DATE: Monday, June 23, 1997                 TAG: 9706200868

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   25 lines

1953: THE NORFOLK WATERFRONT

This once-familiar scene, taken during the early 1950s, records the

Elizabeth River waterfront area in Norfolk now occupied by Waterside

and the adjoining area. The photograph was snapped from the stern of

a Portsmouth-bound ferry. To the extreme left, with an oceangoing

tug moored to its dock, is the Wood Towing Co. headquarters on the

west side of Roanoke Dock, once the haven for schooners bringing

live poultry and produce - particularly watermelons - to Norfolk

from Tidewater farms. To the left are the Norfolk County Ferry docks

opening on no-longer-existing Commercial Place identified by the Old

Dominion Paper Co. sign with a glimpse of the dome of the present

MacArthur Memorial (then the Norfolk Court House) just behind it.

Other recognizable landmarks in the background are, from left, the

Monticello Hotel, the National Bank of Commerce (the city's first

skyscraper) and W.G. Swartz Department Store. The latter can be

identified by the water tanks on its roof.

- George H. Tucker

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