As Richmond magazine marks its fourth decade, we step inside 1979 — and find its footprints on today.
Photo courtesy Richmond Public Library
BACKSTORY: In 1979, ardent preservationist Elisabeth Scott Bocock was two years into her campaign to bring back the city’s electric trolleys, as had Portland, Pittsburgh and Detroit. That year, she began a mailing campaign to city officials, focused on the trolleys’ lack of “poisonous” emissions.
Bocock didn’t just talk about preserving buildings, she bought them; she didn’t wring her hands about the need for supporting art and culture, she started a school to nurture them; and she didn’t prattle on about the streetcars without obtaining a specimen. She brought one to town in 1982 after having it plucked from the streets of Lisbon, Portugal. She needed a prop because younger Richmonders didn’t know that the world’s first citywide system of electric streetcars started here in 1888 and ran until 1949, when many of the cars were set on fire and one of the most significant aspects of Richmond’s character went up in smoke.
In 1986, a year after her death, the Richmond on the James booster organization promoted an eight-car, 1.4-mile electric streetcar line to make daily trips between the Main Street Station Mall and the Sixth Street Marketplace. If private sources anted up $2.5 million, then the city would kick in a matching appropriation.
Then, nothing. The only known surviving Richmond trolley, one that ran on the Belmont line, went into what is now the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, where it is on view like the reassembled bones of a dinosaur. A rubber-wheeled trolley route popped up in 1996, but its wheels fell off, too.
TODAY: The downtown that by the late 1980s was almost prostrate, today after a slow, fits-and-starts aggregation of specialty shops, galleries, restaurants and new apartments, is busier than it’s been in 40 years. The Pulse Bus Rapid Transit, installed in 2018 following great controversy and $65 million, now lumbers down Broad. The reason that middle median existed to begin with was because … that’s where the streetcars rolled.
More Moments From 1979
Marijuana Laws
Then: Thanks to Roy Scherer of Virginians for the Study of Marijuana Laws and others, possession of small amounts of marijuana went from being a misdemeanor with up to 12 months of jail time and a possible $1,000 fine to one with up to 30 days in jail and a fine of $500.
Now: A bill introduced would make first-time marijuana possession a $50 civil penalty.
A Valentine in May
Then: After closing in December 1976 for $1.3 million in roof repairs, renovations and expansion, The Valentine reopened in May 1979 with triple the space. The museum’s director estimated that in another five years, The Valentine would expand to the buildings across Clay Street.
Now: While The Valentine hasn’t expanded across the street, it has increased its programming and its outreach.
Photo courtesy The Valentine
Rallying Grounds
Then: Residents gathered at the Virginia State Capitol (above) to remember the 52 American diplomats and citizens taken captive on Nov. 4, 1979, in Iran.
Now: This year, school funding, Equal Rights Amendment and “Northam resign” rallies have been held.
The Lewis Legacy
Then: For the first time, from Jan. 16 through March 4, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts showed all 47 works purchased from 1971 to 1976 through the Lewis Contemporary Art Fund.
Now: Frances Lewis, 96, and her late husband, Sydney, donated more than 80 percent of the art from the 1950s to 1980s currently on view at VMFA. The museum’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Galleries now represent one of the top postwar collections in a U.S. comprehensive museum.
