Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 8, 1993 TAG: 9302080108
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAROLYN CLICK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
BEYER'S STROLL TURNS INTO FRIGHTENING LESSON
It was a crisp, clear night, and on a whim Lt. Gov. Don Beyer decided to walk from the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, where he had attended a black-tie dinner, to his temporary residence at the Commonwealth Park Hotel.But that mile-long walk down Main Street through the capital's downtown proved heart-stopping - and illuminating - for the man who has invested so much in tackling the problems of poverty.
"There were two guys in a doorway here, a man standing alone there," he said. "Here I was in black-tie, a real target.
"Every time I changed sidewalks from one side of the street to another, there was another dark shadowy shape up ahead," Beyer said.
Beyer made it home safely. "I never walked that fast in my life," he said.
He got a bitter taste of what downtown Richmond is like at night, when the bankers and the bureaucrats that fill the streets in daylight hours have all gone home.
"It was the first time I remember being frightened in many, many years - frightened for my physical safety," Beyer said.
"For a moment, I had a glimpse of what it felt like to live in a public housing project and hear shooting every night."
Under streetlights, the differences between haves and have-nots are painfully illuminated in the headlights of the limousines that discharge their passengers as close as possible to the front doors of the downtown hotels and clubs.
Richmond police say the perception of downtown as a haven for crime doesn't quite live up to the reality, despite the increased numbers of homeless and down-and-out who wander the streets and hole up in doorways against the cold.
But while crime statistics are low compared to other, more violent sections of the city, police advise against walking alone after dark.
Beyer says his brush with the gritty side of urban life did not diminish his belief in programs aimed at helping lift people out of poverty.
"Trying to reconcile that with the work of the poverty commission gave me the sense that unless we make the necessary investments now, unless we allow ourselves to think about breaking the cycle of poverty, it is still just going to get worse," he said.
And even while some experts now speak of writing off an entire generation of the nation's underclass, Beyer said he is unwilling to abandon those who lurk on downtown streets and appear so removed from middle-class life.
Once society becomes that polarized, "then it's not just the shadowy figures that we have to ban from our imagination and our sight," he said.
"It's that whole generation of little boys who grow up without any sense of values."