Church Hill, RVA
Church Hill is Richmond’s oldest neighborhood. Known for its rich history, historic architecture and vibrant food scene, Church Hill is the site of Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death” speech which brought the state of Virginia into the American Revolution. It’s a place of cobblestone streets, parks with cityscape and riverside views, historic homes and modern restaurants, shops and cafes. Many American cities has a neighborhood they boast as their their “Brooklyn” and for Richmond, that neighborhood is Church Hill. It’s a rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood offering a blend of modern urban living with historic preservation and a strong sense of community. In 2014 Church Hill was named as one of the “Ten Hot Food Neighborhoods Around the U.S.” by Zagat, and in 2015 Redfin included Church Hill in a collection of most walkable neighborhoods. While some areas can be a little iffy, the neighborhood is moving past its recent memory of being a place of gang culture and violent crime, and becoming a place for families and hot yoga.
Church Hill is one of those places described as having “Character.” Fine dining, rustic chic, artsy and pumpkin spicey, eclectic, comfortable, and still almost affordable (though probably not for long). I could continue describing the neighborhood the way every real estate company would on their websites and YouTubes, but I don’t sell houses and I don’t even live there. Instead I’ll describe a recent visit to the area…
We had a day with nothing to do and I wanted to take pictures and walk and eat. “Wanna go to Church Hill?” I asked my partner. “What’s in Church Hill?” she asked. “A lot of old pretty houses, old neighborhood, kinda hipsterlicious, and there’s a spot where we have a great view of the city.” So off we went. First thing’s first, up to the Church Hill Overlook, where the view is fantastic. I snapped a bunch of photos, then we just kinda walked through the immediate area. It was quiet and charming, a lot of front porches where I could imagine having morning coffee or watching fireflies at night, were I of an income bracket to buy a home here. I wondered that of a number of these homes, later went home and looked into home and rent prices in the area and saw a wide availability of all manner of pricing. I can actually afford to live here if I wanted to, I might even be able to buy here if I wanted to. How cool! Okay, so this isn’t just a neighborhood of white women yoga classes and BMWs and 12-dollar coffee. I don’t need to be instinctively and irrationally angry at the neighborhood for being “That Place.”
After a half hour or so we went back down the hill to park the car on Jefferson Ave, and I discovered I love Jefferson Ave. It’s very co-op this and artisanal that, as one might expect in a so-called “Brooklyn” but it seemed more approachable than many neighborhoods of this sort. It was a hot day, and I heard Spotty Dog Ice Cream sells Vermont-style “creemees,” which is one of my favorite things on planet Earth. The owners are from Vermont and Upstate New York, as am I, and the ice cream tasted just like the real thing. Next, I wanted to have a picnic lunch, so we walked two blocks west to Union Grocery, it’s a very small neighborhood grocery. A little pricey, as one expects with a small neighborhood grocery in a gentrified part of town, but the deli makes fantastic sandwiches and they had Saratoga mineral water bottles and some kinda bougie potato chips, and a couple cans of hipster beer. We walked a few blocks further to Jefferson Park and set up for a small picnic while appreciating the view.
Side note, about Jefferson Park. This neighborhood is legendary for a railway accident that happened in 1925. The Church Hill rail tunnel collapsed on a work train, burying four men and a steam locomotive with ten cars attached. Attempts were made to recover the bodies and the train but the tunnel proved to be too dangerous, so they sealed both ends of the tunnel, where the four bodies and the train remain to this day… directly underneath Jefferson Park.
Neat!
Okay so lunch is over, and we decide to continue walking through the neighborhood and daydream about getting a place here, where we can eat Spotty Dog ice cream every day and get progressively fatter until we cave and join an early-morning walking club with some of the local pickleball types… who then talk us into joining them for pickleball and I eventually grudgingly give in too the pressure and discover, much to my horror, that I love pickleball and want to do it all the time with our new friends Barbara, Skip and Marcia, who have never lived an uncomfortable day in their life yet reminisce about when the area was more “real” back in the dark old days of the 90’s. Anyway, my daydreams go to dark places.
There’s a wine shop up near Cobra Burger, our favorite Burger joint in town, that has some great wines for not-crazy prices, and we go on over to grab a few bottles. Stepping past the group of 30-somethings and their dogs chatting just outside the doorway of a small neighborhood wine store that I don’t recall if, but wouldn’t be surprised if, also had a dog roaming freely through the aisles. Grabbed a couple bottles, then you know, since we’re in the area, might as well go to Cobra Burger and get a little something to bring home to eat later. Cobra Burger is just across the street from the wine place, how did I not remember they were so close together?
Saint John’s Church, you know, the famous one, isn’t far from here but we’ll come back and do that another time, it’s close to sunset and I’m sure the gate is locked. This is our typical Church Hill experience, in a nutshell. Trip to a park, pictures at someplace with a view, some sort of guilty pleasure food, followed by another, then chase it with one or more types of alcohol, all wrapped up in a couple miles’ or more worth of casual walking while daydreaming what it would be like to live here one day. I love the suburb where I live, not far from the immediate city and with plenty of parking and green space and quick access to all the stores one needs, but neighborhoods like this make me think “I bet I could make this work.”
