Hole in the Clouds

Tag: Virginia

Where the Raven Quoth?

Feb 13, 2011

Edgar Allan Poe’s mother’s house. This photo was taken in 1930, a good many years after she lived there.

Edgar Allan Poe 1930 Virginia alleyscape Richmond (Image credit: Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Shorpy)

On July 11, 1926, the Washington Post published this publicity shot for "the Gladyse Wilbur girls," a song-and-dance troupe that did its singing and dancing, as well as its teeing off, in bathing costumes. That's Dorothy Kelly on ice, backed up by Virginia Hunter, Elaine Griggs, Hazel Brown, and Mary Kaminsky.

The show was in Keith's Theater in Washington, which may have been air conditioned by 1926. The ice in the photo is obviously intended to suggest that the Gladyse Wilbur girls can be enjoyed in cool comfort, even in the middle of the summer.

sports Washington summer ice Virginia Dorothy bathing suits District of Columbia Elaine golf Mary Hazel (Image credit: National Photo Company, via Shorpy)

Mother and Child

Jul 10, 2012

Above, a contestant in the 2010 Hampton Roads Tattoo Expo in Hampton, Virginia, with her baby; below, back view of a contestant in a 2009 Tattoo Expo in Taipei, Taiwan.

Taiwan baby Virginia tattoo Hampton Roads Taipei

Building and Burning Bridges

Jan 3, 2013

Heading south across the James River from downtown Richmond, Virginia, the half-mile-long Manchester Bridge was completed in 1972 to replace a much lower span that was repeatedly damaged by floods.

Barely visible in the distance, near the righthand edge of this picture, are the brick piers of a former railroad bridge that was repeatedly ruined by fire.

The current Manchester Bridge includes a wide pedestrian walkway separating southbound and northbound traffic. This was required by law; in 1920, when the city of Richmond annexed what was then the city of Manchester across the river, the merger documents provided for a free pedestrian bridge across the James, in perpetuity. Until then, the only bridge charged pedestrians a toll, which was so aggravating to residents of Manchester that they voted to dissolve their city government in return for a promise of a toll-free bridge.

The ruined railroad bridge burned for the first time during the Civil War; the Confederates destroyed it–the night they drove old Dixie down–in anticipation of the fall of Richmond. It was rebuilt after the war but burned again in 1882.

railroad bridge Virginia Richmond ruins highway James River (Image credit: Aaron Dryden)

Down by the Docks

Jan 3, 2018

View from above of the container port at Portsmouth, Virginia.