NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD

Just as New York looks newer than Boston, but is actually older, Norfolk looks newer than Richmond.  Business and population grow in Richmond, but you do not feel them growing as you do in Norfolk.  You feel that Richmond business men already have money, whereas in Norfolk there is less old wealth and a great deal more scrambling for new dollars.  Also you feel that law and order count for more in Richmond than in Norfolk, and that the strict prohibition law which not long ago became effective in Virginia will be more easily enforced in the capital than in the seaport.  Norfolk, in short, likes the things New York likes.  It likes tall office buildings, and it dotes on the signs of commercial activity by day and social activity by night.  Furthermore, from the tops of some of the high buildings the place actually looks like a miniature New York:  the Elizabeth River masquerading as the East River; Portsmouth, with its navy yard, pretending to be Brooklyn, while some old-time New York ferryboats, running between the two cities, assist in completing the illusion.  In the neighboring city of Newport News, Norfolk has its equivalent for Jersey City and Hoboken, while Willoughby Spit protrudes into Hampton Roads like Sandy Hook reduced to miniature.

The principal shopping streets of Norfolk and Richmond are as unlike as possible.  Broad Street, Richmond, is very wide, and is never overcrowded, whereas Granby Street, Norfolk (advertised by local enthusiasts as “the livest street in Virginia,” and appropriately spanned, at close intervals, by arches of incandescent lights), is none too wide for the traffic it carries, with the result that, during the afternoon and evening, it is truly very much alive.  To look upon it at the crowded hours is to get a suggestion of a much larger city than Norfolk actually is—­a suggestion which is in part accounted for by the fact that Norfolk’s spending population, drawn from surrounding towns and cities, is much greater than the number of its inhabitants.

Norfolk’s extraordinary growth in the last two or three decades may be traced to several causes:  to the fertility of the soil of the surrounding region, which, intensively cultivated, produces rich market-garden crops, making Norfolk a great shipping point for “truck”; to the development of the trade in peanuts, which are grown in large quantities in this corner of Virginia; to a great trade in oysters and other sea-food, and to the continually increasing importance of the Norfolk navy yard.

In connection with the navy Norfolk has always figured prominently, Hampton Roads having been a favorite naval rendezvous since the early days of the American fleet.  Now, however, it is announced that the cry of our navy for a real naval base—­something we have never had, though all other important navies have them, Britain alone having three—­has been heard in Washington, and that Norfolk has been selected as the site for a base.  This is an important event not only for the Virginia seaport, but for the United States.