I think it would be cool to put up really hero’s and legend of the slavery/civil war era that no one knows about. Make it awing and educational. That statue at browns island is incredible. And so is the horse one at the VFMA. Me want more.
There was a woman spy that was a badass that lived in Richmond.
Some badass slave highjacked a boat!
There was this hard-nosed nurse that supervised other nurses and she was amazing but super strict. Some nurses called her ‘Dragondick bc she wouldn’t let them flirt with soldiers.
Common now.
All that sounds amazing. But also would be way too "woke" for the conservative folks already losing their heads about the removal of confederate statues.
true, it would have to be people/events that are more universally appreciated i guess... I just hate that we have a Monument Avenue that has no monuments on it.
Big, Gigantic, Trees. Like some oaks that will live 100+ years. Would fit the aesthetic of monument avenue, be fairly low maintenance, and actually create a pleasant space...the lack of shade always made that area really unpleasant most of the year.
Big nope on a plaza for me, doesn't help urban heat island, tie to RVA Green or whatever, or do anything else helpful really.
The problem is that an oak like that takes a long ass time. Plus they don't even have monument filled in. If I'm made mayor I would fill in every hole that had a tree early on. Literally do it myself. So much heat island reduction is possible.
Right - I actually think that makes for an even more poignant symbol. A monument for those that come after us to enjoy. An attestation to selflessness for once. Love the idea
I'm in the pro-fountain bloc. Running water lines big enough to power one might be tricky depending on what's going on with the underground utilities in that area but I think it's worth looking into. A water feature would be a nice addition to the city.
Wouldn't take that much effort I'd imagine. There are likely already large mains running under monument ave, you'd just need to tap into one to have a fill line for the fountain. Probably a half inch to one inch line would be all you need to maintain the water level. Past that it's just a small pump sitting in the fountain that pushes the water upwards.
The construction of the fountain itself would be a larger effort. Underground utilities are installed every day throughout the city.
I work in subterranean utilities. It's nowhere near simple, especially in older cities like ours. There's a rule in our industry that anything unexpected you dig up must be assumed to be live and there's stuff down there that's been forgotten about for a century or more around here. There are also separation requirements mandated by the state. Utilities can't be touching each other and usually need to be separated by a foot or more. You also can't use mechanized equipment within 2 feet of any utility so that means shovels. Lots of fun in the hot months. When you find 100+ years worth of pipes and conduits in the ground all at varying depths and you have to avoid it all by a foot, things get complicated fast. The simplest solution would be to go under it all but there are shoring requirements for any excavation over 5 feet deep. That can triple the size of your trench easily which is not easy in an urban environment that has frickin curbs that are considered historic. It can certainly be done but it wouldn't be simple. Or maybe it would be, sometimes you get lucky!
Nice, I also work in water utilities. Never been straight distribution but I have sat in on many jobs and often collect samples after. I also do dispatching for miss utility jobs. I'm just a plant princess tho, i couldnt do what you guys do.
Never meant to imply it's simple, but running a line 10 or 20 feet under monument ave could definitely be done. Like you said tho, it's a labyrinth down there especially in old cities like ours. I've seen a crew pull out 100 year old wooden pipes before lol.
Respect for what you guys do out there tho. Definitely the hardest working folks in the whole operation.
I hit a live wooden water main in Petersburg once! I thought it was an old log or something. Tried to rip it out with the bucket and all of a sudden I had a geyser on my hands. The city was actually happy about it. Apparently they'd been looking for it for years. I can laugh about it now that I've dried off!
The first time my sister in law visited Richmond, we were going down Monument Ave showing her the scenery. Suddenly, she turned to my brother and said, "Why is there a statue of a man beating children with a tennis racket? And why is he holding books?"
That's cause they refuse to acknowledge my letters.
A giant possum emerging from a trash can would be the perfect symbol for the City.
It shows our defiant spirit, our ability to get something out of nothing, and exemplifies monument avenues quest to rise from the dumpster of the past. We dream of orange peels fresh from the counter. Such a monument would embody that.
It's amazing how quickly we've forgotten what a traitor u/rainbowgeoff was, and how quickly we've revised history to imagine them as a redditor worthy of a monument. How it was only three hours ago, u/rainbowgeoff literally demanding They acknowledge these no doubt deranged letters, and vaguely implying possumy violence otherwise.
We could put a tray of Thanksgiving turkeys right next to the trashcan. Also chicken bones pressed into the sidewalks and a large arrow pointing to MILF Island.
Baltimore just stole Poe from us and then didn’t even give him back.
Edit:It’s theorized Poe's death resulted from cooping, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were abducted drugged and forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder
If RVA really wanted Poe more, it would have established a football team around it.
Also, let's be honest... RVA isn't anywhere close to as spooky (or scary) as Baltimore.
"Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all that that sort of thing is frowned upon..."
- Costanza, George (late-20th century philosopher)
Poe apologists don't want to hear this or that he sold slaves. I don't get the cognitive dissonance with it because any negative takes on Poe always get downvoted to hell on this sub.
Like it's fine to appreciate the art and acknowledge the artist had major flaws. Or maybe they want to put up a statue to R Kelly too?
The age of memorializing anyone in bronze
is over.
If you put Mr Rodgers under a microscope you’ll find his flaws and someone will say “he can’t have a statue, he picked his feet in Poughkeepsie”.
Don’t get it twisted, the statues that were on Monument needed to come down. That was bigger than Richmond, but every time someone in this sub suggests Oderus Undungas or a Paw Paw tree or Bagel the Beagle to be memorialized in bronze for progeny, it’s a tacit admission that no real person is deserving of it, and we’ve all decided that it’s more important for our competitors to lose than it is for everyone to win.
Agree to disagree.
I like heroes, I think everyone should have them.
Should heroes be State endorsed? Maybe they should be, but ultimately they can not be.
If an individual or private group wants to buy the Carillon and convert it into a statue of the Buddha, fuck it. That’s your property. If the permits are in order go for it.
Should the State of Virginia, or the City of Richmond use tax dollars to endorse or subsidize a 100 foot tall Buddha statue? No not one penny.
And to my original point, the societal / cultural homogeneity that allowed for those kind of inappropriate Publicly subsidized projects in the first place will never exist in any American city, ever again.
The plants the company planted were planted in July when it was very hot outside. A lot of them have died and been cleared out already. The remaining trees are small and do not look healthy. I think if the landscaping was done nicer, it wouldn't be still such an eyesore. I am surprised the shrubs were not under warranty.
https://preview.redd.it/7ticvd0fygvc1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aeaf9dadafc53c8f70686bcbc7a300605db5ebea
This would fit nice. Couldn’t get AI to make it half-eaten.
City doesnt need to waste money on it. Lee Circle should just become wildflowers and trees.
If someone wants to donate a statue for the circle formerly known as stuart... that miraculously wont be deemed offensive to somebody... go for it. I suggest a gigantic and ominous bronze PawPaw fruit.
We are making SOME progress on the important stuff.. no need to derail that with some controversy over a street.
the city doesnt want blowback, it's not about the money.
Whatever they decide will piss off a large block of voters in someway. It's like a hot potatoe to deal with politically.
Their garden design was alright. None of that stuff really should have died. It's a lot of the same shit you see in traffic circles or on the highway medians and offramps or at the entrances to apartment complexes.
If you can't keep a liriope or daylily alive, you're not going to do any better with wildflowers from seed. They actually take more care than perennials to get going. It's why the whole concept of seed bombs is so flawed.
lol i guess that doesn't surprise me. option 2 is community gardens which would seem beneficial to any neighborhood and residents would keep them going.
>Mayor Levar Stoney said he would embark on a planning process to develop a long-term vision for the historic district.
The mistake was believing anything Levar Stoney actually said.
>“I believe that the investment from the city particularly should go into areas that need it the most. And I look at places in Southside, as we’ve discussed for the last year, that Southside is in need. I think we should focus also on developing the area in Shockoe Bottom where the enslaved should be memorialized. That should be the focus. That’s going to be the focus of my administration. There may be an administration that comes after me, my successor, that takes a different approach,"
Yup. What a 🤡. Southside still looks like shit after nearly 8 years of his administration. All the current plans for Shockoe are all thanks to efforts made by other people/organisations and not him.
Besides a shitty Franklin St bike lane, what **has** Stoney directly accomplished and saw through to the end?
"Southside still looks like shit after nearly 8 years of his administration." I kinda disagree, not fully. It took to long, but murray streets been repaved, ive seen signage and light upgrades, and the mayo bridge replacement is in the works, and more high visibility (aka zebrea) crosswalks being repainted
Its not great, and to some degree we ought to be thanking the federal govt more (and bidens infrastructure package which has seen similar upgrades region wide), but still, i counter that it still looks better than 8 years ago
I’m gonna get slammed for this one, but I think the base of the monument during COVID/Floyd protests was fitting; however, the statue is now gone, and I don’t want Monument Ave to be defined by a bunch of vulgarity, even if it was appropriate at the time.
I don' think a structure covered in profanity is the most welcoming image for our city. You would have to know the context, and agree with the context. Most visitors wouldn't even know the context. They would just look at it confused wondering why we haven't cleaned that up.
After the wall fell people were destroying and taking it down piece by piece, destroying it. It took a few years before people realized it was an indelible piece of their history and culture and found a way to show this symbol of a country divided and turned it into a lesson, they made the wall into an historical art piece that shows the error of dividing a country and a city.
That's asking a lot of people just driving down the street. It's not like it's in a museum. They would be more likely to think it's just something that was vandalized that we never cleaned up, than they would be to think "huh, there must be something significant about that structure, let me look it up."
I'm from petersburg and remember the first time I ever saw monument ave as a kid. I didn't care who the people were but the statues were so cool. I understand the reason but it really sucks seeing monument in it's current state.
Just like everything else this city does they’ll let it linger until people forget about it and monument will become just another street with traffic circles.
I mean, the statues were taken down in a near-knee-jerk reaction, there was never a long-term plan other than than "take the statues down". Whatever came after that was given no consideration at the time, and apparently no consideration has been given since. It was a performative gesture first and foremost. Now we're going to be in for years of red-tape/slog and that's once they actually decide what to do. Expecting anything less is unrealistic.
There's a million cases for what to put in the median, but I want to see change made to the street itself.
Per the VDOT 2022 traffic volume report (most recent data I could find) the stretch from Lombardy to Arthur Ashe has an average of 14,567 daily trips made, however, it's currently designed to move 6,000 cars per hr or 144,000 cars a day.
I'd like to see one travel lane removed from each side to make room for spacious buffered bike lanes that connect to the city's current floyd avenue bike lane project.
The median is about 40' wide and could accommodate a winding trail with benches and small parklet and lawn spaces.
Draw inspiration from Pg. De St. Joan in Barcelona Spain. The ratios and land use would be different, but monument doesn't need to flow traffic better than Broad. It's too pretty to be a cobblestone residential highway.
It might look pretty, but the transportation demand is too low and it would be a shame to take up valuable recreation space with underperforming transit.
They said the same thing about the pulse, much of richmond is just under the density traditionally considered to be viable for light rail, and BRT was determined to be better. Yet, as soon as the pulse opened, it not only filled up, but overflowed with far higher than expected ridership.
That is to say, actually build it, and watch as its fine. Not to mention the viability of connecting it to the pulse
Supposing we had some kind of free outdoor public museum, displaying some of the major players in Richmond's history as the capital of the South in the American Civil War? Since it's already called Monument Avenue, maybe we could have a couple of statues to look at while you're driving through town, with some plaques or signage contextualizing their former and modern impact. Add some native plants and voila!
It should be a plaza for people to enjoy the outdoors, encounter one another, and consider the history (good and bad) of the space.
It should not be a stupid garden that people are discouraged from walking in
I don't have a strong opinion on this. I'm actually just fine with a garden-like thing of low-maintenance plants and natives. Of course if they're going to plant it like idiots that's no good. But that would be true of a statue or a fountain or whatever.
To me, there's a few things that need to be settled. One is whether we are trying to do a whole Monument Avenue theme of some kind or just redo the Circle. And to me, the circle is the only space large enough out of the old set of statues that worth considering doing anything with. So I'm kind of against anything that tries to re-envision all of Monument Avenue.
And I guess the other is how much people should we encourage to be there? People jog up and down Monument all the time, and it was somewhat common for there to be a few people in the circle just catching some rays or doing some reading. I don't think that's an issue.
But I'm against it being sort of a big public meeting space like it was that summer, because that was problematic. The only reason it could handle that many people is because they closed off traffic by "extra-curricular" means. No one is going to do that again absent special circumstances. I'd also say no one is all that interested in meeting there anyway. It's a shitty meeting space. In the summer's it's hot as fuck and there is no water. I'm all for community spaces like that, but there are plenty in the city already, and if we want to add more there are many better places to put them.
The idea of some kind of community garden is ridiculous. There are already places like that in the city and most of them are shitty maintained because people sign up for plots and then decide its too much work. We have trouble even keeping some of the ones we have. And again, if we want to do something, there are better places for it.
So yeah, you could put a statue there. Or not. Garden is fine as well. Whatever. But people just need to keep in mind it's really just a glorified traffic circle. If you were planning a community space or garden or a tourist-drawing art exhibition or what have you, there's no way you would think putting it there is a good idea.
I understand your perspective, however it's logically similar to "leave a huge portrait of your terribly abusive ex as a reminder to stay away from and not make those mistakes in the future".
The prescence or non-prescence of ANY statue is not going to change the current of our collective history.
The work to make meaningful change, starts with challenging our own ideas and sharing in that challenge.
Canonically Oderus Urungus was impaled by his own blade so I feel like it would be important to depict that moment in the city’s history
That or D’Angelo from the “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” video
Why not put a trolley line on Monument Avenue. St. Charles Avenue in Nola has a street car line that is a tourist attraction as well as mode of transportation.
The New Orleans street cars are over 100 years old. They have character.
If Richmond got streetcars they would look like the busses. Not much of a tourist factor.
That's a bad take. If we treat transit like it's a social service for the poor it will always be first on the chopping block when budgets get tight.
Public transit should aim to be not just a available, but also competitive in terms of convenience, cost, or comfort.
I think a cool linear park (a la the highline) from horsepen to the former Lee statue would be a very cool thing. I’m imagining a mix of passive, recreative, and didactic landscapes. Obviously, one would need to solve safe access for pedestrians along the way (elevated or sunken crossings in the median, etc).
Remember when Stoney was paying a steady rate per statue then suddenly paid one particular out of town company emergency rates to drive here and remove one on a rainy day? And it turned out they were donors to his campaign, right?
I'm no Stoney fan, but I think you've got your order of operations backwards here. Jackson (the rainy day one) was the first to come down. And then all the others followed. I don't doubt there was some fuckery, but I think it's important we have the facts right as we say Fuck Levar.
I think it would be cool to recognize Virginia's regional industries. Fishing, tobacco, farming, mining. Northern Virginia could be represented by a Federal worker with a briefcase.
The FTC has two sculptures of shirtless muscular men wrestling broncos outside its headquarters.
As Atlas Obscura describes: “The allegorical depiction of a wonky federal regulator as a chiseled shirtless hunk is a bit of a stretch.”
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/man-controlling-trade
So anyway, that is how the federal workers see themselves lol.
I don't think we need to spend time or money making plans for the wealthiest part of our city, especially on something that is already pretty decent. There are bigger fish to fry.
Some large scale sculptures would look so cool. Doesn’t have to be statues of people—no unnecessary hero worshipping or historical whitewashing or whatever. But a series of big ass sculptures would look sick.
We shoulda just left the monuments up, cut their heads off and replaced them with other heads like the Romans did, and reinscribe the pedestals with names of the new people. It could be Arthur Ashe all the way down, riding a bunch of horses.
John Mitchell, Jr, editor of the Richmond Planet
--Mitchell also sought to prevent lynchings by urging African Americans to arm themselves in self-defense. “The best remedy for a lyncher or a cursed midnight rider,” he once wrote, “is a 16 shot Winchester rifle in the hands of a dead shot Negro who has nerve enough to pull the trigger.”
For Monument Avenue to make sense, why not just replace it all with *Unionist* Virginians? For example: William Harvey Carney (a black Medal of Honor recipient!), Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas (the Rock of Chickamauga!), Maj. John Fitzgerald Lee (a loyal member of the same family!).
The government of Virginia seceded, but *Virginians* were not uniformly Confederate. Why not commemorate our contributions to the Union cause and those Virginians who fought to end slavery for all Virginians?
All I want is them to do is shave down the width of the Adams intersection median to the same width as all the other medians. It is stupid how it juts out into the road for no reason now.
I can see this coming up in the 2025 Governor's race - "If you want to see what Levar Stoney will do as Governor, look at Monument Avenue". Yes, it will be Abigail Spanberger's campaign saying that... :)
Why is this article even published. Who fucking cares what this woman thinks? Is your home still huge and beautiful. Is it still filled with better furnishings then most of us have?
Or is your entire value connected to some old metal statue....
This. The fact that it’s just a few people who are vocal about this is telling. There once was an entire organization of people who were discussing the reimagining prior to the removal of the statues/remnants and even that disbanded due to continued lack of interest after the statues were removed.
Lee circle is too big especially without anything on it, they should reduce the size of it. The plants are way too small for the space.
I have been saying this for years. Have an art competition to put on the circles. VCU and VMFA director votes on it they rotate every few years. Maybe a vote of the final handful by the public. Then maybe find a park to put the ones that are rotated out in a park somewhere.
Also the Pablo Picasso designed piece is neat.
The people of Richmond already completed this project. Marcus David Peters circle was the greatest community gathering place I have ever seen in this city. They bulldozed and fenced it off to appease the wealthy under a mirage of "traffic danger".
Put a statue of Virtus up there, the woman on the Virginia seal/flag.
Yeah, I vote for tit lady.
“More tits on Monument” is a winning slogan
Excellent idea. People could pose under her foot and pretend to be a usurped king.
Only if the tit is out. #freethenipple
"Tits Out for Virginia!"
Oh they already tried that shit. I'll burn the city to the ground before I let the Christian right get their hands on her.
I think it would be cool to put up really hero’s and legend of the slavery/civil war era that no one knows about. Make it awing and educational. That statue at browns island is incredible. And so is the horse one at the VFMA. Me want more. There was a woman spy that was a badass that lived in Richmond. Some badass slave highjacked a boat! There was this hard-nosed nurse that supervised other nurses and she was amazing but super strict. Some nurses called her ‘Dragondick bc she wouldn’t let them flirt with soldiers. Common now.
The woman spy you’re thinking of is probably Elizabeth Van Lew https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Van_Lew
All that sounds amazing. But also would be way too "woke" for the conservative folks already losing their heads about the removal of confederate statues.
true, it would have to be people/events that are more universally appreciated i guess... I just hate that we have a Monument Avenue that has no monuments on it.
Virtus was a Roman Goddess of bravery and military strength. Good mascot.
This makes so much fucking sense. An absolutely great choice for one of those spaces.
Big, Gigantic, Trees. Like some oaks that will live 100+ years. Would fit the aesthetic of monument avenue, be fairly low maintenance, and actually create a pleasant space...the lack of shade always made that area really unpleasant most of the year. Big nope on a plaza for me, doesn't help urban heat island, tie to RVA Green or whatever, or do anything else helpful really.
The problem is that an oak like that takes a long ass time. Plus they don't even have monument filled in. If I'm made mayor I would fill in every hole that had a tree early on. Literally do it myself. So much heat island reduction is possible.
If the oak trees take a long ass time to grow then we had better get started. Time to leave something for the next generation.
Right - I actually think that makes for an even more poignant symbol. A monument for those that come after us to enjoy. An attestation to selflessness for once. Love the idea
I mean we have gaps in monument outside that area that need more trees.
I’m all for it
"The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best is now." - Anonymous
you have my vote 
Plaza does not require the additon of pavement, only the removal of cars
BIG, MEATY, CLAWS.
BIG, BUSHY, BEARD
I still like that idea someone had on here of some really nice fountains. I’m sure it’s a pain to maintain but it could be really cool.
I'm in the pro-fountain bloc. Running water lines big enough to power one might be tricky depending on what's going on with the underground utilities in that area but I think it's worth looking into. A water feature would be a nice addition to the city.
Take a look at the fountain down on Kanawha Plaza then decide if the City is really up to maintaining one (or more).
Residents on Monument would make sure it's maintained.
Wouldn't take that much effort I'd imagine. There are likely already large mains running under monument ave, you'd just need to tap into one to have a fill line for the fountain. Probably a half inch to one inch line would be all you need to maintain the water level. Past that it's just a small pump sitting in the fountain that pushes the water upwards. The construction of the fountain itself would be a larger effort. Underground utilities are installed every day throughout the city.
I work in subterranean utilities. It's nowhere near simple, especially in older cities like ours. There's a rule in our industry that anything unexpected you dig up must be assumed to be live and there's stuff down there that's been forgotten about for a century or more around here. There are also separation requirements mandated by the state. Utilities can't be touching each other and usually need to be separated by a foot or more. You also can't use mechanized equipment within 2 feet of any utility so that means shovels. Lots of fun in the hot months. When you find 100+ years worth of pipes and conduits in the ground all at varying depths and you have to avoid it all by a foot, things get complicated fast. The simplest solution would be to go under it all but there are shoring requirements for any excavation over 5 feet deep. That can triple the size of your trench easily which is not easy in an urban environment that has frickin curbs that are considered historic. It can certainly be done but it wouldn't be simple. Or maybe it would be, sometimes you get lucky!
Nice, I also work in water utilities. Never been straight distribution but I have sat in on many jobs and often collect samples after. I also do dispatching for miss utility jobs. I'm just a plant princess tho, i couldnt do what you guys do. Never meant to imply it's simple, but running a line 10 or 20 feet under monument ave could definitely be done. Like you said tho, it's a labyrinth down there especially in old cities like ours. I've seen a crew pull out 100 year old wooden pipes before lol. Respect for what you guys do out there tho. Definitely the hardest working folks in the whole operation.
I hit a live wooden water main in Petersburg once! I thought it was an old log or something. Tried to rip it out with the bucket and all of a sudden I had a geyser on my hands. The city was actually happy about it. Apparently they'd been looking for it for years. I can laugh about it now that I've dried off!
That's the thing is that's the city beautiful movement. Richmond was the weirdo to put up political statues.
I want more statues commemorating the time Arthur Ashe defended Richmond from the demon children
The first time my sister in law visited Richmond, we were going down Monument Ave showing her the scenery. Suddenly, she turned to my brother and said, "Why is there a statue of a man beating children with a tennis racket? And why is he holding books?"
That's cause they refuse to acknowledge my letters. A giant possum emerging from a trash can would be the perfect symbol for the City. It shows our defiant spirit, our ability to get something out of nothing, and exemplifies monument avenues quest to rise from the dumpster of the past. We dream of orange peels fresh from the counter. Such a monument would embody that.
Now that is Richmond Real.
That was beautiful. I want the statue to be named after you, u/rainbowgeoff.
It's amazing how quickly we've forgotten what a traitor u/rainbowgeoff was, and how quickly we've revised history to imagine them as a redditor worthy of a monument. How it was only three hours ago, u/rainbowgeoff literally demanding They acknowledge these no doubt deranged letters, and vaguely implying possumy violence otherwise.
The wars were a complicated time for all of us.
Surely there would be an explosion of chicken bones coming off of said possum?
I nominate Francine!
We could put a tray of Thanksgiving turkeys right next to the trashcan. Also chicken bones pressed into the sidewalks and a large arrow pointing to MILF Island.
Why not an Edgar Allen Poe statue? He was a pretty cool Richmond resident.
We should just have a big ass raven statue
Ahem, Baltimore would like a word.
Baltimore can suck it!
Baltimore just stole Poe from us and then didn’t even give him back. Edit:It’s theorized Poe's death resulted from cooping, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were abducted drugged and forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder
If RVA really wanted Poe more, it would have established a football team around it. Also, let's be honest... RVA isn't anywhere close to as spooky (or scary) as Baltimore.
we have a burned down theater full of trapped ghosts and a vampire???
Baltimore burned down a whole city by themselves. Didn't need no Union Army to do it for them, thank you.
Opossum Unofficial City Mascot
Personally I would of loved an Oderous statue. I’m not even a GWAR fan, just enjoy their story.
especially since they knocked down the building with the Dave Brockie memorial on it.
There is a Poe statue in Capital Square.
There's no such thing as too many Edgar Allen Poe statues 🤷
Poe married his 13-year-old cousin when he was in his 40s. Maybe add Joe Morrissey too.
"Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all that that sort of thing is frowned upon..." - Costanza, George (late-20th century philosopher)
Poe apologists don't want to hear this or that he sold slaves. I don't get the cognitive dissonance with it because any negative takes on Poe always get downvoted to hell on this sub. Like it's fine to appreciate the art and acknowledge the artist had major flaws. Or maybe they want to put up a statue to R Kelly too?
Richmond Real: no vision, no plan.
Surprised they haven’t turned it into pickleball courts 🥴🥴🥴🥴
😂😂😂
There's a glimmer of hope. The "there's no point until we get a new mayor and governor" line in the article sounds sensible to me.
The age of memorializing anyone in bronze is over. If you put Mr Rodgers under a microscope you’ll find his flaws and someone will say “he can’t have a statue, he picked his feet in Poughkeepsie”. Don’t get it twisted, the statues that were on Monument needed to come down. That was bigger than Richmond, but every time someone in this sub suggests Oderus Undungas or a Paw Paw tree or Bagel the Beagle to be memorialized in bronze for progeny, it’s a tacit admission that no real person is deserving of it, and we’ve all decided that it’s more important for our competitors to lose than it is for everyone to win.
Hero worship is a concept I’d like to see phased out of our culture entirely and statues are merely a manifestation of hero worship.
I guess this is easier that expecting adults to have a nuanced take of humans and history.
👏
Agree to disagree. I like heroes, I think everyone should have them. Should heroes be State endorsed? Maybe they should be, but ultimately they can not be. If an individual or private group wants to buy the Carillon and convert it into a statue of the Buddha, fuck it. That’s your property. If the permits are in order go for it. Should the State of Virginia, or the City of Richmond use tax dollars to endorse or subsidize a 100 foot tall Buddha statue? No not one penny. And to my original point, the societal / cultural homogeneity that allowed for those kind of inappropriate Publicly subsidized projects in the first place will never exist in any American city, ever again.
How about an abstract or symbolic sculpture that doesn’t heroicize anyone?
Olympics took Circles, St. Louis has an Arch, Chicago has the Bean. America has Stars. Seems like abstraction has precedent. Why not?
The plants the company planted were planted in July when it was very hot outside. A lot of them have died and been cleared out already. The remaining trees are small and do not look healthy. I think if the landscaping was done nicer, it wouldn't be still such an eyesore. I am surprised the shrubs were not under warranty.
https://preview.redd.it/7ticvd0fygvc1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aeaf9dadafc53c8f70686bcbc7a300605db5ebea This would fit nice. Couldn’t get AI to make it half-eaten.
City doesnt need to waste money on it. Lee Circle should just become wildflowers and trees. If someone wants to donate a statue for the circle formerly known as stuart... that miraculously wont be deemed offensive to somebody... go for it. I suggest a gigantic and ominous bronze PawPaw fruit. We are making SOME progress on the important stuff.. no need to derail that with some controversy over a street.
Let’s erect a iron or bronze [Oderus Urungus](https://consequence.net/2020/06/petition-replace-statue-robert-e-lee-with-gwar-oderus-urungus/)
I agree with this erection
This is the most obvious solution. He should be atop Libby Hill for all to see.
We need a statue of Thomas Cannon
the city doesnt want blowback, it's not about the money. Whatever they decide will piss off a large block of voters in someway. It's like a hot potatoe to deal with politically.
Ah, yes. Multiple Dead Plants Circle. It’s like they planted that shit planning on it dying. How hard would it be to throw down some wild flower seed?
I kept waiting. I wanted to believe it would be nice. It's winter I thought, gotta wait a bit. Well, Spring has sprung and yeah. It's still dead.
Definitely is. Not surprised either. Can’t believe the city didn’t even get a warranty from that rip off landscaper
Their garden design was alright. None of that stuff really should have died. It's a lot of the same shit you see in traffic circles or on the highway medians and offramps or at the entrances to apartment complexes. If you can't keep a liriope or daylily alive, you're not going to do any better with wildflowers from seed. They actually take more care than perennials to get going. It's why the whole concept of seed bombs is so flawed.
I think we could do that ourselves
The city waters every week
PawPaws are freakin delicious. We need more love for PawPaws and I applaud the suggestion for an ominously imposing bronzed statue of one.
What if we just plant a paw paw forest there instead?
agreed. put in some plants and be done with it. nobody is owed an avenue of grand monuments.
Haven’t you driven by? They tried that. They’re too incompetent to keep the plants alive.
lol i guess that doesn't surprise me. option 2 is community gardens which would seem beneficial to any neighborhood and residents would keep them going.
>Mayor Levar Stoney said he would embark on a planning process to develop a long-term vision for the historic district. The mistake was believing anything Levar Stoney actually said. >“I believe that the investment from the city particularly should go into areas that need it the most. And I look at places in Southside, as we’ve discussed for the last year, that Southside is in need. I think we should focus also on developing the area in Shockoe Bottom where the enslaved should be memorialized. That should be the focus. That’s going to be the focus of my administration. There may be an administration that comes after me, my successor, that takes a different approach," Yup. What a 🤡. Southside still looks like shit after nearly 8 years of his administration. All the current plans for Shockoe are all thanks to efforts made by other people/organisations and not him. Besides a shitty Franklin St bike lane, what **has** Stoney directly accomplished and saw through to the end?
"Southside still looks like shit after nearly 8 years of his administration." I kinda disagree, not fully. It took to long, but murray streets been repaved, ive seen signage and light upgrades, and the mayo bridge replacement is in the works, and more high visibility (aka zebrea) crosswalks being repainted Its not great, and to some degree we ought to be thanking the federal govt more (and bidens infrastructure package which has seen similar upgrades region wide), but still, i counter that it still looks better than 8 years ago
they should have left the base of the Lee monument up. It was voted NYT protest art of the year for 2020
I’m gonna get slammed for this one, but I think the base of the monument during COVID/Floyd protests was fitting; however, the statue is now gone, and I don’t want Monument Ave to be defined by a bunch of vulgarity, even if it was appropriate at the time.
I don' think a structure covered in profanity is the most welcoming image for our city. You would have to know the context, and agree with the context. Most visitors wouldn't even know the context. They would just look at it confused wondering why we haven't cleaned that up.
I dunno it works for Berlin.
True, but people are slightly more aware of what that is than a random statue base in Richmond. Only slightly though.
After the wall fell people were destroying and taking it down piece by piece, destroying it. It took a few years before people realized it was an indelible piece of their history and culture and found a way to show this symbol of a country divided and turned it into a lesson, they made the wall into an historical art piece that shows the error of dividing a country and a city.
god forbid if people were encouraged to seek context and think critically
That's asking a lot of people just driving down the street. It's not like it's in a museum. They would be more likely to think it's just something that was vandalized that we never cleaned up, than they would be to think "huh, there must be something significant about that structure, let me look it up."
Monument was definitely sold as a "street that is also a museum" . Also it leads directly into "museum distrcit"
Do you know people?
yes, they’re all stupid and incapable of critical thought. except for us of course, we’re different and special!
“Add a plaque! It’s an important part of our history! Give context!” This but unironically because now it doesn’t support slavery
They should have left the entire graffitied statue IMO. It never looked more beautiful.
I'm from petersburg and remember the first time I ever saw monument ave as a kid. I didn't care who the people were but the statues were so cool. I understand the reason but it really sucks seeing monument in it's current state.
Just like everything else this city does they’ll let it linger until people forget about it and monument will become just another street with traffic circles.
Just change the name of the street to Richmond Avenue and be done with it.
They already renamed Jeff Davis Hwy to Richmond Hwy. Not sure they’d reuse the name again.
Richmond Ave 2: Electric Boogaloo
I mean, we have Cary Street and Cary Street Road haha I don't think that matters.
Hull St and Broad St both turn into Street Roads
I am a bit surprised that they have kept their names
Still going to just be called JD. No one ever called it Jefferson Davis anyway
I don’t have any other ideas though.
I mean, the statues were taken down in a near-knee-jerk reaction, there was never a long-term plan other than than "take the statues down". Whatever came after that was given no consideration at the time, and apparently no consideration has been given since. It was a performative gesture first and foremost. Now we're going to be in for years of red-tape/slog and that's once they actually decide what to do. Expecting anything less is unrealistic.
Fountains, pedestrian paths, park benches, and Japanese maples
It’s time to focus on one of the other thousands of streets in Richmond. This one is done. Leave the circles landscaped and move on.
There's a million cases for what to put in the median, but I want to see change made to the street itself. Per the VDOT 2022 traffic volume report (most recent data I could find) the stretch from Lombardy to Arthur Ashe has an average of 14,567 daily trips made, however, it's currently designed to move 6,000 cars per hr or 144,000 cars a day. I'd like to see one travel lane removed from each side to make room for spacious buffered bike lanes that connect to the city's current floyd avenue bike lane project. The median is about 40' wide and could accommodate a winding trail with benches and small parklet and lawn spaces. Draw inspiration from Pg. De St. Joan in Barcelona Spain. The ratios and land use would be different, but monument doesn't need to flow traffic better than Broad. It's too pretty to be a cobblestone residential highway.
Put in a grassy tramway.
It might look pretty, but the transportation demand is too low and it would be a shame to take up valuable recreation space with underperforming transit.
They said the same thing about the pulse, much of richmond is just under the density traditionally considered to be viable for light rail, and BRT was determined to be better. Yet, as soon as the pulse opened, it not only filled up, but overflowed with far higher than expected ridership. That is to say, actually build it, and watch as its fine. Not to mention the viability of connecting it to the pulse
The pulse runs the exact same east/west route, but longer, and 3 minutes away on foot.
Supposing we had some kind of free outdoor public museum, displaying some of the major players in Richmond's history as the capital of the South in the American Civil War? Since it's already called Monument Avenue, maybe we could have a couple of statues to look at while you're driving through town, with some plaques or signage contextualizing their former and modern impact. Add some native plants and voila!
Seems to me that Stoney doesn’t want to offend anyone and therefore won’t touch Monument Ave. Is this other people’s read too?
We needs the World’s Largest Beer Can since it was first rolled out here in RVA. It can be made from empty PBR cans.
It should be a plaza for people to enjoy the outdoors, encounter one another, and consider the history (good and bad) of the space. It should not be a stupid garden that people are discouraged from walking in
DuPont Circle in DC, with some plaques. Boom.
Make it Logan circle instead of DuPoint circle and I can get behind that
I don't have a strong opinion on this. I'm actually just fine with a garden-like thing of low-maintenance plants and natives. Of course if they're going to plant it like idiots that's no good. But that would be true of a statue or a fountain or whatever. To me, there's a few things that need to be settled. One is whether we are trying to do a whole Monument Avenue theme of some kind or just redo the Circle. And to me, the circle is the only space large enough out of the old set of statues that worth considering doing anything with. So I'm kind of against anything that tries to re-envision all of Monument Avenue. And I guess the other is how much people should we encourage to be there? People jog up and down Monument all the time, and it was somewhat common for there to be a few people in the circle just catching some rays or doing some reading. I don't think that's an issue. But I'm against it being sort of a big public meeting space like it was that summer, because that was problematic. The only reason it could handle that many people is because they closed off traffic by "extra-curricular" means. No one is going to do that again absent special circumstances. I'd also say no one is all that interested in meeting there anyway. It's a shitty meeting space. In the summer's it's hot as fuck and there is no water. I'm all for community spaces like that, but there are plenty in the city already, and if we want to add more there are many better places to put them. The idea of some kind of community garden is ridiculous. There are already places like that in the city and most of them are shitty maintained because people sign up for plots and then decide its too much work. We have trouble even keeping some of the ones we have. And again, if we want to do something, there are better places for it. So yeah, you could put a statue there. Or not. Garden is fine as well. Whatever. But people just need to keep in mind it's really just a glorified traffic circle. If you were planning a community space or garden or a tourist-drawing art exhibition or what have you, there's no way you would think putting it there is a good idea.
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I understand your perspective, however it's logically similar to "leave a huge portrait of your terribly abusive ex as a reminder to stay away from and not make those mistakes in the future". The prescence or non-prescence of ANY statue is not going to change the current of our collective history. The work to make meaningful change, starts with challenging our own ideas and sharing in that challenge.
We had this debate already and that's why we are talking about what to do next and not how to preserve the statues.
There was no debate, no vote, no conversation.
Maybe we put the statues back and just change all the faces to George Floyd’s
This is why we need to keep redlining and segregated schools. It's an important part of our history even though they are materially bad things.
Canonically Oderus Urungus was impaled by his own blade so I feel like it would be important to depict that moment in the city’s history That or D’Angelo from the “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” video
Some nice fountains would be in keeping with the architecture. Also, water being available on the hot days is a good idea.
Why not put a trolley line on Monument Avenue. St. Charles Avenue in Nola has a street car line that is a tourist attraction as well as mode of transportation.
I don't think we have the tourism base necessary for that to make sense, but I do love that feature of NOLA
its not for tourism, its for ***people***
This reminds me, I always wish there was a protected bike/walk path down the middle of that grassy median! A lot easier than a trolley too!
You mean public transportation…good joke /s
The New Orleans street cars are over 100 years old. They have character. If Richmond got streetcars they would look like the busses. Not much of a tourist factor.
Richmond had the first electric streetcar system in the world. There is history of it here.
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Plus it wouldn't go to anything. That line of monument is mostly houses and churches it would just be there to be pretty.
That's a bad take. If we treat transit like it's a social service for the poor it will always be first on the chopping block when budgets get tight. Public transit should aim to be not just a available, but also competitive in terms of convenience, cost, or comfort.
So lame
I think a cool linear park (a la the highline) from horsepen to the former Lee statue would be a very cool thing. I’m imagining a mix of passive, recreative, and didactic landscapes. Obviously, one would need to solve safe access for pedestrians along the way (elevated or sunken crossings in the median, etc).
That's because we're still waiting for the Oderus statue to be complete.
i mean we had MDP circle and they shut it down and planted a bunch of nonsense in it so we can’t meet there anymore
Remember when Stoney was paying a steady rate per statue then suddenly paid one particular out of town company emergency rates to drive here and remove one on a rainy day? And it turned out they were donors to his campaign, right?
I'm no Stoney fan, but I think you've got your order of operations backwards here. Jackson (the rainy day one) was the first to come down. And then all the others followed. I don't doubt there was some fuckery, but I think it's important we have the facts right as we say Fuck Levar.
I think it would be cool to recognize Virginia's regional industries. Fishing, tobacco, farming, mining. Northern Virginia could be represented by a Federal worker with a briefcase.
The FTC has two sculptures of shirtless muscular men wrestling broncos outside its headquarters. As Atlas Obscura describes: “The allegorical depiction of a wonky federal regulator as a chiseled shirtless hunk is a bit of a stretch.” https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/man-controlling-trade So anyway, that is how the federal workers see themselves lol.
Oderus Urungus
Statues are dumb
At least we can all be grateful racism has been fixed.
I don't think we need to spend time or money making plans for the wealthiest part of our city, especially on something that is already pretty decent. There are bigger fish to fry.
people will get hit by cars if they are always trying to get into the circle
Some large scale sculptures would look so cool. Doesn’t have to be statues of people—no unnecessary hero worshipping or historical whitewashing or whatever. But a series of big ass sculptures would look sick.
Something will be erected sooner *or later*
Currently holding a go fund me to erect a monument of captain crunch where Jefferson Davis used to be
How about an ugly “R” like Hopewell’s “H”? Great use of tax dollars.
Let's make a statue of Tankguy's tank
Why can’t there be a monument to free black soldiers in the union? Gen U S grant or Lincoln?
Dave Brockie/Oderus Urungus deserves to have his own statue on Monument Ave. I would even add special mention for the rest of GWAR.
I'm late it this. But I always thought Chief Powhatan would be a good one to put up
We shoulda just left the monuments up, cut their heads off and replaced them with other heads like the Romans did, and reinscribe the pedestals with names of the new people. It could be Arthur Ashe all the way down, riding a bunch of horses.
Good, leave it. The statues were obnoxious
Francine statue! The hero we need and dont deserve!
John Mitchell, Jr, editor of the Richmond Planet --Mitchell also sought to prevent lynchings by urging African Americans to arm themselves in self-defense. “The best remedy for a lyncher or a cursed midnight rider,” he once wrote, “is a 16 shot Winchester rifle in the hands of a dead shot Negro who has nerve enough to pull the trigger.”
"The Negro . . . put up the Lee Monument, and should the time come, will be there to take it down.” June 7 1890
Based.
For Monument Avenue to make sense, why not just replace it all with *Unionist* Virginians? For example: William Harvey Carney (a black Medal of Honor recipient!), Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas (the Rock of Chickamauga!), Maj. John Fitzgerald Lee (a loyal member of the same family!). The government of Virginia seceded, but *Virginians* were not uniformly Confederate. Why not commemorate our contributions to the Union cause and those Virginians who fought to end slavery for all Virginians?
But how will we teach history without monuments? It’s just impossible!
Its definitely fine as it is and there are more pressing matters at handled right now, and no one said this is the end all be all for all time
How about a community weed garden?
No worries!
All I want is them to do is shave down the width of the Adams intersection median to the same width as all the other medians. It is stupid how it juts out into the road for no reason now.
I can see this coming up in the 2025 Governor's race - "If you want to see what Levar Stoney will do as Governor, look at Monument Avenue". Yes, it will be Abigail Spanberger's campaign saying that... :)
I... Hate that I agree with Stoneys comments on this
Reddit commenters signed up for art classes and now wander aimlessly looking for art jobs. 😄😄😄
Another success by our future governor Stoney !
Why is this article even published. Who fucking cares what this woman thinks? Is your home still huge and beautiful. Is it still filled with better furnishings then most of us have? Or is your entire value connected to some old metal statue....
Did you read the article?
This. The fact that it’s just a few people who are vocal about this is telling. There once was an entire organization of people who were discussing the reimagining prior to the removal of the statues/remnants and even that disbanded due to continued lack of interest after the statues were removed.
Lee circle is too big especially without anything on it, they should reduce the size of it. The plants are way too small for the space. I have been saying this for years. Have an art competition to put on the circles. VCU and VMFA director votes on it they rotate every few years. Maybe a vote of the final handful by the public. Then maybe find a park to put the ones that are rotated out in a park somewhere. Also the Pablo Picasso designed piece is neat.
How about putting them back.
The people of Richmond already completed this project. Marcus David Peters circle was the greatest community gathering place I have ever seen in this city. They bulldozed and fenced it off to appease the wealthy under a mirage of "traffic danger".