One of the few good things about the VCU rec center project is that VCU will finally properly renovate the historic City Auditorium building. Right now you can really see and appreciate this magnificent architecture of the original structure, though sans its supporting stables. It was the ‘white elephant’ arts center project of its day, and went through a couple of uses, including a farmer’s market as well as concert hall. It hosted a number of famous speakers, including Presidents.

See it while you can, because it is supposed to be enveloped by the construction of the massive, 100,000 sq. ft. rec center.

Just one of the things that makes OH a great place to live. The Water Horse was the feature this past Friday night.

There will be another litter pickup this Saturday (6/7) @ 9AM. Like usual, we will meet at the gazebo (Pine St. & Oregon Hill Pkwy). Please bring gloves, garbage bags will be provided.

RICHMOND, VA May 30, 2008. Six Burner Restaurant will host a benefit for the Byrd House Market on Wednesday, June 18th from 5:30 to 9:30 pm. Diners will receive a delicious three course dinner for their donation of $35 to benefit the Byrd House Market, a program of William Byrd Community House.

The William Byrd Community House provides services to children, teens, parents, and seniors in the Richmond community. The Byrd House Market’s goal is to promote the health and welfare of its community while supporting local farmers, food producers, and artisans.

Six Burner restaurant is generously supporting BHM by offering customers a pre-fixe menu featuring fresh foods from BHM’s vendors for one night only on June 18th. The proceeds from this event will go to supporting the Byrd House Market. Call now for reservations as seats will fill up fast!

Six Burner Restaurant
1627 West Main St
(804) 353-4060

June 17 @ 7 p.m.
William Byrd Community House
224 South Cherry St.
Richmond, VA 23220

In April, two Virginia activists walked three days south crossing the Arizona desert into Mexico. They walked in solidarity with the countless number of people who traverse the dangerous terrain in search of better lives in the U.S., to protest unjust anti-immigrant policies in Virginia and the millions of dollars annually spent on border militarization.

Jeff Winder and Sue Frankel-Streit of The People United! will report back on their experience with a puppet show. They will also promote the Fifth Annual Gathering of The People United \”Taking Root: Building Community, Sustaining Resistance\” to be held the weekend of June 27 in the mountains of central VA. All are welcome to come. This is a kid-friendly event.

This Monday, June 16th, SynerGeo will have our Oregon Hill Community Dinner at 6pm. The dinners are held every 3rd Monday of
the month(except August due to our volunteering trip to Seattle. Our
doors will be open with lots of food to share! I plan to pass out
little flyers at the movie friday night in pleasants park, hopefully
we can spread the word and get more neighbors to join us!!!

Also at this month’s dinner we are going to be asking people to
help us out with one of our projects for this summer’s art camp, so
come prepared with a nice quote or a happy message!!

Please help us by telling your neighbors and friends about this, I
really want this to be known as something positive for everyone to
join in for Oregon Hill!

Hope to see you all on Monday!
Katie Cowles

Volunteer Coordinator
cowleskatie@yahoo.com
www.synergeo.org

Through talking to an employee at 821 Cafe, I cobbled together the following information about businesses on the 800 block of West Cary Street, Oregon Hill’s commercial face, and it’s all exciting news.

Read more >

The Richmond Times Dispatch has an article about St. Andrew’s School students painting a mural in honor of the late Jonny Z.

“ART 180 enlisted the help of students at St. Andrew’s to come up with ideas for the mural. Zanin’s friends told the students about Jonny Z — about his love of art and music, community, coffee and pizza — and they went from there. The mural, running the length of a back building connected to Joe’s Inn, 205 N. Shields Ave., in the alley between Shields and Rowland Street, contains a little bit of everything, or “kind of random, fun and colorful,” said Lauren Healy, another project coordinator.”

This past Tuesday night at its monthly meeting, the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association once again voted and re-, re-, and re-affirmed its support for Urban Business District zoning for W.Cary St. and 100 block of Belvidere (we have been voting on this since at least 2002). We want to save the small businesses and houses we have left and encourage more mixed use in the future.

The following email exchange is related to this issue and is posted with permission. I will note that I have not heard from Councilperson Jewell since I approached him at the end of the Richmond Crusade for Voters meeting.

From: candylandmusic@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [OregonHill] Jewell, rezoning, alley
Date: June 18, 2008 8:40:11 AM EDT
To: OregonHill@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: OregonHill@yahoogroups.com

Many many hours of hard work have gone into coming up with this UB2 proposal. The City’s Department of Community Development are to be applauded for holding the numerous meetings among stake holders and proposing a unique zoning designation that can help the Oregon Hill Cary Street Corridor become a positive pedestrian oriented business/residential area and stave off inappropriate development. Jewell’s disengagement from his constituents needs is made more disgusting by his list of donors to his campaign (google “VPAP E. Martin Jewell” to see the list of developers that are “banking” on Jewell). Im just so disgusted with this guy and his shenanigans. Every time the neighborhood has needed his support, he votes against us or ignores us, to include smashing our newly gained R7 zoning in the rest of the neighborhood to allow a parking lot for his ol’ pal Salomonsky against the neighborhoods wishes. No new street trees this year, VERY little needed infrastructural repairs accomplished and supporting higher real estate tax rates are a few of his “accomplishments” as Councilman. Please vote for Mark Brandon in November for 5th district Councilperson. We desperately need a change.

On Jun 17, 2008, at 11:51 PM, Scott Burger wrote:

Saw our Councilperson, Marty Jewell, at the Crusade for Voters
meeting tonight. Once again, he claimed to have trouble reaching me
for some reason. He also says he wants to sit down and talk to me
about the Cary Street rezoning. I told him he could talk to me right
there. He said he did not know about the proposed rezoning. I told
him that OHNA had voted and revoted to support urban business
district zoning since 2002. He said that the Community Development
Dept. had not kept him abreast of recent proposal. I told him that’s
not true, because I had email where he was cc’ed. he said that was
not good enough notification. I repeated the neighborhood’s support
for rezoning. He said he did not blame us, he blames Community
Development. I repeated the neighborhood’s support for rezoning to
ub. He said certain property owners on Cary did not want the
rezoning. I asked him for names. He would not name them. I repeated
OHNA’s longtime support for rezoning to ub. He said he would talk
with me later.

Before he could brush me off, I repeated my concerns for the alley
behind the 600 block of Cherry. He acted surprised and said that Gary
Duvall in Public Works was supposed to have fixed it. I repeated that
the alley had not been fixed for some time now, and improper drainage
was threatening the historic John Miller House and other houses. He
called his assistant’s voice mail and left a reminder for her to
remind him.

Thanks,
Scott