In the '50s, the markets and shops were leveled by urban planners anticipating the resurgence of downtown. The site became a windblown lot edging the financial district, cowering behind the Granby Street shops. Two years ago, in marched a battalion of dreamers and doers, the planners and the builders.
Downtown rang with the clamor of pile-drivers.
Ripped-up streets created rocky paths. Office workers picked their way around the dirt and the mud. Children gazed at the real-life Tonkas gouging the ground. There stands another cavernous red-brick building, where money will change hands once again, over items as prosaic as peanuts, as decadent as diamonds. Calling the area blighted, the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority demolishes low-income homes and warehouses on 17 acres on the eastern edge of downtown.