![\"Sisters](\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/Rosa-and-Evelyn-Revised.jpg\")
<\/a>Sisters Rosa Fleming (left) and Evelyn Allen (right) have kept their family legacy alive at the 17th Street Market through Shockoe Bottom’s redevelopment. Photo by Garrett Fundakowski.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n FROM THEIR FRUIT AND VEGETABLE STANDS at the 17th Street Market in Shockoe Bottom, sisters Rosa Fleming, 79, and Evelyn Allen, 81, have watched and lived through the roller coaster existence of\u00a0Richmond’s\u00a0“Bottom”\u00a0for 75 years.<\/p>\n Their family has worked these stands as vendors for\u00a0four generations\u2014over half of the 279\u00a0years\u00a0that the market has been in existence. Staring at an old picture of her\u00a0kid\u00a0brother selling produce, Evelyn\u00a0laughed at the way things used to be. Back then,\u00a0\u201cthe community was a family and the market was the middle of it,\u201d\u00a0she says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the market change, people come and go, but we\u2019re always here,\u201d\u00a0adds Rosa.<\/p>\n From Reconstruction through the\u00a01960’s, Shockoe Bottom was the historic and economic heart of Richmond.\u00a0But as industries\u00a0moved on and local merchants left,\u00a0the neighborhood’s\u00a0prosperity collapsed<\/a>.\u00a0Always a danger in this low-lying basin, the threat of flooding kept people from rebuilding.<\/p>\n The $143 million wall\u00a0guards Shockoe Bottom’s development. Photo by\u00a0Garrett Fundakowski.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n In 1994 a\u00a0massive $143 million floodwall<\/a>\u00a0(right) was built\u00a0to bring\u00a0a sense of\u00a0stability to the floodplain neighborhood. \u201cPeople felt safe,\u201d reflects Rosa. \u201cOld warehouses became apartments and restaurants came everywhere. People were coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n Then came\u00a0August 30, 2004.<\/p>\n A category Five storm, Hurricane Gaston,\u00a0assaulted the city with 14 inches of rain in just over an hour. Flooding from rainwater rendered the floodwall useless. Water came rushing into the city\u2019s lowest neighborhood\u00a0from\u00a0the overwhelmed storm drains. Within 30 seconds\u00a0the water rose<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0four\u00a0inches to\u00a0four\u00a0feet, peaking at 27 feet above sea level\u2014the wall kept the water in the neighborhood.\u00a0\u201cIt happened so fast,\u201d remembers Rosa. \u201cWe got our butts out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n Amid $20 million in damages to 50 local businesses,\u00a0over a dozen never reopened<\/a>. \u201cThat really set everything back,\u201d notes Evelyn, shaking her head.<\/p>\n The 17th Street Market today, just as it looked before Gaston. Photo by Garrett Fundakowski.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n The city responded in 2009 with an\u00a0economic revitalization strategy<\/a>\u00a0designed to revamp the storm drainage systems and also bring development to the Bottom.<\/p>\n This plan included redeveloping\u00a017th Street Market into a plaza next to the soon-to-be-rebuilt\u00a0Main Street Train Station<\/a>\u00a0to bring new vibrancy to the neighborhood.\u00a0But the sisters had seen too much over the years to trust the city.<\/p>\n Richmond city council\u00a0wanted to put a baseball stadium in the heart of the Bottom and invest in large businesses in order to drive pure economic growth. Opposition groups had long been fighting for a slavery memorial park and museum in the same area, which is the site of Lumpkin\u2019s slave jail and\u00a0burial ground<\/a>. The stadium plan was abandoned, but the memorials never came and the city continues to push for similar developments.<\/p>\n Richmond\u2019s past is marked by its\u00a0Confederate and slave history, with over 25% of African Americans today\u00a0able to trace their roots<\/a>\u00a0to the slave auction market in Richmond.\u00a0 It is a part of the city, much like the 17th\u00a0Street\u00a0Market.<\/p>\n The 17th Street Market flooded during Hurricane Gaston in 2004. Photo courtesy of Ken Weber.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n Ana Edwards, Chair of the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project,\u00a0explains how important this history is, then voices\u00a0her frustrations. \u201cPeople are finding their interests come last as the city focuses only on money coming in. This\u00a0[development]\u00a0doesn\u2019t help the community. People are priced out of their homes and our history is being wiped out.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosa and Evelyn felt this too.<\/p>\n \u201cChange, change, change. That\u2019s all they talked about,\u00a0but never how it would help us,” sighs Evelyn. The sisters did not budge, however. “If they didn\u2019t work with us, we weren\u2019t going no place.\u201d<\/p>\n The sisters are tough and know how to make themselves heard. Coming from a family of 15 siblings and 67 foster siblings will teach you that. As we speak, Evelyn points out her favorite possession at the market\u2014a wooden plank with a nail protruding from one end she keeps at her stand.<\/p>\n Evelyn proudly shows off the co-developed plans for the new Shockoe Square. Photo by Will Hogge<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n They also had leverage.<\/p>\n The sisters are protected legacies of the Market and could not be removed. The city agreed to grandfather them in to\u00a0the new Shockoe Square<\/a>\u00a0that will be\u00a0completed\u00a0in April of 2017.<\/p>\n Rosa can\u2019t help but smile as she thinks about what the empty lot behind her will become. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be beautiful. There will be a public plaza, trees, outdoor seating at all the restaurants, and the train station will bring more people. Our community is coming back and our history will be front and center.\u201d<\/p>\n The sisters understand how unique their situation is. \u201cWe had the power to make the city work with us. They don\u2019t see communities in their plans, just money, and the rest of Shockoe Bottom is hurting from it,\u201d acknowledges Rosa.<\/p>\n The city struggles to reconcile its past with its future and economic growth with real community development. The defiant sisters showed how development can incorporate both. \u201cI thank God every day that I am able to carry on this legacy and continue to do what I\u2019m doing,\u201d says Rosa.<\/p>\n By Will Hogge<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" FROM THEIR FRUIT AND VEGETABLE STANDS at the 17th Street Market in Shockoe Bottom, sisters Rosa Fleming, 79, and Evelyn Allen, 81, have watched and lived through the roller coaster existence of\u00a0Richmond’s\u00a0“Bottom”\u00a0for 75 years. Their family has worked these stands as vendors for\u00a0four generations\u2014over half of the 279\u00a0years\u00a0that the market has been in existence. Read more about Surviving the Flood<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2064,"featured_media":426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53586],"tags":[52544,21424,52542,27154,52541],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rva-in-transition","tag-17th-street-market","tag-development","tag-flood","tag-shockoe-bottom","tag-transition"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/Sisters-cropped.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-6e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2064"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>