The Byrd Theater

The Byrd Theatre (c. 1930)

The Byrd Theatre (c. 2016)

Site Name: Carytown

Date of Construction: Begun in the 1930’s, “finished” in the late 60’s.

Reason for Construction: Developers envisioned a “park and shop” strip shopping center for Richmond, the first of its kind in the city and in the South in general. After all, it worked up in the northern parts of the US, so why not here? Economic opportunity ringed in their ears, and the mall was built on those ideas. Strictly speaking, therefore, it was built to provide entertainment as well as economic profit for smaller retailers.

History of the Site: In 1928, the Byrd Theatre was built by Walter Coulter and Charles Somma, and designed by Fred Bishop. The trio, all Virginians and with Bishop from Richmond itself, saw potential in the site, as it sat between the developing Windsor Farms and near west end neighborhoods and the downtown area, along a common commute at the time. The theater itself was rather extravagant, having been designed by a prestigious New York studio and bearing decorative walls and other ornaments. Building off the success of the theater was Cary Court, developed in the mid 1930’s. Other developers, like Somma and Coulter had done before, saw potential along the corridor. Soon, a team of entrepreneurs came together and built the Court, one of the first strip malls in the South and the first in Richmond. As a few other businesses latched on to the Court to try and attract some of the customers, Richmonders came to realize something: they could cut down on shopping time immensely if they can walk from store to store instead of driving. Soon, demand for the strip mall convenience increased, along with foot traffic and corporate attention. The once-8 store strip mall exploded.
Such was not to stay forever. In the late 1940’s and the early 1950’s, competing strip malls of similar design begun popping up around the city. Although often selling inferior goods, these malls could stay in business due to lower rent and thus offer slightly lower prices. In 1956, the Shops at Willow Lawn, a major single-building mall, one of the first in the area, was built. However, despite these new developments, and a stagnant number of stores, Carytown performed better than ever financially, and became a major tourist attraction. Due to the high-quality of goods and a “hip” presence, Carytown appealed to a market looking for high quality products, food, or a generally good time. Owners consistently renovated their buildings, keeping the area visually attractive, and increased the quality of their goods to feed this new demand. Higher-quality stores replaced your quantity-retailers, and the image of Carytown as an upscale shopping center was born. In the 1980’s, festivals sprang up in the mall, with the Watermelon Festival being perhaps the biggest. These characteristics, the “hip” presence, the convenience, and the high product quality, have stayed with the mall ever since.

History of the Area: Carytown is surrounded by a variety of neighborhoods, as it’s an extremely long and narrow area, and therefore, the area around it has a wide array of histories. However, the area as a whole still shares a few common features. The three major areas around Carytown are the southern portions if the Fan District, the southern parts of the Museum District, and to an extent, the western part of Windsor Farms. All 3 of those areas are highly historic, being developed as early as the 1900s (the Fan district and southern Museum district) to the early 1920’s (Windsor Farms). For Winsor Farms and the much of the Fan especially, property values were decently high pretty much from the get-go. All 3 have been restored constantly, primarily because the location is invaluable and the history priceless, especially the 2 mentioned above. They are, as many Richmonders are quick to tell you, relatively upper-class, expensive, historic neighborhoods. This is no coincidence: as has been already mentioned in the site history, Carytown’s high-quality, medium-to-high-price products strongly appeal to the people living in these areas.

Changes to the site: The biggest difference between modern Carytown and its 1930’s appearance is not necessarily the buildings themselves, but the sheer scope of the mall. In the beginning, Carytown was essentially only Carytown Court, which officially contained 11 stores, with a few others on the other side of    the street as well. Now, after 8 decades, even if you only count the shops on Cary Street itself, the area contains over 50 independent retailers. Individual buildings in the shopping center themselves have been constantly renovated, usually to try and be as attractive as possible for the incoming customers. Renovations and changes to the buildings themselves are slight, and come in many smaller pieces rather than all at once. For example, the Byrd Theatre was kept in its original form and technology until 1953, when the projector was changed out and the respective room refurbished. In 1958, the Wuritzer organ was repaired. In 1979, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and had the stage wood restored. In 2007, the Byrd Theater foundation came in and helped with restoring the walls and ceiling. Such is a great examples of minor changes adding up over time to keep the building in use, yet maintain its original look as well. After all, although the Byrd theater is considered by the city, state and country to be a to be a historic place, as well as the entire area unofficially in the minds of Virginia’s citizens, Carytown certainly is a commercial hub first and foremost, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Changes to the surrounding area: For the most part, what has distinguished the Fan district and Windsor farms from other areas was the lack of major change to them; when a family bought a house, they were buying a piece of history as well as a home. By the time Cary Court and Byrd Theatre were built in the 1920’s and 30’s, the Fan had already established itself as a semi-historic, valuable area, in part because of the desirable “west-end address,” and in part because the streetcars easily connected the people living there to downtown and other areas of the city. Aside from the occasional renovation, the only major change that hit the Fan district was the Great depression, in which many houses were parcelled into apartments to reduce pricing. Many buildings in the Fan are still apartments today because of this.

Reflection: Overall, I not only learned about Carytown itself, but I also learned a lot about how local history is archived and published into the society it pertains to. To sum it all up, it felt to me that local history was so close, yet so far away. I would have to look into the corners of libraries or less common sources on the internet to get information and do research. The process of learning about the Byrd Theatre, for example, was a lot more complex than learning about a figure as famous as George Washington. Yet, once you finally find that article, often written by a local source itself, on that bit of local history you’re interested in, there is no feeling like it. Learning about an area I can literally walk to and see every day is truly something extraordinary. It validates in one’s mind the implications of history: how it’s study impacts modern society in a level more basic than the textbook or the SOL. DId I learn about Carytown? Yes. Did I learn about the areas of the near West End, the kind of people there, and how the two meshed? Certainly. Yet, beyond all these things, I learned the value of historic presence in areas of society I never knew it existed in, and how I, as a historian, can tap into that.

Sources:
McGraw, Marie. At the Falls: Richmond, Virginia, and It’s People. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1994.

The Byrd Theater. September 1930. Photograph. Richmond Newspapers, Inc. Richmond, VA.

Weidner, Marisa. “Carytown: Then and Now.” The Valentine. Last modified March 30, 2014.

Accessed February 15, 2016. http://thevalentine.org/blog/carytown_then_and_now#.\

Author: Tory Farmer