NORFOLK
You never know what you'll find digging underground in downtown Norfolk - first settled more than 300 years ago, burned several times and rebuilt many times over.
Revolutionary War cannons? Check. They were displayed at Town Point Park for years.
Parts of old ships? Check. Portions of downtown were underwater a century ago.
Those discoveries were made decades ago.
Workers now digging deep into the streets for light-rail construction are not likely to bump into anything that historically significant, but they've already come across items from Norfolk's more recent past.
Old building foundations were unearthed in the Harbor Park parking lot. What's believed to be the foundation of the former Renert building, which included J.C. Penney and Hot Shoppes cafeteria, was uncovered at Monticello and City Hall avenues.
Trolley tracks were discovered under East Main Street between City Hall and Harbor Park, as were massive railroad timbers.
And just this week, utility workers pulled an old bottle from the ground by the Renert foundation.
"Some of our history is easy to see and some is buried over time until it's dug up," said Peggy Haile McPhillips, city historian. "It's always exciting to think of what they might find."
The most likely finds will be long-abandoned utility lines.
While not exactly interesting, they are noteworthy to work crews that must remove them or find ways around them without blowing the budget or the schedule.
"We factored in a certain amount of uncertainty for downtown streets," said Fred Schneader, Hampton Roads Transit's senior vice president for construction.
"The older the street is, the more risky it is" to probe beneath the surface, said Paul Filion, Norfolk's transportation construction project manager. "Sometimes the hole in the ground gets bigger than anticipated."
"We really haven't uncovered anything that's a total surprise - nothing to wrap up and ship to the Smithsonian," he said. "We've been able to work through it and make field adjustments along the way."
Light-rail construction has just begun in the downtown core and will continue for more than a year.
Filion said workers will dig as deep as 15 feet, depending on the task. Utility relocation generally requires deeper trenches, he said.
What lies beneath can be a mystery.
What we know now as City Hall Avenue, where light rail will cross at Monticello Avenue, was Town Back Creek in 1680, McPhillips said. By 1906, it was completely filled in, she said. Oyster shells and the ruins of burned buildings filled the creek.
When the site for MacArthur Center was excavated in 1997, discoveries included a Hessian gold coin, 4,000-year-old spear points, Colonial-era pottery shards and a 19th-century medicine bottle.
An analysis of potential archeological resources was conducted before digging began for the rail project. It concluded that, because the excavation depth is unlikely to exceed that of modern fill, no archeological resources would be affected.
Even so, HRT developed a plan in the event of any surprise discoveries.
Chuck Swan, a civil engineer, has not come across a significant find in 27 years digging in streets for the city public works department.
Streetcar tracks are not uncommon, he said, and often "ugly to remove. There's usually a large concrete footer beneath the tracks to work around."
Streetcars ran in Norfolk from about 1870 to 1948.
He's also come across old retaining walls and bulkheads since parts of Norfolk were underwater.
"We just punch our way right through them," Swan said.
When improving Boush Street several years ago, he said, the most unexpected obstacle was a live Western Union telegraph line.
"When we find something, we curse a little and get it out of the way," Swan said.
Swan speaks from the ground level. McPhillips would prefer to linger over the possibilities.
"It's neat to peel back history and see the layers there," she said.
Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com
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Buick Giveaway?
If you think they should give away old Buicks and fix potholes with the money, can I have a 1966 Electra 225? I always loved those big ol' beasts!
As someone who uses lightrail whenever I go to Baltimore, I like it. It really eases congestion leaving football and baseball games, and other times when I go there to party, I don't have to park downtown. It does work well, and if done right, will be a good thing for Norfolk and Va. Beach. But rest assured, it will be far more expensive than proposed. I hope it works.
Not just downtown
For the past couple years my son has been working in his yard in Ocean View and is constantly digging up trolly or train tracks. I find it fasinating. I may be wrong but wasn't most of Ocean View dairy farms? I've also been told that a lot of the tracks are now under water in the Chesapeake Bay. Maybe one of these days we'll try to find out more about these tracks. Oh, and some neat little bottles too.
Light rail
Light Rail then with massive coverage of the area and it did not work.
"Streetcar tracks are not uncommon, he said, and often "ugly to remove. There's usually a large concrete footer beneath the tracks to work around."
Replaced with Stinky Buses; Did not work either!
Now we get another Light Rail that does not go where people need to go but it probably won't work either.
It would be cheaper to buy the riders a used Buick, and fix the pot holes!
OLD STREETCAR TRACKS
It is not all that unusual for old trolley rails to surface decades after the cessation of streetcar service. Frequently, once fixed-rail operation had ended and replaced by what was years ago termed "free wheel vehicles" (i.e., buses/trackless trolleys) the rails themselves were paved over, leaving the supporting structure intact. In my native Baltimore, this was known as the "inch/inch" method of paving.
Time passes, and as city streets are either reconstructed or otherwise altered, those sometimes long-forgotten old streetcar tracks are "discovered". Private rights-of-way were another matter, with usual complete removal of rails, ties, ballast and the like. Not infrequently, the old prw became part of a widened street or roadway.
Incidentally, I wasn't aware Hot Shoppes had a Norfolk outlet, although there was one located in the heart of downtown Richmond. All gone.
grown up!
Watch the video and realize that anything that takes away roadway through downtown(Monticello Ave), will need gates at street crossings and only cater to maybe a few hundred individuals will not solve any problems. Most of the traffic in downtown Norfolk is generated not by people who work Downtown but by flow through traffic either from or towards the tunnel, 264 and 464.
Just wait until the first train and vehicle have a collision due to the proximity (0 feet) through downtown. You think you have seen back ups now!
If it had been elevated through downtown perhaps my opinion might have been different.
Grow Up
It's tiresome how every article about light rail is taken as an opportunity by the vocal few to find some way to bash the project. It's coming whether you want it or not. The best course of action is to give it its opportunity to prove itself.
Oh how telling
"Streetcars ran in Norfolk from about 1870 to 1948."
Golly....you mean we already had one light rail? Begs the question.....why did they stop and bury it. Oh, they moved on to a more modern transportation system that could actually not only move people but goods as well. A system that provided flexibility for commuters by not being tied to train schedules and routes. A system that promoted businesses and jobs along the routes that all persons could patronize, not just those captive to the route of a train. A system that did not have to be subsidized on the backs of many for the use of few. A system without outrageous operational costs. That modern system? Roadways that still do all those wonderful things.
The project immediately needs to stop.
The project immediately needs to stop. Some of these sites may contain sensitive archeological information that is protected by law. Hopefully it will take decades to sort it all out.
Past is future
You'll be sorry that you heard of light rail.
So they buried the streetcar
So they buried the streetcar tracks when ridership turned out to be nil as well? Are we going to just pave over the new ones as well?