City Complex & Urban Renewal

The United States Congress passed the Housing Act of 1949, which appropriated federal funds for “slum clearance” and public housing. Subsequent legislation provided support for city planning offices, comprehensive city planning, and constructing public facilities, including hospitals. The Medical College of Virginia (MCV) and the City of Richmond took advantage of these opportunities in the 1950s and 1960s. The MCV aerial photographs document changes within Richmond at a time when concerns about “blight” and urban renewal dominated civil discourse.

In 1946, the Richmond City Planning Commission released a master plan prepared by Harland Bartholomew and Associates. MCV provided input and was protected with the initial recommendations for the various highways bisecting the city. Today’s Interstate 95, 64, Downtown Expressway, and Route 288 all had their genesis in this report.

When work finally began on the new turnpike that would become Interstate 95, the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike Authority required 12 acres of MCV’s landholdings to complete the high-speed highway around the college. The plan also proposed a city civic center. Municipal leaders and planners selected sectors of the downtown area adjacent to MCV for the proposed center. These sectors, with higher percentages of Black residents, were illustrated by maps in the 1946 plan. MCV had no objection to this urban renewal and embarked on a number of projects of their own in the Old Navy Hill neighborhood in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Health Sciences Library’s collection of aerial images documents the changing landscape in this time frame.

In this mid-1950s image, the first phase of “slum clearance” created open spaces used as parking lots by employees of MCV and nearby state and city offices. The open areas would be the future sites of several city government buildings.

Highlighted in orange is the eastern border of the MCV Campus with both the new city hall and coliseum under construction in this aerial image from 1970.

The color version of this 1971 aerial illustrates the footprint of the Richmond City government complex just west of the MCV Campus and marking its western border.

In this view from the northern edge of campus, the completed Coliseum can be seen along with the continuing construction to lower Leight Street and create overpasses on both Seventh and Fifth Streets.

The new Richmond City Hall, highlighted in green, casts a long shadow northward to the depressed plaza in from of the Public Safety Building, the future home of the John Marshall Courts Building. The Public Safety Building cut off through access on East Clay Street when it opened in 1954.