'Birthplace' of Richmond Now Appears Sick, Shaggy

By Ed Grimsley

A raw winter wind whips along the narrow streets, kicking up puffs of dirt from barren yards and bits of trash from dirty gutters.

An old woman, shuffling along a rough brick sidewalk, pulls a faded and worn overcoat tighter about her hunched shoulders, bows her head and trudges doggedly into the wind.

A little girl skips gaily down the street, slowing to tiptoe along a streetcar track embedded in the pavement, a lingering symbol of an abandoned mode of transportation. This feat successfully completed, she darts into her house--a tilted shack with crumbling steps, a ragged roof and broken windows.

For a visitor who strolls the streets and observes such scenes as these, it's difficult to believe that this sick and shaggy community is, in a way, the birthplace of Richmond.

BUT IT IS. Now known as Fulton Bottom, this dreary neighborhood stands at the base of Powhatan Hill, home of the Indian chief who welcomed the first white visitors to what is now Richmond on May 23, 1607.

The visitors were Captains Christopher Newport and John Smith, who had left their fellow colonists at Jamestown long enough to sail up the James River to probe, tentatively, the wild interior of the new land.

It was not until years later that a settlement was established at the falls of the James, and Richmond came into being.

But eventually the idyllic lowlands around Powhatan Hill became a bustling wharf area. Here ships unloaded goods needed to sustain the life of the new community on the edge of a wilderness and carried away its offerings to the outside world.

AMONG the early settlers was a family named Rockett. Two members--Baldwin and Ware Rockett, described by historians as "seafaring men" -- owned extensive property in the area, and by 1730, a Robert Rockett was running a ferry across the James at that point.

Hence, the community came to be know as Rocketts. But as time passed, the Rockett family slipped from prominence, and another name--Alexander S. Fulton ascended to a position of honor and prestige in the community. According to one historian Fulton was a "man of industry and energy," who married into the prominent Mayo family and established his residence in the area of Powhatan Hill. And because of him, Rocketts gradually became known as Fulton.

At least the Richmond area church, Third Presbyterian Church, can trace its beginning to Rocketts and the Seamen who lived there. In 1835 George Hutchison, a member of the First Presbyterian Church, began going from ship to ship at Rocketts on Sunday mornings to distribute religious tracts and talk to the sailors. That same year, a small group of seamen met in a home in the area and formed Third Presbyterian. As long as the church was in Rocketts, it was called Bethel Church, for the word "bethel" had long meant a place of worship for seamen. Third Presbyterian is now on Forest Avenue, in the suburbs of western Henrico.

NOW, after more than two and one-half centuries, Fulton Bottom, formerly Rocketts, and before that a quiet grove on the banks of the James, seems destined to cease to exist as a predominantly residential neighborhood.

For the years that have swept over Fulton Bottom have battered it into a state of virtual ruin. Age, neglect, abuse and the encroachment of industry have transformed Fulton Bottom into a slum, the worst in Richmond.

It was designated as such in a recent study sponsored by the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority. And now the authority, with the blessings of City Council, has initiated a plan that could, if finally approved, result in the obliteration of Fulton Bottom slums and redevelopment of the area.

THE BOTTOM is in Richmond's East End, lying in an area bounded generally by East Main Street, the river, Government Road, Orleans Street and Powhatan Hill. It is a community that many travelers see from State Rt. 5, the road that curls down through the historic plantation country of Charles City County, runs through Fulton Bottom. So does one route to Byrd Airport.

Though many may see Fulton Bottom, and shudder momentarily at what they see, few know what it really is like. For it is a community apart, a pocket of misery in a generally healthy, prosperous and happy city. But most of the misery of Fulton Bottom is hidden in its dark and dismal houses.

The skyline of Fulton Bottom is dominated by towering water tanks and smokestacks, symbols of the industry that has moved into the area. Scattered throughout the community are junkyards heaped with the rusting skeletons of automobiles and other metalic rubbish.

THE STREETS are narrow, and many are paved with stones lugged many long years ago from the river. In the business district, the streets are bordered by ragged stores and shops that feature things of vital importance to the residents of Fulton Bottom -- like bagged coal and bundles of wood, the two main fuels the residents use to heat their craked and crumbling houses.

Fulton Bottom sprawls over approximately 190 acres. About 900 families, most of them Negroes, live in 881 dwelling units. Half of the families in the area have an annual income of $2,355 or less.

Most of the houses are old, and many lack indoor plumbing. They are, generally, extremely crowded, a condition that aggravates the socio-economic problems that already plague the area.

THE HOUSING authority's recent report had this to say about the effects of overcrowding:

"Acceptable standards of privacy and ownership of goods are not found in such an environment. A lack of privacy tends to break down social inhibitions, which are reflected in terms of illegitimacy and promiscuous behavior. Desertions become frequent, children are generally unsupervised and uncared for and appropriate planning is not made for family members."

No matter how complete and shocking they may be, reports and statistics cannot sharply convey the dismal mood of a slum like Fulton Bottom. Only a visit to its streets and into its homes can reveal its bitterness and despair.

A WALK along Louisiana Street will show it. Many years ago the houses on this street were the homes of craftsmen, shopkeepers and industrious workmen. They worked hard and accumulated material possessions, and made plans to move to a finer house on the hill.

Now, Louisiana Street is lined with crumbling shacks, many of them wearing only scaling traces of paint applied years ago. Here and there a yard is surrounded by a tacky fence. More often than not there's no grass in the yard, only bare dirt packed hard by the tramping of countless feet through the years. Occasionally, there appears evidence of the pitiful efforts of some residents to brighten the area with a touch of beauty -- a flower pot on a sagging porch or an old automobile tire, painted white, that will encircle a few scraggly blooms in the spring.

In the 900 block Louisiana Street is a two-story frame house occupied by a family of seven. On the first floor are three rooms -- a living room with scarred walls and ceilings, a dining room and an air kitchen. Upstairs are two bedrooms. Four young boys sleep in a double bed in one room, a little girl sleeps on a cot in the other bedroom with her mother and father.

A WOOD STOVE in the dining room offers the only heat in the house. There is an oil stove in the living room, but there's no money to buy fuel, and that room remains chilly and unused.

It is a hard house to heat, anyway, for many panes are missing from the windows, and wide cracks run around the doors. Old rags stuffed into the broken windows and cracks offer only feeble resistance to the icy air that seeps into the house.

The family huddles, a cacophonous and lethargic group, in the one heated room where the mother irons, the children in school study, the younger children play and the father watches television.

Two blocks down the street, a mother and seven children live in a three-room "apartment" in a dilapidated old house. Here, too, a wood stove in the kitchen provides the only heat in the house, and the other two rooms, both used as bedrooms, remain cold.

AROUND THE CORNER, on 37th Street, live a mother and five children. The husband and father works out of town. This family lives on the second floor of a rickety old house with slanting floors. To get to their apartment, it is necessary to walk up dark, groaning stairs with shaky banisters that threatens to collapse under the slightest pressure.

Inside, the scene is typical of Fulton Bottom: one stove heats one room, and the others remain cold. In the house, however, there's another problem: there's no electricity. Kerosene lamps fight weakly against the gloom, and in the kitchen a kerosene stove is used for cooking.

Of such sad and dreary houses is Fulton Bottom made. Its people move in and out of them, shadowy figures whose drab lives are highlighted by checks and visits from the Department of Public Welfare.

Amid such shabby and hopeless surroundings, hundreds of children are growing up, unaware, in some cases, that here is a brighter, more comfortable and more ordered Richmond.

A RICHMOND Welfare Department worker recalls escorting a young Fulton Bottom child to a health clinic at the Safety Building on Ninth Street. It was the first time he'd been outside his grubby neighborhood, and he was awed.

Gazing at the big buildings on Broad Street, he asked: "Is this New York?"

The housing authority's study contains no detailed statistics on health, crime and social problems in the Fulton Bottom area -- that information will be gathered as the redevelopment plan progresses -- but it says:

"Fulton Bottom shows a severely high rate of social problems, excepting juvenile delinquency."

The report does not attempt to explain why the area's juvenile delinquency rate is lower than it is in some more stable neighborhoods. But one city official who helped prepare the report noted a large number of service organizations with youth programs are active in the area. And too, it is believed that many acts of vandalism -- such as the breaking of windows and the slashing of tires -- are routinely accepted by Fulton Bottom residents and rarely get reported to the police.

FULTON BOTTOM has deteriorated beyond hope of rehabilitation, the housing authority believes, and it has recommended a vast slum clearance and redevelopment program for the area.

Existing slum buildings would be razed. Most of the present residential area would be redeveloped for industrial purposes, but some of the land would be used as sites for new residences, built as low-rent public housing.

The 900 families in Fulton Bottom would have to be moved into new houses, either in the proposed new housing project or elsewhere. But it shouldn't be just another move in the lives of people who have learned to be nomadic. In the past, they have moved from slum to slum. But the housing authority hopes that the program it has proposed will enable Richmond to carry out what it conceives to be one of the objectives of any city -- "to provide decent, safe and sanitary housing for all inhabitants. . ."