The Triangle Block: Remembering Williamsburg's Black business and residential district

Yahoo

17-05-2025

In a city known for its vast history and many stories, Williamsburg's Triangle Block is one story that is getting its long overdue spotlight.
Centered in the triangle of Armistead Avenue and Scotland and Prince George streets downtown, the area was once a bustling Black business and residential district. Today, the area is home to businesses such as a college book store, a bakery and a cheese steak shop.
But in the 1930s through the 1970s, the Triangle district was a thriving community, with its own restaurant, grocery store, blacksmith and a hospital led by the city's first Black doctor, Dr. James B. Blayton. Over the years, and especially following a city-issued report on 'substandard negro housing' in the early 1950s, the district was displaced to make way for newer businesses and homes.
There are some residents, however, who refuse to let the Triangle Block fade from memory.
Jacqueline Bridgeforth-Williams, founder of The Village Initiative, a group formed in 2016 to look at disparities in education, is one . For the past three years, she's been working on a documentary about the district, determined to keep alive the memories of the area that once took care of its own.
'They were families,' Bridgeforth-Williams said. 'They had children, they had community, and they were here.'
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A tour of the Triangle Block today reveals areas where residents used to live, such as a green space on Armistead Avenue and spots where the Williamsburg Police Department and the Williamsburg Regional Library now stand. But once, Williamsburg's Black residents were not allowed in parts of the city, which led to the Triangle Block's creation.
According to a 2021 multimedia project called 'Stories from the Triangle Block' by the Williamsburg Documentary Project and The Village's Local Black Histories Project, the Triangle and its nearby neighborhoods had their early beginnings in the 1890s after Samuel T. Harris, a successful Black merchant, bought and platted property with investment partners.
Property owner and realtor William Henry Webb Sr. and wife Martha signed a land deed for property on the block in 1907, among other property purchases. Two of their children, Clarence Webb and Virgie Webb Williams, would soon have their own businesses in the district.
Robert 'Bobby' Braxton, a community leader and former city councilman, remembers the district well. He is the grandson of Robert H. Braxton, a local builder who platted Scotland Street's Braxton Court subdivision. Growing up in Braxton Court and going to the all-Black Bruton Heights School in the 1950s, Braxton recalls how he and other Black kids would go to the Triangle Restaurant, owned by Williams and her husband, Jimmy.
'Coming back from school, we would always stop by his place to get penny candies and all that stuff,' Braxton said. 'It was a Black restaurant, if you will, and it sold the type of food that people liked at that time.'
Also known as the Paradise Cafe, the Triangle Restaurant became a gathering place for the community. Williams, her husband and their two children lived above the restaurant. Clarence Webb owned Webb's Grocery, which in addition to food, sold kerosene oil. He was known for cashing checks and giving credit on paper slips, Braxton said.
Other owned and operated establishments included the West End Valet Dry Shop, a tailor and dry cleaning shop by Charles Gary; Henderson Electric shop; and two barber shops by Thomas Wise and William Crump Sr.
Samuel K. Harris (unrelated to former Samuel T. Harris) operated a blacksmith shop for the community and Colonial Williamsburg. Braxton called Harris 'a man's man.'
'I mean, he had hands that looked like ham fists,' he recalled. 'It looked like to us, looked like he could lift up a building and move it.'
When the blacksmith shop was torn down around the 1950s, Blayton's hospital was built, according to Braxton. The hospital had 14 beds, an emergency room and a basement where kids could play. It was the main health care facility for Black residents in the city until a fully integrated community hospital opened in 1961.
'It had dances, playing records and all that stuff,' Braxton said. 'It was makeshift, but it worked fine for us. I mean, we enjoyed the heck out of it.'
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Around 1952, a report by Harland Bartholomew and Associates was prepared for the city on housing and public buildings that also detailed substandard housing, focusing on homes that had no central heating, an outside water supply or a tub or shower. The following year, the city's comprehensive plan recommended revitalizing part of the city, specifically noting the Triangle and its surrounding areas.
That same year, a $15,000 contract was created in part with Harland Bartholomew (with half paid by Colonial Williamsburg) to enforce the plans.
In 1958, Williamsburg City Council approved a comprehensive housing ordinance aimed at eliminating substandard housing. Ten years later, the city's 1968 comprehensive plan identified 'problem housing areas' in Williamsburg while proposing commercial tourist facility development and additional expansions. It noted 'intensive treatment' of the Scotland Street area, which 'holds the key for the future development of the entire central area' of the city.
Despite a petition by the Williamsburg and James City County Black communities that noted the lack of representation in city and county government and being 'systematically ignored' — on Dec. 2, 1969, the city established the Williamsburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority. In 1970, a residential area on the corner of Armistead Avenue and Scotland Street was chosen for the new site of the municipal library, displacing 15 families.
In 1972, the council adopted the Armistead Avenue Urban Renewal Neighborhood Development Program, using funds from the Federal Housing Act of 1949 and the Housing & Community Development Act of 1974. Redevelopment took place throughout the 1970s, seeing the end of various fixtures of the block, including the Triangle Restaurant (the building was split in half) in 1977.
It was a scene viewed across the South, as many Black communities were displaced by urban renewal in the name of redevelopment.
The Housing Law of 1937 provided localities federal funding to construct public housing. The law required that one blighted or slum housing unit be demolished per new unit of housing, which caused many Black community areas targeted due to decades of segregation and lack of overall investment, according to Encyclopedia Virginia.
Urban renewal saw many Black communities destroyed and repurposed for parks and institutions. Some neighborhoods were erased to make way for college and university expansion, such as with Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Christopher Newport University in Newport News and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
In Williamsburg, many community members moved to Harriet Tubman Drive; others moved to James City County and York County, according to Bridgeforth-Williams.
The Triangle was no more. The Black businesses that were there would never return.
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Today, what remains of the Triangle Block district is historic First Baptist Church — one of the nation's oldest Black churches — and a sign that marks where the original businesses used to be.
But in recent years, the city has established several initiatives to honor the Triangle's legacy and the Williamsburg Black community. In 2021, the city started by establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Committee to uncover Williamsburg's racial history while finding ways to provide reconciliation and racial healing.
The city also began working on plans for an African American Heritage Trail, a 2-mile walking/driving path that will start in the city and tell the story of the Williamsburg Black community. The trailhead will be placed in the area originally known as Harris Bottom to tell the story of the area's displacement, said Assistant City Manager Michele Mixner DeWitt. Construction is expected to start this summer.
'The story's not been fully told and the city wants to honor that and tell the full story,' DeWitt said.
In 2024, the council also adopted a scholarship program for city residents with Black ancestors who lived in Williamsburg prior to 1964, the year the Civil Rights Act was passed. The city pledged to replenish the fund for the next 20 years.
According to research commissioned in 2017 called the Downtown Vibrancy Study, there also has been talk of turning the Triangle Block area into an entertainment district — along with redeveloping the Blayton Building, an apartment building built in 1981 for older adults — into a mixed-use development with apartments and an urban grocery store. But those are just ideas.
While an urban grocer 'sounds interesting,' Bridgeforth-Williams said she'd like to see something that is 'equitable for the entire community.'
'That when we look at what type of entertainment and what type of businesses we would bring, we would give equal opportunities to everyone to be a part of that,' she said.
Bridgeforth-Williams said she'd like to see 'continued success and progress' with the current initiatives, along with the descendant community continuing to have their voices heard. She would also like to see more cultural events come to Williamsburg, pointing to the success of the Village Initiative's annual Juneteenth celebration.
'We can't go back and grab the past, because that's been done,' she said. 'But the people who are here now, we can definitely work towards continuing to do the right things. Together.'
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In a collaboration with The Village Initiative, William & Mary and various descendant community members, Bridgeforth-Williams is planning to release her documentary, 'Displaced from the Birthplace of America,' in 2026.
The film — parts of which were presented as a sneak peek at William & Mary in March — aims to dive deeper into the Triangle Block's history and its displacement with personal reflections by descendants of the Triangle community. Bridgeforth-Williams has carefully been collecting their stories to find out what it was like to live in an area that was basically removed from the map.
One of the film's main goals is to do 'the work of healing' for the descendant community to share their thoughts, feelings and emotions about what happened, Bridgeforth-Williams said. She also notes her personal ties to the film — her grandmother, Quetta Vaden, lived on 'a little house on Clay Street' as a widow, bought her home and dealt with the changes that came from the displacement.
Realizing that every one of the descendants she talked to had been affected in some way was a 'real eureka light-bulb moment' for her. All their stories, from property owners and business owners alike, were equally important to tell. She wants to tell those stories — what that was like for their families, what it was like to be moved from the Triangle Block.
'They talk about their losses. They talk about some of the pain that was involved with it, that some of them still experience,' Bridgeforth-Williams said. 'But they also talk about the good times, and the great things.'
Two previews of 'Displaced from the Birthplace of America' are coming up. The first is at 5 p.m. May 30 at First Baptist Church, 727 Scotland St. An additional preview will be shown at the Village Initiative's Juneteenth celebration on June 19 at City Square Park.
James W. Robinson, 757-799-0621, [e-mail]