THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605180084
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Nothing could be more appropriate than a Belle B. Goodman Gallery on the corner of High and Court streets, where Goodman presided over The Famous - a ladies clothing store noted for fabulous hats and elegant wedding gowns.
Thanks to Goodman's three daughters - Helen Gifford, Elsie Leviton and Zelma Rivin - her name will forever be attached to the corner. They gave $100,000 to the Visual Arts Center of Tidewater Community College, and TCC named the main gallery after Goodman.
The gallery was dedicated Thursday night, when TCC kicked off a capital campaign for $1.3 million to keep improving the center, ``to keep it state of the art.''
``We owe a special thank-you to the daughters of Belle Goodman,'' TCC President Larry Whitworth said Thursday night. ``They have started this and without their offering, it would not be possible.''
Zelma Rivin explained the family's generosity: ``Everybody knows what this building meant to my mother and to all of us.''
She spoke in front of an elegant oil painting of her mother and next to the brass plaque that will be installed in the gallery.
Everybody in the family called Mrs. Goodman ``Aunt Belle.''
``We now have Aunt Belle here where everybody came to visit her,'' Rivin said.
Rivin read a letter from one of her cousins, Soloman Garfield, a resident of California, referring to ``the site of Belle B. Goodman's Famous.'' He also sent a check of $1,000 for the campaign. Other Goodman relatives also have contributed to bring the family total up to about $125,000.
The building that now houses the arts center was The Famous, as most people around here remember it.
It was constructed in 1958 after fire destroyed the old Monroe Hotel and with it, The Famous, a year earlier. The Famous closed forever in 1990 and, subsequently, Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority acquired the building, did a $2.6 million remodeling job to TCC's specifications and is leasing it to the school.
In a newspaper article about the business being in temporary quarters after the 1957 fire, Mrs. Goodman was quoted as saying: ``I love that corner. When we get back on that corner, we'll be home.''
The Famous started in the middle of the block on the site of the now-empty Woolworth building in 1916. She moved to the corner in 1940. And she worked there until her death in 1971 at age 83.
I never knew Mrs. Goodman, but I wish I had. Everything I have read in our old newspaper clippings leads me to believe I would have liked her. They reflect a lot of spunk and a good business mind. Most of all, they reflect a lot of optimism and belief in Portsmouth.
In some ways, it's quite appropriate to have the TCC art school and the galleries on Goodman's corner. If it can't be The Famous, then it ought to be something that adds to Downtown Portsmouth. The Visual Arts School and the first floor galleries, in fact, are part of the future thrust to make Portsmouth an arts center.
The center, headed by Anne Iott, opened a year ago. It has 600 art students from 17 different communities.
``I'm proudest of this of all the things we've done,'' Whitworth said. ``I believe it will serve the City of Portsmouth for many, many decades to come.''
Whitworth described his faculty and students as ``real internal agents (for Portsmouth) working from the inside.''
The facility, he said, ``explores what education must be in the future.''
``As TCC moves forward, this will be a cornerstone,'' Whitworth added.
He said the capital campaign is needed to ``maintain this facility as state of the art.''
``This endowment will ensure this facility is able to adapt at a very dynamic future. If we don't come up with the money, nobody else will.''
Belle Goodman's daughters started it. Can the rest of the city do less?
For a $250,000 donation, you can get the whole building named whatever you want it named. For lesser donations, your name can be on other areas of the building or on endowed chair or on an exhibition.
But you can't have the main gallery. That belongs to Belle Goodman.
And that is as it should be.
It's her corner. by CNB