Lost Richmond Terrace

Last year in posting a picture of Richmond Terrace I realized that I was seeing a lost series of tenements and shops along it where it meets Jersey Street and the Richmond Terrace Projects are now located. There were also buildings along the water side of the Terrace now occupied by tall grass and bits of rubble.

Some later time I was asking my aunt about going to movie theaters when she was a kid and she remembered going to one down by Jersey Street with my grandmother in order to get something at some giveaway or another. Eventually taking her information and the various bits and pieces I'd come across this past year I determined that my aunt's theater was located on Richmond Terrace at the foot of Jersey Street.

A quick trip to the St. George Library and the WPA photo archive turned up the following pictures. From top to bottom there's the Star Theater and the shops to its left (west) along the Terrace circa 1939.

Here's what's there today -

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I'm sure there's a good reason for the loss of these buildings and the replacement of shops and homes with ant hive-like projects but all these years later I imagine the builders might have second thoughts.