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Here we have a further demonstration, if any were needed, that Building Commissioner Cooper has the tools to do his job, albeit he is too delicate to pick them up and use them:
Afro-American home gone; Murphy Hotel annex going
Tuesday, March 9, 1999
BY GORDON HICKEY
Times-Dispatch Staff WriterTwo downtown Richmond landmarks, one famous and one infamous, are coming down.
The famous old home of the Richmond Afro-American newspaper at Third and Clay streets has been reduced to a pile of rubble.
And the infamous former Murphy Hotel annex at Eighth and Broad streets, known as "the tree building," will soon be demolished.
The Afro building is being cleared to make way for the expansion of the Richmond Convention Center. It was demolished over the weekend.
Mark Strickler, acting director of the city Department of Community Development, said two other buildings also have been razed: the former Miller & Rhoads warehouse and the office building across the street from the Afro building.
Strickler said the Richmond Afro sign was supposed to be donated to the Black History Museum.
But, museum Curator Jon West-Bey said he hasn't seen it. "It was there one day and the next day it was gone."
West-Bey said the building is significant because, "It was the original building where John Mitchell Jr. started the Richmond Planet. . . . He was an important political figure and an important journalism figure."
He called the building "one of the greater landmarks in Jackson Ward."
The paper, founded as the Richmond Planet in 1883, was the oldest continuously published black newspaper in the United States when it went out of business on Feb. 7, 1996.
The Afro was forced to leave its longtime home at Third and Clay streets because of building code violations in 1991.
The property was designated Mitchell Square in honor of the Planet's founder, and is recognized as a national historical journalism site by the Society of Professional Journalists.
"The tree building," so named because of a mulberry growing from a top-floor window, doesn't occupy such a lofty position in Richmond's history.
The vacant, 90-foot, six-story building has been at the center of a dispute between city officials, who have wanted it demolished, and the owner, who said he couldn't afford to tear it down.
It's coming down "because the city demanded it," said Al Cutler, the engineer at Marx Realty of New York City, which owns the building. He wouldn't say how much the company will spend to raze the building.
The city threatened legal action against the company if the building, which has been condemned and ruled unfit for human occupancy, wasn't razed.
"It will be a grass field, a paved parking lot or we'll throw something up there," Cutler said. "We met the city's demand for demolition."
Cutler said Marx would prefer that a tenant move into a new building at the site, but "if we can't line up a tenant, we'll finish it in the city's mode."
That means it will either be open space or a parking lot. But, Cutler also said that if it is left as open space, it will still be privately owned and the company would have to build a fence around it to preclude vandalism and littering.
Cutler said he expects demolition to be done within 90 days of when the permit is issued, which is expected this week.
© 1999, Richmond Newspapers Inc.
Last updated 02/24/02
Please send questions or comments to John Butcher