Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 29, 1995 TAG: 9501310087
SECTION: STREET BY STREET PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In city memos, white leaders said they knew black Roanokers would be wary because of what happened in Northeast.
City Manager Julian Hirst announced in 1968 that this was a new kind of urban renewal. Few, if any, people would be moved out. Gainsboro had been picked as Roanoke's nominee for a federal Neighborhood Development Program grant because it was a strong community that could use a little help.
Hirst said the program chose neighborhoods where, "if the situation could be caught, held and gradually upgraded, it would be possible to return these particular areas to full usefulness and vigor."
Gainsboro "has a combination of good and well-maintained residential properties with deteriorated properties," Hirst said. "It has a business area that should be kept there. There is a strong community of interest. Additionally, Gainsboro has energetic and interested citizens. It was felt the opportunity should be provided for these people to continue to live in their area, as well as to make their area attractive for new residences and businesses."
And, he said, "the community could see results soon and frequently."
Hirst met privately with residents at the old Hill Street Baptist Church in November 1968. Black Roanokers like A. Byron Smith, whose fuel-oil, bail-bond and real-estate businesses had been chased from Northeast to Gainsboro, spoke about his fears that Roanoke would once again wipe out a black community.
World-News editorial writers said they understood such apprehensions, but they were convinced that this third wave of urban renewal would be kinder.
"As explained to us by a person associated with the [housing] authority, the Gainsboro project would be a far cry from old-style urban renewal," they wrote in late 1971. "The aim would be to preserve the neighborhood and strengthen it through rehabilitation. Rundown properties would be salvaged if possible. The relocation of people would be kept to a minimum, and they would be put into new quarters within Gainsboro rather than moved outside it."
The way City Hall and the white establishment talked about Gainsboro, "It was going to be the prettiest section of Roanoke," said Dr. Walter Claytor, a retired Gainsboro dentist.
Old city documents show, however, that city planners had their eye on Gainsboro as an industrial area for years.
A 1965 report titled "A Proposal for Public Housing and Urban Renewal in the South Gainsboro Area" recommended that Gainsboro houses be wiped out from Jefferson Street to 10th Street. Planners said the land could be better used as an industrial park, that it "should have higher and better uses than the slums presently located there."
by CNB