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A Working History of
Residents of Old Wilmington (ROW)
Last Updated: April, 2009
Compiled by Alan Smith with help from Mary Bellamy, Sue
Boney Ives, Langdon Anderson, Larry Hovis and Robert Warren.
Revised and updated in 2009 by Past-President Kevin O'Grady.
Origins and Legacy
Helping
to Shape Some Wilmington Traditions
Early
Involvement in Preservation and Development Issues
Money for Downtown
Improvements
Continuing Financial
Support
Policy
Initiatives in the 21st Century
Further
Policy-Related Activities of the Decade
Social Events
Financial_Support
Communications
Origins and Legacy
A group of activists within the Historic
Wilmington Foundation (HWF) established the Residents of Old
Wilmington in 1973 to focus on the problems and opportunities that
simultaneously bedeviled and beguiled downtown residents. So
much has changed since then, that it's hard for us who've come
later to appreciate their concerns. These people, who now
refer to themselves as "pioneers," were personally
invested in a downtown renaissance - despite the then-current
blights of commercial decline, a decaying housing stock, racial
confrontations and the aftermath of a misguided program of urban
renewal:
Many long-term residents had
fled to Forest Hills and beyond. The central business
district was full of bars and "adult" establishments.
Although the first historic
district had been created in 1962, any serious preservation
efforts were largely fantasies. The 500 block of South
Second with 15 houses was entirely vacant. Buildings were
being torn down on weekends without permits or the City's
knowledge.
The residents had experienced a
tumultuous school integration program attended by deaths threats,
an attempt by an organization called Rights of White People
(ROWP) to burn the Bellamy
Mansion and the jailing of the Wilmington ten.
The City had just finished destroying some 140 downtown
buildings during the federally sponsored urban renewal of the
1960s. Solomon Towers had just been erected at Front and
Castle Streets and a half-block of historic homes razed for its
parking lot.
Back in this time of ROW history, the only civic organizations
for downtown residents were the Lower
Cape Fear Historical Society, which began work in 1956 and
resided in the Latimer House, and the Historic Wilmington
Foundation, which was created in 1966 and at the time was meeting
in the Governor Dudley Mansion. Residents found that,
while they shared with both earlier organizations a passion for
preservation, they wished also to gain political visibility on the
issues of zoning and development downtown and on saving
residential property from destruction or conversion to multifamily
rental and commercial units. The object of these measures
was to promote a sense of neighborhood that would encourage young
families to settle here. So the initial 40 or so ROW
founders wrote up a charter and started meeting in the Governor
Dudley Mansion independently of the HWF. Their new
organization gave them a way to voice their concerns and channel
people empowered to act on them. Almost immediately they
began to support several new Wilmington community-building efforts
and affect City policy.
Helping
to Shape Some Wilmington Traditions
In 1974 ROW members offered their homes in support of the first
"Old Wilmington by Candlelight" tour. The
tour itself was organized by ROW mayor Robert Warren under the
auspices of the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society as a fund
raiser for that organization. 1800 people participated.
Money collected initially funded restoration of the slave quarters
behind the Latimer House. The Historical Society has since
conducted the candlelight tour largely on its own.
In 1979 ROW joined with Downtown
Area Revitalization Effort ( now Wilmington Downtown Inc.
“WDI”) organizers Gene Merritt and Mary Gornto in
holding the City's first Riverfest.
It was complete with balloon rides over the river and
well-attended home-built, self-powered boat races. As
Riverfest evolved through the Eighties, with vendor booths and a
special
Riverfest T-shirt
concession run by ROW, it became a moneymaker and ROW's treasury
soared to around $50,000. In 1992, the City decreed that
Riverfest would become a "public" event, took over
management and licensing of the effort, and banned use of the
Riverfest trademark by anyone else - ending ROW's active
involvement in this fall festival.
ROW initiated the Azalea
Festival Tour of Homes during or before 1980 as a
community-building and fund-raising activity. It was a huge
success. Much of the money raised in this enterprise went to
the St. Thomas Society and some went to rebuild the brick wall at
the Tileston School. In 1992, ROW looked for help in running
it and turned to the Historic Wilmington Foundation, who partnered
with us that year. ROW surrendered the event to HWF in 1993.
ROW and HWF have remained intertwined in co-sponsoring a spring
cleanup and preservation program that began in the early 1980s as
Mayfair. It initially featured a downtown cleanup
campaign and a nice awards ceremony and reception when it was
over. Today, this tradition lives on as Preservation Week.
It's run in the main by the HWF, but ROW still participates in the
cleanup work, the awards ceremony and the reception that
accompanies it.
Early Involvement in Preservation and Development Issues
ROW's most prominent role in the Wilmington community has been
to provide a focal point for citizens' concerns about problems in
the broad downtown area. One of ROW's early tangles in the
Seventies arose over its opposition to a plan to remove the
medians and monuments from the 300-500 blocks of downtown Market
Street - specifically the George Davis statue and the Kenan
Fountain. The City wanted to improve traffic flow and UNCW
wanted to take the Kenan fountain out to its growing campus on
College Avenue. The City also wanted to put the George Davis
statue off on a side street. ROW worked with HWF and the
Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy to keep everything in place
- and convinced the City Council to leave them alone.
In 1975 ROW joined with the HWF and the Lower Cape Fear
Historical Society in sponsoring the first and only statewide
convention of Preservation North Carolina to be held in
Wilmington. During the convention, attention was focused on
the decrepitude of the Bellamy mansion - which had paint only on
the front side. Subsequently, the Bellamy Foundations -
initially headed by Hugh McRae - was established to preserve the
mansion. Later the Bellamy Foundation joined forces with
Preservation
North Carolina (headed by Robert Warren), the organization
that today administers the Bellamy Mansion museum.
As part of our national bicentennial celebration in 1976, ROW's
former Mayor Robert Warren arranged a reenactment of Wilmington's
call for the first Provincial Congress. The ceremony was
held in the garden of the Governor Dudley Mansion (courtesy of the
HWF) and featured a reenactment of William Hooper - Wilmington's
signer of the Declaration of Independence - by professional actor
William Whitehead.
In 1979, ROW supported the formation of DARE. ROW's early
members saw DARE's efforts to save or recruit business for
downtown as directly supportive of their own goals. Without
a diverse, vibrant central business district, adjoining
residential areas became less appealing. Since the founding
of DARE, ROW has populated its committees, participated in its
downtown beautification efforts, and partnered with them on issues
like crime and noise.
Money for
Downtown Improvements
In 1981 ROW added to money raised during the Azalea Festival
tour of homes through raffles and rummage sales to help in
restoring the brick walls around Tileston School. (The
school at the time was surrounded by a hole-filled cyclone
fence.) Muriel Piver and her mother, Dolly Pearson, helped
in this fund-raising effort by donating Mrs. Pearson's hand-made
quilts to the effort. The restoration of the brick wall was
an attempt by ROW to keep Tileston open as a public school.
At the time, it was the oldest public school still open in North
Carolina.
Although ROW lobbied hard at school board meetings to keep
Tileston and other downtown schools open, the school was closed
and taken over by the City, with the idea that it would become a
community arts center. Two years later this idea failed to
attract supporters and the school building required $18,000 in
roofing repairs. ROW worked with St. Mary church and donated
$8,000 to assist it in taking over the school from the City for
preservation as an extension of its own campus. This was a
big win for our historic district. And as payback, ROW got
the promise of a meeting room to use in perpetuity.
As the Nineties began, ROW helped by giving money to other
major preservation or restoration projects:
Thalian
Hall Restoration - about 1991 - ROW helped pay for new
curtains.
Bellamy Mansion Renovation -
ROW's donations helped pay for carpets.
Landscaping of the 200 block
of Market Street. ROW's donation of $37,000 in
1991 transformed an ugly, empty block with parking in the median
to one with a landscaped median bordered by trees with brick
cross walks and buried utilities.
The Urban Park project
by the downtown library - ROW donated nearly $2,700 in 1992 to
help convert a vacant gas station into the park that fills the
corner formed by the library, Chestnut Street and the new county
parking deck.
Street brickwork Restoration. This is a great
example of how inter-organizational cooperation and smart work
can change City policy. Most brick streets were put in 100
years ago and in the 1970s still were quite serviceable.
The City, in the 1980s or earlier, argued that it was too
expensive to replace or repair brickwork and that the bricks were
no longer available. Thus, City maintenance crews shifted
to an asphalt patching or covering program when doing street
repairs. (In one episode in the late 1970s, ROW members, in
an act of defiance, raked up the asphalt being laid over bricks
at the corner of Fourth and Orange Streets.) In the early
1990s, ROW members - led by Ben Jacks - personally surveyed how
many blocks of brick streets remained in Wilmington, what types
of bricks were needed to repair them and where these brick could
be obtained. ROW teamed up with the Historic Wilmington
Foundation to pay the $1,000 needed to hire a noted brick
consultant, who came to the city, held a workshop for residents
and city employees, and demonstrated on one block of South 2nd
Street how to replace asphalt with bricks. The City learned
that it cost no more to replace bricks with bricks than to
install asphalt patches and that it probably was easier.
ROW's efforts created a turnaround in policy so that now the
patches are slowly being replaced with bricks. The re
bricking in 2002 of asphalt patches on Church Street and the
conversion in 2003 from asphalt to brick of the entire western
(river) end of the street after a water main replacement show two
results of this changed policy.
Continuing
Financial Support
Row has made donations to the Railroad
Museum and to the Downtown Community Watch to support
their operations in service of the downtown community. ROW
members contributed or raised several thousand dollars per year
for the City's Tree Program. The City matches our
donations at $75.00 per tree and we usually get about 15-20 trees
planted each year.
In 2003, ROW Past-Mayor Catherine Ackiss organized an instantly
popular bed and breakfast tour. It was held on the
second Sunday in September and raised approximately $5,000 for
Wilmington beautification projects - beginning with the "adopt
an alley" program then planned by the City's Parks and
Recreation Division.
Policy
Initiatives in the 21st Century
Revision of the Wilmington
Design Guidelines. ROW members participated
in the complete revision of the Wilmington Design guidelines in
1999-00, volunteering hundreds of hours of time in the community
coordination, review and rewriting of this critically important
document. The results were vetted through a series of
membership meetings in 1999 and incorporated in the final
product, printed and approved by City council in 2000.
Parking. The first active phase of this
effort began in 1996. The problem then was bar patrons
parking in and disrupting adjoining residential neighborhoods.
After a year of lobbying, researching statutes, ROW cajoled the
City into creating the current restricted parking zone over 15
blocks adjacent to the CBD. Non-residents are not allowed
between midnight and three AM. This system is
complaint-driven, but seems to be a satisfactory deterrent to
late night parking by bar patrons.
The problem that remained, however, was that of an
unbalanced parking system. A balanced system would include
satellite parking or free places for city workers and minimum wage
workers, decks for those who can pay, and fair restrictions in
residential areas so residents are not denied parking near their
homes. When the parking meters went in, workers leapfrogged
them and started parking on our streets, completely jamming the
close-in blocks.
After two years of intense work with the Parking
Advisory Commission, the Mayor and three different City Managers,
ROW was successful in April 2003 in gaining approval of a
Residential
Parking Program - despite the opposition of many merchants,
some residents and many City officials. The resulting
program offered residents an opportunity to purchase parking
stickers for $25 per car per year and restricts non-residents to
three hours of free parking between 9 AM and 5:30 PM daily.
In order to qualify for the program, a block must be, on average,
70 percent occupied, have 25 percent of those cars be owned by
non-residents and show that a majority of the residents in the
affected block support the program. As soon as the measure
was adopted, the residents of the 200 block of S. 2nd Street, and
the 200 block of Ann Street approved the program for their blocks.
During the summer of 2001, ROW
initiated a successful revision of the City's noise ordinance
- which was first enacted in 1996 in response to complaints about
the Ice House. Initially, only decibel levels were
specified as criteria for noise ordinance violations and they
only applied inside the originating buildings. Offenses
were criminal misdemeanors - which usually meant no fines or
court appearances. Battles of the bands had begun to ensue
downtown among businesses competing for crowds with loud,
amplified outdoor music. The residents, bar owners and
police were at odds with each other. So ROW joined with
DARE, met with the Wilmington Police Department and city staff,
had focus group meetings with bar owners, and by August 2000
became party to a revised ordinance. The revisions included
new time limitations for amplified outdoor music, a "reasonable
person" test for noise levels, the coverage of public areas
outside the entertainment centers, and treatment of violations as
civil offenses with fines. Despite the downtown protests
that the ordinance limiting the freedom of expression, it was
approved by city council and brought peace of a sort on this
issue.
In December 2001, ROW got
Wilmington's Mayor to promise that there would be a public
review of downtown city construction proposals. The
promise provided some assurance that the projects in the CBD - an
area not part of any historic district and hence, not overseen by
the Historic Preservation Commission - would not be done in
secret or without public comment. This promise came after a
proposal was made to expand the city office annex at Third and
Chestnut Street - across from Thalian Hall - by building an
aluminum and stucco "shoe box on stilts" structure at
Third Street. The City spent over $300,000 on this project
without a public hearing - and planned to build it by
administrative fiat. The uproar when the project became
public knowledge - fueled by a special meeting of ROW and a
near-unanimous decision to oppose the project - cause Mayor David
Jones to promise that future city projects of this sort would be
subject to public review.
Expansion of the Historic
District. In 1999 ROW supported a northward expansion
of the historic district to a perimeter running to roughly Walnut
and 6th Street. ROW supported this expansion because its
membership believed that intelligent oversight of change by the
HPC is to the common benefit of residents, developers, and
downtown businesses. Since the approval of the northward
expansion of the HD in 2001, ROW has supported the creation of
new historic districts on the south side of the city - in effect
extending the HD to Queen Street.
Candidates' forums.
In September 2001 and 2003 ROW partnered with the Downtown
Wilmington Association - a business group led by John Hinnant -
to sponsor candidates' forums at Level Five of the City Stage.
Each forum highlighted downtown policy issues and forced all
candidates for city council and mayoral positions to respond to
specific questions about each one.
Speed limits. In
November 2002, after two years of lobbying and petitioning, ROW
persuaded the City Staff and City Council to lower the speed
limit to 25 MPH (vice 35 MPH) on city streets within the downtown
historic districts. ROW's reasons for this change were
preservation of historic buildings and monuments, pedestrian
safety, protection of horse-drawn vehicles, and preservation of
our urban quality of life. During the approval process, ROW
met with astonishing resistance, including editorial opposition
in the Star-News. ROW continued to push for a similar speed
limit reduction on downtown segments on Market and Third Streets.
Riverfront development. ROW
consistently has spoken before the HPC and City Council in favor
of Riverwalk South and North and against high rise condos and a
large entertainment center under Memorial Bridge
Support of WDI. ROW members traditionally
have supported efforts to sustain a vital, diverse downtown
business climate and thus, have promoted Wilmington Downtown Inc.
and its initiatives. In November 2001, ROW lobbied for
WDI's funding by the City and New Hanover County and applauded
the award of $60,000 per year for five years. In 2002 ROW
paid for the traveling "Storefront of the Month" award,
which was given by WDI, promoted by WDI's cleanup campaigns, and
provided members or leaders for WDI's Economic Development and
Central Business District Services Committees.
Policy-Related
Activities during 2002 and 2003
ROW members Marge Hurd and
Herman Smith were seated on the Parking Advisory Commission to
represent downtown residents in January 2002. ROW delegates
participated in Mayor Harper Peterson's fact-finding trip to
Charleston and others supported a large, first-ever DARE luncheon
that raised over $50,000. ROW members Tom Mitchell and Mary
Ann Keiser were appointed to the Historic Preservation
Commission.
ROW voted to support the City's
acquisition of riverfront land held by John Voet and Linda
Carroll and communicated this resolution to Mayor Peterson.
ROW voted to support plans for
an 1898 memorial park rather than a grocery store at the northern
entrance to the city and communicated this position to State
Senator Thomas Wright, who favored a grocery store.
ROW supported a bar moratorium
and made presentations to that effect to the Wilmington Planning
Commission and City Council.
ROW opposed the rebuilding of
the Governor's landing. A letter was sent to the bankruptcy
judge overseeing Governor's landing settlement urging its
demolition and conversion to public use.
ROW opposed the rezoning of the
St. John's museum property at Second and Orange streets from HD
to CBD - an attempt to evade parking requirements and open it up
as a guest-lodging site. Even though ROW eventually "lost"
on the St. John rezoning, it "won" a very restricted
special use permit and forced an extended examination of what the
HD stands for.
ROW repeatedly opposed the relocation of County employees
out of the downtown area. ROW representatives made two
presentations to City Council and County Commissioners on the
abandonment of the county's administrative building and later,
the Law Enforcement Center.
Further Policy-Related Activities of the Decade
Threatened high rise
development on the west shore of the Cape Fear across from the
Historic Downtown lead ROW to lead the drive to set reasoned
standards for height on that shore. As a result of ROW
leadership, heights are restricted across from downtown but are
higher near the northern waterfront.
ROW campaigned for
improvement of the street scape on South Third Street. Members
participated in the steering committee for the State designation
of a scenic byway including South Third.
ROW actively sought
construction of a pedestrian crosswalk at Ann and South Third to
unite the neighborhood and provide safe passage for residents and
the many visitors to downtown. Leadership by ROW members pressed
the City staff to design the crosswalk. A formal pledge by ROW of
10% of the cost of the crosswalk up to $6,500 incentivized the
City Council to add the project to the City's capital plans.
ROW's pledge was later parleyed by the City in a grant
application to build a bicycle path from the river front to the
east side of town passing through the Ann and Third corner.
Efforts to develop two towers
of 200 feet each at the foot of the Memorial Bridge, with no
consideration of traffic infrastructure or impact on the
neighborhood, energized ROW into action in 2005 through 2008. By
advocating well-reasoned improvements to the plan, and shining
light on the realities of the development's impact on the
historic neighborhood, ROW lead the effort to mold a more fitting
development for the site. Ultimately the developer incorporated
nearly every suggestion of ROW.
ROW reasserted its support
for the repair and expansion of brick streets. ROW members
volunteered to survey all brick streets to identify areas of
repair. ROW efforts regarding the proposed development near the
Memorial Bridge included the repair and expansion of brick
streets; improvements that became conditions for the development.
ROW sought out other
community organizations to gain greater leverage with City
government. ROW worked closely with the Council of Neighborhood
Organizations (CONA) and provided advice to the newly formed
Carolina Place-Ardmore Neighborhood Association (CPANA).
ROW used its member meetings
to increase understanding of events and issues by inviting an
array of speakers to its meetings including:
City officials including
Assistant City Manager Tony Caudle, park department, planning,
historic preservation, parking and engineering staff,
Developers including the
developers of The View, McEachern's Warehouse and Castle Walk
The Wilmington Police
Department to assist the members in remaining vigilant against
crime.
Not-for-Profit
Organizations such as The Carousel Center, Meals on Wheels, The
Azalea Festival, The Literacy Council, The Historic Wilmington
Foundation, CFCC President Eric McKiethan, and Airport Director
Jon Rosborough.
ROW continued its active
support of downtown business by inviting new businesses to
every meeting to introduce themselves to ROW members, their
close-in potential customers.
Social
Events
From the outset, ROW members enjoyed a pair of social
activities that helped balance the organization's focus on policy
activities, promote a sense of neighborhood and attract new
members. One of these events was the June picnic held
originally in the yard of the Surry Street home of "Buzzy"
Jones on the Cape Fear River. It was later held across the
street from is house in the park behind Solomon Towers. In
the late 1990s, Doug and Margi Erickson and then Catherine Ackiss
hosted the June picnics in their gardens. The event
continued to mark the beginning of ROW's break from membership
meetings during July and August. The June picnic tradition
continues to date.
A winter holiday social, held on the second Wednesday in
December, became a fixture in ROW's calendar early in its
history. These gatherings originally were held in members'
homes, but as the organization grew, were moved to larger
facilities including the Greystone Inn and the Bellamy Mansion.
Later, the social was held at Roudabush, the Railroad Museum and
the Historic USO building. In each case, the social was held in
the year after these signature sites were renovated thus bringing
the ROW members back into these newly refurbished jewels.
In 2006, both to replenish the coffers of ROW, and to add a new
social event, Alice Mitchell and Karen Behm conceived the
Back
Door Kitchen Tour (BDKT), a relaxed fall walking tour of
the fabulous kitchens found in the historic district. From the
first year, the BDKT was a social and financial success. The BDKT
spun off an additional social event, the “unveiling”
of the signature art work of the tour. The unveiling quickly
became a social event for members to gather at in the fall.
ROW has thanked the Police and Firefighters of Wilmington by
holding an appreciation dinner for each. These events give
ROW members personal contact with those who protect our lives and
property.
For families, ROW has “organized” Halloween
in the historic district by identifying homes of members that will
be “treating” that night. The throngs of children from
our neighborhood and from all around the City, show the success of
this family activity.
Financial Support
The financial success of the BDKT
re-energized ROW's ability to financially support downtown
projects and organizations. Between 2004 and 2009, ROW provided
over $17,000 in financial support for these projects and
organizations:
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The Wilmington Children's Museum
St. Mary's/ Tileston
The Wilmington Railroad Museum
Wilmington Downtown Inc.
Celebrate the Arts
The Family and Neighborhood Institute
Wilmington Area Rebuilding Ministry
The Historic Wilmington Foundation
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Pedestrian Art
Bailey Park tree planters
Bellamy Mansion Art of the Table
Bellamy Mansion Slave Quarters renovation
1898 Memorial
WPD Segway
Community Arts Center chairs
“Peacemaker” ship sponsorship
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In addition, ROW has pledged
financial support for the Ann St. pedestrian crosswalk and for
further beautification of Bailey Park.
Communications
ROW has modernized its member
communications by adding a web page, a periodic electronic
newsletter “The Neighborhood Messenger”, and
“e-news” distributions by e-mail. The “e-news”
proved its worth in 2007 when a ROW member was brutally attacked
in her home. By using “e-news”, ROW members avoided
rumors and were provided up-to -the-minute news on the event and
the efforts to both catch the perpetrator and to care for the
victim. The “e-news” became a form of electronic
neighborhood watch. In addition, ROW continues its more
traditional monthly newsletter for those less technically
inclines.
The Future
ROW is a crucial force for life
downtown. Its future is secure because of the energy and
initiative of its members.
(This story will continue to unfold as ROW members, who care
deeply about Wilmington and its future, a blessedly benign and
distinctive community, engage the problems and opportunities that
growth, time and human nature constantly create.)
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