THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606060010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 45 lines
Harborfest, which will mark its 20th anniversary this weekend, began with a visit of tall ships to the downtown-Norfolk waterfront in 1976. The handsome vessels were sailing in and out of U.S. ports to celebrate the American Revolution Bicentennial.
Norfolk's waterfront was a rotting, rubble-strewn wasteland. Only the Omni International Hotel had blossomed there. Waterside festival marketplace, Town Point Park, the World Trade Center, the National Maritime Museum - Nauticus, Dominion Tower, Harbor Park, the Waterside Marriott and Norfolk Convention Center were yet to be.
Nonetheless, mobs turned out to greet the tall ships, demonstrating conclusively that people would throng the downtown-Norfolk waterfront if they had a reason to do so.
The tall ships' visit and subsequent Harborfests had a catalytic effect on downtown development. The Granby Street retail corridor's disintegration - a product of centrifugal forces that had deposited new housing and shopping centers outside aging central cities nationwide - continued its long collapse. But a new downtown rose in the ruins.
The Chrysler Museum, Virginia Opera, the Virginia Symphony and the Virginia Stage Company firmly established downtown Norfolk as the arts-and-cultural hub of Hampton Roads. Later, Hampton Roads Admirals games at Scope and Norfolk Tides games at Harbor Park became magnets to sports lovers.
Meanwhile, Harborfest - staged almost wholly by volunteers - progressively became bigger, better, more spectacular. Given decent weather (or even indecently steamy weather), about 300,000 people are expected to attend the 1996 Harborfest, which begins today with the traditional graceful Parade of Sail - tall ships again - up the Elizabeth River.
Construction is scheduled to start soon on the $300 million MacArthur Center shopping mall on the long-vacant downtown-Norfolk acreage across City Hall Avenue from the MacArthur Memorial and a five-minute walk from the lively, attractive waterfront. Many residents of Hampton Roads seemingly are skeptical that the upscale superregional MacArthur mall will rise on the site. When it does, they are likely to continue to ask, ``Who will go to downtown Norfolk to shop?''
With all due respect to the skeptics, Harborfest answered that question eloquently two decades ago and every spring since. by CNB