The Vampire's Tomb

Last Saturday, after a yoga lesson and a morning meeting, my pal Constance & I went to brunch at The Black Sheep. This is a small restaurant in the Carver District, and the food and coffee are quite good. Since it was an exceptionally nice day, cool but sunny, we decided to walk off our meals at Hollywood Cemetery. I'll include a few pictures for you of our famous local boneyard. Some of you may recall reading about this humongous cemetery in a post from last year.


We rode through Oregon Hill, a 19th century neighborhood consisting mostly of old row houses. Within the past few years, blocks of new homes and apartments have been built in this area as well. Oregon Hill is situated next to the river and within sight of the downtown skyline, but for most of its existence was always a neighborhood for the working class. The white working class, to be specific. Within easy walking distance of the VCU campus, at least one black college student was harassed into moving out of the neighborhood when I lived in Oregon Hill back in the mid-80's. I remember how angry I was when I heard about that incident. It seems odd that one has to drive through this hardscrabble neighborhood to reach the burial ground of Presidents.


Constance & I found a place to park and began our stroll. We both enjoyed looking at the various styles of stone monuments. Finding unusual names is fun, too, and a cemetery is the perfect venue for sketching out evil schemes. The last time we went to dinner, Constance had told me about her plan to masturbate to good health and happiness. It seems she had read somewhere about the therapeutic benefits of daily masturbation, and had been giving it a try. I'm always concerned about the well-being of my friends, so I asked her how the plan was working. "Oh, I got bored at Day 17 and quit," Constance admitted disconsolately. I was glad we were taking a walk in Hollywood. There's nothing like a stroll through a sunny cemetery to lift one's spirits.


One family plot that we found interesting and, frankly, amusing was a woodsman's fantasy. The central monument was a stone tree trunk wrapped with stone vines & leaves, and the individual tombstones were stacks of logs (like bundles of firewood). While not the choice of the masses, this sort of theme was apparent in several plots scattered throughout the bucolic landscape. Not my cup of tea, but eye-catching nonetheless.


Near the edge of the bluffs a modern multi-family mausoleum still has space available. If you're sick & tired of moving, consider this for your final home. The central hall is suitable for worship or entertaining, and the terrace boasts spectacular views of the rolling river and the downtown skyline. Garden view, river view, or atrium units available. One bedroom apartments comfortably accommodate most caskets; efficiency units also offered for fancy-free crematory urns. Note: no heating or air conditioning. In our next photo, Constance contemplates the river view while deciding which unit makes her heart beat faster (or not at all).


Down below, we see a train on the CSX tracks below the bluffs. Alongside the railroad tracks, the James River and Kanawha Canal is visible. The canal was first proposed by the young George Washington when he was surveying our country and searching for a way to open a water route to the west for commercial purposes.


The canal was opened in 1790, and allowed vessels called packets to transport goods, bypassing the river rapids. Packet boats drew more water than the bateaux which were used on the James River, and were pulled by mules & horses on towpaths which flanked the canal. This photograph points out the demise of the nation's canal system; this once-promising form of transport was usurped by the locomotive. You can see a couple of walkers enjoying the old towpath.



In the photograph below, you can see the barest glimpse of the James River. Hollywood Cemetery sits on bluffs overlooking the James River rapids.

Below is the mausoleum of Lewis Ginter, the man we met in a previous post. Lewis Ginter made and lost several fortunes in Richmond.

He decided that Richmond deserved a world-class hotel, built the Jefferson Hotel in 1892, and opened the hotel in 1895. At one time, the Jefferson featured live alligators in its marble pools in the Palm Court. Margaret Mitchell stayed at the hotel while writing Gone With The Wind, and it is said that the magnificent marble staircase in the lobby was the inspiration for the one described in Scarlett's Atlanta mansion. There is a long-standing but false rumor that the Jefferson's staircase was used in the film. Today, the Jefferson is recognized with Mobil's Five Star rating and AAA's Five Diamonds.

Since it is my understanding that Mr. Ginter never married, and was a man of impeccable taste and vision, it is my personal belief that he must have been gay. He rests alone in the structure below which overlooks the James River.



Then we have this old girl, typical of cemetery monuments of the era. There are more stone angels in Hollywood Cemetery than you could chase off with a stick.



At last we come to the moment you've been waiting for! The Vampire's Tomb!
Yes, Virginia, there is a vampire. Indeed, Richmond does have a legendary hometown bloodsucker, but he does not exist in the tomb pictured below. He lives at the intersection of False Rumor Boulevard and Wild Imagination Way. True or make-believe, it's fun to point out W.W. Pool's tomb to visitors, because it is a creepy spot in the cemetery. From the sad little lamb at the top of the crypt, to the rusty iron & glass door beyond the iron outer gate, Goth wannabes and Anne Rice fans would be well-pleased with a picnic on W.W. Pool's banquette.


The outer iron door used to be unlocked, so you could step inside the ante-chamber of the tomb. Inside this vestibule, there is an inner door with an ancient lock, and an aperture above this doorway gives a view into the dim burial chamber. This opening only works for tall people, or folks that find something to stand on. Nowadays, the outer door is secured, but you can still peer through the ironwork. Below is the opening between the vestibule and the inner crypt. The upper part of the rusted door frame is visible at the bottom of the photograph. (Edit: I added a photo of the door below the mysterious opening, so you get a fairly good idea of how the whole picture looks at the entrance to the burial chamber. The hexagonal glass pieces fitted into the oxidized muntins were painted long ago, perhaps to foil curiousity seekers)



So, how did the notion of a local vampire spring forth? In 1925, the Church Hill Tunnel along the C&O Railroad track collapsed on a train, killing several workers. One man, a fireman named Ben Mosby, escaped from the tunnel horribly burned by the ruptured steam engine. He died later at Grace Hospital. Somehow, this sad story morphed into the legend of a vampire with jagged teeth and torn skin hanging from his body who was seen disappearing into the tomb of W.W. Pool, as if the actual train disaster weren't horrible enough. The train still rests in the collapsed tunnel, despite attempts to dig it free and retrieve the remaining bodies. The tunnel was ordered to be sealed, leaving inside a steam locomotive and ten flatcars.

Wonderful World

Sheldon has been on a mission lately to learn how to make yeast rolls, but he found time to send me this video. It's guaranteed to warm the cockles of your heart. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Behind the Door

We have had a couple of sunny days with warmer temperatures. I was not surprised Saturday to arrive home from yoga to find one of my neighbors splayed out in her front yard working on her tan. She knows how to tan, so she's sticking to her plan.

Yesterday morning, before I went to work, I decided to take advantage of the sunlight and the low threat of frostbite by taking a stroll along Monument Avenue before I came to the office. The picture on the left was taken outside Branch House. The property is surrounded by a brick wall, and this is a side service gate. Constructed more like a door, it makes you want to open it to see what lies behind.

Yesterday morning in my early AA meeting we discussed one of our Promises. We do this every Monday, and today's discussion was about "We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves." We had a powerful discussion centering around this promise. One woman, quiet as a mouse, who has been joining us for a few months opened up and told us some of her private troubles. It was the most we have ever heard from her, and despite the tears and torment I know that she took a healing step this morning by letting us peek behind the door. To watch someone look cautiously into a better life instead of back toward shame and remorse is truly thrilling.

So we're back to the morning walk. I'd like to show you more of Branch House, but the structure is so massive that it's hard to capture it with my cheap little camera. I run the risk of being struck by a car if I stray off the sidewalk. The home was designed by John Russell Pope (who also designed the National Gallery of Art) for John Kerr Branch in 1916, and was completed in 1919. It was the largest private home on the street with a nearly 30,000 square foot interior. That allowed room for a private chapel, so the Branches didn't have to mingle with the hoi polloi. It's now the Virginia Center for Architecture. The photo on the right is from an oblique side/front sort of angle, so you're not seeing much of the house, I'm afraid.

Oh, look, I found a better picture on line. Maybe someone stopped traffic for this photographer. John Kerr Branch was a banker who liked to collect stuff, and I guess if your tastes run toward suits of armor and big old tapestries you need a house with oversized rooms. The house remained in the Branch family until the 1950's, and was then bequeathed to the United Giver's Fund. Who can blame the family? Can you imagine inheriting a money pit like this place? It sits on an entire city block, and I can tell you that city taxes are ghastly. I can hear my mother's ghost whispering in my ear "I'd hate to clean that place." That's the first thing she'd think of, buddy.

In the next block sits this house, designed by William Bottomley (the fellow who designed Stuart Court, one of my favorite former homes). This handsome house is still occupied by Frances Lewis, widow of Sydney Lewis. Together, they co-founded a chain of catalog showrooms that some of you may remember. Best Products started in Richmond, and remained headquartered here until its demise in 1997. Best Products was known for its association with the SITE architectural firm, and many of the Best Products showrooms were famous for whimsical design. I'll include a couple of pictures of Best Products stores at the very bottom of this post.

The Lewises were major 20th century art collectors, and their patronage has greatly benefited the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, located just around the corner from their Monument Avenue home. Their home was also a repository of art, and modern sculptures could frequently be seen in front of their house near the circular driveway. A giant brown clothes-pin stood guard outside the front door for years.

In the previous post I showed a picture of Jeff & Vicki's current house. I knew them for several years before I discovered that they had once lived in the third-floor caretaker's apartment in the Lewis home. Jeff, now a dentist, was studying at MCV many years ago, and met Sydney Lewis several times. One day Mr. Lewis asked Jeff if he & his wife would be interested in moving into their top-floor apartment. Jeff demurred, thanking Mr. Lewis, but explaining that as students they could barely afford to live in their current apartment.

Mr. Lewis told Jeff that they could live there rent-free, if they would agree to keep watch on the house while the Lewises traveled the globe collecting art. Jeff & Vicki had free run of the entire house, as long as Sydney & Frances weren't in town. They could even hold parties, but Sydney cautioned them about who they invited, since the home was stuffed with famous & costly art. Jeff & Vicki were also invited to parties hosted by the Lewises, where patrons and artists mingled. Jeff recalled Andy Warhol moping about in a corner during one gathering.

I can't pretend that I'm on lunch break any longer. I fetched a club sandwich from City Diner, one of my favorite breakfast spots, and - Good Heavens! - it was the tallest club sandwich I have ever tried to eat. My mouth could not stretch wide enough, and I prayed that no one would come in my office while I was trying to wrap my face around the behemoth. It sure was delicious, though. Now I need to get busy unpacking books.

I was sorry to hear that Blossom Dearie died this past Saturday. I love her voice. I'll include a song I found on YouTube of some unknown person's trip to Manhattan. He's bound to be a swell guy, though, if he likes Blossom. So, enjoy one of my favorite Blossom Dearie songs, They Say It's Spring. Rest easy, Miss Dearie.

Brighten Up!

I shot this photograph on my way home from work one evening. I'm glad I did, because when I drove past the other night, the sign had been fixed and now says Princess Cleaners. B O R I N G.

I'm tired of cold, damp, bone-chilling weather.

But I'm grateful that my car has seat heaters. We are entering that phase of the winter of my discontent when I begin longing for warm weather. Still, we have not had a bad time of it here in Virginia, so I'm glad for that. You know those ear-warmers that look like thick headbands? The beanies-without-tops thingies that keep your ears and forehead all snuggly? I have one of those from L.L. Bean, and it will probably turn up one day in August when I need it most.

I've got a few photos for you to look at today. These homes are in Richmond's Northside district. Richmond is set up on an east-west axis. This orientation is based on the course of the James River. Most of Richmond's growth pushed westward, which meant that businessmen had the sun in their eyes to & from work. Lewis Ginter, 19th century Mr. Everything, decided to purchase and develop land north of downtown for gracious living.

Lewis Ginter bought up several hundred acres of farmland, laid roads, installed a sewer system, drilled artesian wells, and planted thousands of shade trees & miles of hedges. He even negotiated an extension of the city's electric trolley car line to Ginter Park for even easier commuting. The neighborhood was joined by others like Bellevue, Sherwood Park, and Barton Heights. Residential growth in the area continued in fits & starts from the late 1800's through the period prior to the Great Depression. You can see the range of years in the photos below.

In the 1950's, Chamberlayne Avenue was designated as Route 1, which brought commercial growth but changed the posh air of the immediate area. Tourist homes popped up, and several of the mansions were converted to nursing homes. Whores and junkies are common sights along this stretch of Route 1 these days, and the beautiful homes sit uneasily a few blocks away.

Here are a couple of the older homes. You can see that these pictures were taken on overcast days.
A few blocks away you will find a neighborhood of homes built in the 1920's. The brick home built in the English Cottage-style is my favorite.
The house below is where my friends Jeff & Vicki live. My favorite room is the one behind the windows on the shed dormer on the third floor. It's very cozy with sloping ceilings. It would be a perfect place to curl up with a good book.

Now let's have a little sunshine.

Scary Mary

My car was covered with snow when I left home this morning. Fortunately, I was expecting this, so I allowed extra time. According to Scott, we will have have another six months of winter. This will be a long day, because tonight I have a monthly work-related meeting that usually keeps me at the office until ten o'clock.

I went to bed early so that I'd be rested today. I watched a documentary about Abe & Mary Lincoln before I nodded off. I usually read when I go to bed, but I'm working on a humongous book right now that could kill or paralyze me if it dropped on my head when I start drowsing. There's something about reading or watching a movie that works on me like Sleeping Beauty's spindle. It's great to be able to fall asleep quickly, compared to the tossing & turning I used to experience. The pitfall is that I regularly turn an ordinary feature-length film into a mini-series. It gets a little aggravating, especially since I should be getting these things back in the mail to Netflix as quickly as possible. I've been watching this daggone Lincoln chronicle for over a week now. It makes no difference how interesting it is, either. Ten, fifteen minutes tops, and I'm adrift in the wooden shoe with Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

I saw my share of movies when I was little, but my parents did not take me to every children's movie that hit the big screen. I remember loving Disney's The Jungle Book and The Aristocats. Also That Darned Cat!, The Shaggy Dog, and The Absent-Minded Professor. Doctor Dolittle seemed like the movie that would never end, but maybe Anthony Newley annoyed the hell out of me even as a child.

Swiss Family Robinson made me look at my treehouse with a critical eye. Why couldn't I live in a treehouse like the Robinson family? Where was my giant water wheel? I had to go to the garden hose to get water. My treehouse seemed mundane after seeing that movie. And instead of an ostrich, I had an ordinary old beagle.

There were quite a few movies that I didn't see until I became an adult. Bambi, for example, and Sleeping Beauty. I still haven't seen Pinocchio, believe it or not. I didn't see Mary Poppins until a few years ago. Perhaps my parents thought it was too dark. I can understand that, after looking at the trailer below.