Grandin Road was my first neighborhood when I moved to Roanoke in 1965. Had a one-bedroom furnished flat at Grandin Road Apartments, attended the University of Virginia’s Roanoke Campus just up the street during the day and worked nights at The Roanoke Times, starting as a copy boy and moving up to reporter the following year.
Garland’s drug store anchored one side of the street and the Grandin Theater the other. A large hardware store served residents along with a cleaners and a TV/appliance store. We bought groceries at Mick or Mack and got our cars washed at the Grandin Car Wash.
I hadn’t been back on Grandin since returning to the area in 2004 so I parked along the street on Wednesday night and took a walk. The Mick or Mack and Grandin Theater remain today but the street is now dominated by restaurants, coffee stops, a whole food store and some trendy boutiques. Took in Gonzo, the documentary about Hunter S. Thompson, at the Grandin. The theater is now subdivided into several screens but is still cozy The popcorn was better in the 60s.
UVa’s Roanoke campus closed in 1966 and many of the faculty moved over to the new Virginia Western Community College on Colonial Avenue. I moved to The Jefferson Apartments next to Elmwood Park near downtown. The Victorian apartment building was torn down a few years after I left The Roanoke Times and moved on to a newspaper in Illinois. A sign for Carrillion Hospital now sits on the site.
Jefferson Street never felt like a real neighboord. Grandin Road did. It was nice to visit the old neghborhood.
Being a Roanoke expatriate in New Mexico, I really enjoyed your look at Grandin Rd. I am just a chap compared to you, but in 1953 when I was 3 years old we moved from Martinsville to a house on Memorial Ave., directly across from the fire station. We only lived there for a few months while my granny was receiving medical treatment, but would return to a house in Old Southwest when I was 5. The first movie from which I can really remember the plot was Love Me Tender in 1956. My sister dragged me along with her girlfriends to see King Elvis, but I became more of a fan of the movie house for subsequent Saturday matinees there. The Grandin, and The Lee on Williamson Rd., would run their newspaper ads together. I called each of them The Grandin and Lee for years until my sister could no longer stand the embarssment, and set me straight. What would the world be without older sisters.
By 1962 I was living with my Mom in an apt. in Wasena, and the Grandin neighborhood was a center of activity for me and my buddies at Woodrow Wison Jr. High as we were developing independence. Many a good time was had in that neck of the woods.
I do not get back to Roanoke as often as I would like, but I have always been impressed at how many of the old neighborhoods like Grandin, Wasena, and Old Southwest have maintained their architectural integrity; and at least on the surface, still appear to be decent places to live and raise a family.