From Porch Swings to Patios: Oral History Project

Interview of Reverend Hall on November 5, 1980.

Although Reverend Hall only arrived in Charlottesville in 1968, he offers extensive comments on what his fellow community members recalled of the urban renewal of the Vinegar Hill area. He says that some people were not compensated well enough for the homes that they lost, but that others' lots improved as a result of the transition from Vinegar Hill to other residences. Hall mentions some of the neighborhoods former Vinegar Hill residents moved to, including Ridge Street, and areas from which white people were moving at the time. He suggests there were long-term and broad effects on those people who were displaced to the low income housing area on Harley Drive, leaving a "stigma" on them educationally, economically, and socially, even, he says, among the church community.

From Porch Swings to Patios: An Oral History of Charlottesville's Neighborhoods Prepared by the Department of Community Planning Advisory Board and students of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1982 - 1984.