Richmond’s oldest church, founded in 1741. In a speech Patrick Henry made to the Virginia Convention in 1775, he encouraged rebellion against King George III by proclaiming “Give me liberty or give me death!”

(I delivered Patrick Henry’s “liberty or death” speech as a 13-year-old -- complete with period costume -- center stage at what was then known as The Mosque. It was a citywide schools program, if I recall correctly. I forget what occasioned the production. My parents were inordinately proud of the fact that I got it right, with no stumbles. Lord knows I must have driven the family crazy with my declaiming in the weeks leading up to the performance.)

Today’s image (above) is one that disguises its subject by showing merely a portion of it.

Who’ll be the first to identify this Richmond landmark?

Where are we? (Part 1)

Okay, let’s shake things up a bit.

I’ve been losing some of my regular Cogito readers lately. And it’s my fault.

Back before Christmas, I had a kidney stone extracted the hard way. About a month or so later, I had the flu. I lost some of my old energy for a while. But now I’m back on track and determined to offer up enough fresh blog posts to get back into the swing of things. So let’s have some fun.

As a native Richmonder, I love the city. I love discovering places I’d never known about, and I love the city’s architecture, its history and the way Richmond continually changes and adapts. Living in Richmond is like rowing a boat: We’re moving forward, and we’re always looking back at where we’ve been.

So let’s see how good you are at recognizing the city.

The image above presents a landmark in a way you’ve perhaps never seen before. What is it? Where is it? (Click on the picture to see a larger image.)

If you think you know, click on the word comments below and offer your answer.

I’ll be posting images of places in and around Richmond every couple of days for a while.

There’s no prize. The fun will be in knowing and learning more about Richmond.


   

A dream deferred

For the better part of my junior year in high school, I looked forward eagerly to the annual Spanish class senior trip to Havana.

It never happened. Fidel Castro came swooping down from Cuba’s mountains and overthrew Fulgencio Battista and his government.

(I was always enamored of Battista’s first name: Full-HEN-see-oh. It rolls off the tongue so fluidly.)

The class ahead of me at Hermitage High School -- the class of 1959 -- was the last to make the trip, by train and boat, to visit a country where the populace spoke Spanish and the students could practice their own language skills.

A year later, when I was a high school senior, all trips to Cuba were off. Castro’s government effectively closed the island.

I had been seriously looking forward to going to Cuba. The trip would have been packed with new experiences. I had never ridden a train before. I had never been on a boat larger than a rowboat. I had never been out of the country. It was to be a trip full of new adventures. I was to be the first in my family to travel abroad.

I didn’t quite know what to expect. I had my fantasies -- based on what returning seniors had told us about their trips -- but there was nothing in my life at that point to base those speculations on. I so wanted to do and feel and live such an exotic experience. But it was not to be.

Now, today, 55 years later, it looks like it might just be possible after all for Americans to take a trip to Cuba in the not too distant future.

That travel experience I never had as a 16-year-old kid was probably the spark in coming years behind my desire to know what it was like to visit and even live in other countries, a longing that grew and matured by the time I was in my early 20s. Since then, I have been to London and Amsterdam dozens of times. I have lived in Germany and traveled extensively in Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. I have visited most of the Caribbean islands and enjoyed the foods and colors and wonders of crowded Caracas.

It’s been quite an experience, one I never expected to have and would not trade for all the tea in China.

But I still haven’t been to Cuba.

Now, it’s a possibility. Would I book a trip tomorrow if it were possible?

I don’t know. I am 72 and travel isn’t as easy and breezy as it once was. I can still do it, but travel has become more and more of a pain in the tuccus since 2001.

Cuba, however, would complete the circle. It would be the journey that never was.

What color is your new car?

I forged ahead from 1999 to 2015 last week.

For the first time in 16 years, I bought a new car. Brand new. It had a total of 32 miles on it, most of that from other car shoppers who had taken it for a test drive.

“Don’t you just love it?” the salesman asked me.

“No.” was my response, and he looked crestfallen. “I like it, but I don’t love it. I love my cat. I love my family. I like the car.”

I have never been one of those guys who truly believe that a car says something about themselves. It’s a means of transportation, nothing more. It’ll get me from Point A to Point B. And with any luck, it’ll do that safely and reliably for many years. I don’t much care if it makes me look cool or manly. I just want it to get me safely there and back.

I did my due diligence, learning as much as I could about safety and reliability in new cars. ABS? Check. Stability control? Check. A real spare tire? Check. And so on. Consumer Reports was my main guideline. I used Internet research and discussion lists to learn more. Comfortable to drive? Check. Good sound system? Check. Enough trunk room? Check.

Then I made my choice. I negotiated well, and I met my price point. I am satisfied that I got the best car I could at a price that was good.

The whole process, from starting my research to writing a check at the dealership, took about five weeks -- research occupying the vast majority of that time.

What surprised me most was the first question -- without fail -- when I told friends I had bought a new car. “What color?” each one asked.

Color wasn’t even on my radar.

It could have been plaid for all I care.

But silver is nice.

And the interior smells really good, too.