Nice Little Feature on the Bouelvard
In case you didn’t catch this on the WTVR, Channel 6, News
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Movieland Success Blazes Path for a New Boulevard
The popularity of Richmond’s Movieland Theater is transforming the once industrial Boulevard corridor.Sam Brock Staff reporter
February 27, 2010
RICHMOND – The popularity of Richmond’s Movieland Theater is transforming the once industrial Boulevard corridor.Cars packed the parking lot and moviegoers shuffled in and out of the complex Saturday as Bow-Tie Cinemas marked the one-year anniversary of Movieland. Read More>
I hope it does lead to more improvement, because the area between that theater and grace street is a big ugly skidmark.
That movie theater is now my first choice in Richmond. It beats driving out into the traffic disaster people call Short Pump, and battling the teeny boppers outside for the privilege of hearing annoying ring-tones all through the show.
I like that Bow tie actually has slightly smaller screens and theaters. More options in less space, and fewer other people in there to bug you with aforementioned ringtones.
Businesses have to be good, and Bow Tie is. It’s not enough to be part of a revitalization project. It has to be good.
Bow Tie is fine, but it’s in an odd location, completely isolated from the rest of the city and very difficult to reach on foot, unless you’re willing to brave the dark and silent asphalt wastelands on the east side of Boulevard or Leigh Street at night. The west side of Boulevard is better, although the blocks immediately surrounding the intersection of Broad & Boulevard are still a pedestrian nightmare.
Put in better sidewalks, more crossings and more lighting. Fix up the median strip. Completely redevelop the east side of Boulevard, put in more residential units and businesses, the kind that people will walk or drive across town to patronize before going to a movie (i.e. not the CVS, the Car Pool, the Subway, or the porn store whose name I forget). Make everything more lively, more desirable, more welcoming at night, and then have GRTC run a weekday evening and weekend shuttle up and down Boulevard between Carytown and Bow Tie. Voilà, your crappy, seedy old Boulevard is the new Carytown.
I’m very pleased to see that Bowtie is prospering and other buysinsses are developing around it. And things will only get better once the baseball season starts. Exactly what should be happening is happening in that area. Scott’s Addition might be the neighborhood of the future.