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.

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Hi everyone-
On Monday APRIL 21ST will be another community dinner @6pm. They
are now every 3rd Monday of the month. A lot of people didn’t get our
newsletter, don’t know what SynerGeo is, or aren’t on this group so
they don’t know about it. So we want your help to spread the word.
Please tell any O.Hill residents about it and remind them to join
us!!!
If anyone is new to the group or knowing about SynerGeo, I’ll do
a quick recap. We are a small non-profit at the corner of S. Laurel
and Albemarle street(we’re located at 349 S. Laurel) that runs after
school art programs for K-5th graders and we recently started a teen
center on Wednesday nights from 5:30-7:30pm and run multiple other
outreach programs.

So please join us on Monday April 21st for our dinner @6pm. Bring a
dish, dessert or side dish if you can and we look forward to having
you.

*******Also just to throw this out there, we still have spaces
available for our SUMMER ART CAMP!! It is July 28-Aug 1 and Aug 4-8th
each day from 9am til noon. It’s free and kids can come for one week
or both.*****

Have a wonderful day!
Katie Cowles

www.synergeo.org

If anyone hasn’t noticed yet, VCU is moving full steam ahead with the moving of the remaining Oregon Hill stable house from the rear of the former City Auditorium to the 100 block of south Linden Street. It’s quite an involved process that includes the construction of a temporary crushed gravel road to transplant the whole building and set it on its new foundation without any dips in the road surface. Follow this link for several photos I took today. There are lots of other historic and contemporary Oregon Hill photos on my site as well.

Folk musicians Mat Callahan & Yvonne Moore perform this Thursday March 13, 2008 @ 7PM at The Flying Brick Library (506 S. Pine Street). Donations will be accepted - No Alcohol, No Smoking inside.

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Upcoming film series at the Flying Brick Library

506 s. Pine Street.

The FlyingBrick Library Presents: Moving Images - Aseries of six movies to educate and ponder while it’s still coldoutside. Come to the library on Thursday evenings and watch somedocumentaries about real people’s struggles and triumphs withus.
The Library is at 506 S. Pine St. and can be accessed by wheelchair

Thursday, February 7 7:30 pm

UP THE RIDGE: A one-hour documentary by Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirbyabout a maximum security prison in Virginia. In 1999 Szuberla andKirby were DJ’s for Appalachia’s only hip-hop radio program inWhitesburg, KY when they received hundreds of letters from inmatestransferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region’s newest prisonbuilt to prop up the shrinking coal economy. Filming began thatyear. The movie gives an in-depth look at the U.S. prison industryand the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-cityminority offenders to distant rural outposts.

‘When I visitedWallens Ridge in the spring of 1999, it was new and as yetunoccupied…It was both lavishly expensive and needlessly remote,built not because it was needed but because it was wanted bypoliticians who thought it would bring them votes.” –Joseph T.Hallinan Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation, 2001

Thursday, February 21 7:30 pm

WINTER SOLDIER: Adocumentary about the Winter Soldier Investigation, a publicinquiry into war crimes committed by American forces in Vietnam, heldat a Howard Johnson motel in Detroit in February 1971. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized this event where morethan 125 veterans spoke of atrocities they had witnessed andcommitted.

On the 37 year anniversaryof this event the words of one participant veteran are eerilyrelevant:

‘Wegathered not to sensationalize our service but to decry the travestythat was Lt. William Calley’strial for the My Lai Massacre…if Calley were responsible, sowere his superiors up the chain of command, even to the president.The causes of My Lai and the brutality of the Vietnam War were rootedin the policies of our government as executed by our militarycommanders.’ –DonaldDzagulones,

AndLater: No! The Rape Documentary-about African-Americanwomen’s experiences, THIRST!-about water privatization, TheTake-about workers seizing control of factories in Argentina andWetback-documenting theexperiences of migrant workers crossing the border.

I have posted volume II of the OH then and now series. This set focuses on the changing landscape of the northernmost portion of the neighborhood, most of which is long gone. It’s best to click on the OH now and then set and watch it as a slideshow, as I have the current and former pictures arranged, back to back. The link is once again: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadrichmond/

Thanks, greg

I just put together a new flickr site with my first photo set being a series of OH streetscapes from 1965 and those same shots recreated today. The link is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22652858@N07/ Enjoy, Greg