Good morning, RVA! It's 68 °F, and temperatures will creep back up into the 90s today. Expect the warmening to continue through the weekend, with highs right around 95 °F on both Saturday and Sunday. It’s actually a little-known part of Richmond’s Charter that the Watermelon Festival must take place on one of the Summer’s most blazing-hot weekends.
Water cooler
This Sunday, starting at 10:00 AM you can join thousands of watermelons and other people at the Carytown Watermelon Festival. First, I hope you got your Cars Ruin Carytown shirt ahead of time, because if ever there was a weekend to wear it, it’s this one. Second, the Watermelon Festival basically exists as an annual reminder that we can, in fact, close Carytown to vehicle traffic. Not only does the world keep on turning, but thousand of people—hundreds of thousands according to the website—manage to make their way in and out of the neighborhood, buy things, and have a generally good (if sweaty) time despite not driving or parking on actual Cary Street itself. See, it can be done! We do it on the regular! After reading that piece in BizSense the other day, I have some new-found optimism about making Carytown pedestrian-only. Check out this quote: “Erin Bottcher, who co-owns Bev's Homemade Ice Cream at 2911 W. Cary Street, said she likes the once-a-month event idea but said it would require signage, informing residents and other hurdles.” Bottcher immediately goes to say she’d be against a full-closure because “people would just not come to Carytown anymore,” which, sigh, but I think this is progress!
David Ress at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a long piece about the planners working for Chesterfield County. Yes, there’s a lot of roadchat in there but also a lot of paragraphs about progressive, dense development that I’m not sure I would have expected out in Chesterfield a decade ago. I typically don’t love person-on-the-street quotes, especially about development and housing, but this one is about as measured and thoughtful as they come: “I love these trees...I wish they wouldn't take them down...but people need places to live, I guess. As long as we get more people on less land, I guess that's the best we can hope for."
On Saturday, from 12:00–6:30 PM, head down to 1708 Gallery (319 W. Broad Street) for the 14th annual Monster Drawing Rally. Over the course of four one-hour shifts, tons of artists will create works of art—on the spot!—which are then hung on the wall for viewing and purchase. All works are $100 with artists receiving a 50% commission and the rest going to support 1708 Gallery. Wandering around the gallery, watching actual artists create actual art, is a lot of fun and worth the trip Downtown.
Also on Saturday, the City will host another gun buyback day from 7:00–11:00 AM at Liberation Church (5501 Midlothian Turnpike). Folks can turn in all sorts of guns and walk away with a gift card to Amazon, Walmart, or Wawa ($250 for assault weapons and $200 for shotguns or handguns). As per every time I write about gun buybacks: They are not the ultimate solution to reducing gun violence in our communities, but they are legal and something the City has the authority to do on its own. We should take every opportunity and peruse every strategy to reduce gun violence (and the number of guns) in our neighborhoods.
Via /r/rva: “Hey this spider just bit me, anyone know what it is? Do I need to worry?” I enjoyed the comments. Spoiler for the squeamish and slightly arachnophobic: No, they did not need to worry.
This morning's longread
The Bath Blitz, 1942 — a teenager’s memories of luck and misfortune
I keep thinking about this first-hand account of a teenager wandering around the aftermath of a German bombing in England. I can’t imagine letting my own teenage son head out on his own to explore the bombed-out wreckage of a city, but, also, I can’t imagine not doing it myself?
After the all clear I told my parents that I was going round to see my friend Ian Crudgington, who lived below St Steven’s church, to check on him and his family. When I got there I found they were all right and there was no damage to their house. Ian’s dad ran a bookshop in Green Street while my father ran a chemist shop at 11 George Street, both in the centre of town, I was sure that they must have been hit with all the bombs that had fallen, so we decided to go and see if the shops were still standing. We walked down in to the city, going down Cavendish Road until we got to Marlborough Buildings and were going to go on through Victoria Park, but at the bottom of Marlborough Lane we saw a pub on fire in the upper Bristol Road. We found an Irish chap sitting outside on the pavement, badly shocked. He was a labourer working on building an underground ammunition dump at Corsham in Wiltshire and had been lodging at the pub. He was bemoaning that he had lost everything he had brought with him and had been left only with what he was wearing. We decided the best thing was to help him to the YMCA in Broad Street where they would be able to look after him.
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Picture of the Day
Urban moss? Lichen?
