10

I’m a little late: 2 days ago CHPN marked 10 years of publishing.

First: a huge thank you to everyone who has helped make this a thriving and useful neighborhood site. CHPN would not be here today if “all y’all” weren’t so great about both sending in stories and just being out there doing cool stuff.

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The best thing for me about running CHPN has been that it’s gotten me out to so many real-world meetings and activities. There are so many ways to love this area and meet the people that make up the neighborhood: civic associations, friends of parks groups, volunteer opportunities, and through neighborhood organizations such as Peter Paul Development Center, Robinson Theater, and Fulton’s Neighborhood Resource Center.

As CHPN has been my vehicle for discovering the culture and history of the neighborhoods that make up the city’s East End, I have met some amazing and dedicated people, folks who have been living and working in this area for decades.

I owe a special thank you to Mary Thompson and Augustine Carter and New Visions Civic League for fighting the good fight for so many years, and for so warmly welcoming me to their piece of Fairmount. These women showed me what it means to be active in a community, to have ownership of and responsibility to a neighborhood.

The reason CHPN works as well as it does, I think, is because of the area’s strong history of civic participation. If you’re not part of something in the neighborhood, think about giving your time to one of the groups active in the area.

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Our first post was on the opening of Jumpin’ J’s coffee shop on Jefferson Avenue, now the home of Union Market. This seems especially fitting.

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It’s amazing (and kind of perfect) to think that 2004 was halfway between now and 1994. 1994 was a bad year in Richmond, but 10 years later things really seemed to have turned around. The acceleration of the past few years are still a little unbelievable.

In 1994, there were 34 people killed in the East End. In 2004, there were 27. Through the first 7 months of 2014, there have been 2. This is nothing short of a miracle.

If you want to get a sense of the physical changes over the last 10 years, scroll back through the before/after tag. This photo set from Venable Street might be my favorite.

See also all of the posts about restaurants. This was pivotal, I think.

If CHPN is around in 2024, I would hope to be writing about the amazing changes in the public schools around here.

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There have been 7,476 Posts and 73,599 comments over the past 10 years.

This might be the best post of them all.

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Thanks folks, and be nice.

John

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