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MINDING YOUR
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| MEMORY
LANE By Mike Ashley |
The Clarion Hotel
Downtown Norfolk is sitting on a time bomb. And
it's set to go off May 17, 2000. That's the
date local dignitaries and history buffs will
gather to open a time capsule that has been
buried on the property for almost four decades. |
 artwork by Michael Goodman |
The
Golden Triangle hotel -- as it was then called --
was built in 1960 at the seemingly exorbitant
cost of $7 million. Rather like the MacArthur
Center of today, the Golden Triangle was once
downtown Norfolk's opulent centerpiece. Through
the years the hotel changed owners and names a
couple of times, and it had been in decline over
the past decade. Then Clarion pegged its flag on
the property in 1997 and began to bring life to
the hotel with a $12 million renovation. It
was during this revamp that a vault containing
the time capsule was unearthed from beneath some
concrete slabs. |
| "We certainly didn't buy
the property planning to find a time capsule
here," laughs hotel General Manager Jeff
Roike. "It just happens to be here and we're
glad. It will be a great benefit for us and for
the city." Roike first learned of the capsule in 1997 after reading old newspaper clippings from 1961. According to those reports, local leaders joined with the owners of the Golden Triangle to bury a time capsule near the hotel's pool. The capsule -- actually a 15-foot-long fuel tank from a jet fighter -- was to contain "items descriptive of the economic and cultural life in Norfolk during that year." Norfolk was riding high at that time. It had recently earned "All America City" status and many of the items in the capsule celebrate that achievement. The 1961 clippings show pictures of Norfolk leaders standing behind the capsule, which is emblazoned with an All America City seal and the words "Norfolk -- All America City 1960." News reels, local radio recordings, articles, advertisements, photographs, playbills, books and paintings by local people are believed to be part of the buried bonanza. The capsule is also thought to contain predictions by local government officials and business leaders on the future of Norfolk. When word got out in Norfolk about the capsule's discovery, it stirred many memories in the local community. "We got a lot of calls," says Jodie English, the hotel's director of marketing. "One woman in her eighties told us she has a piece of original artwork in the capsule. Another lady said there is a snippet of her hair in there from a project in her second-grade class." "We're just at the point now where we're starting to discuss how we're going to do this," says Roike. "We may unearth it completely and put it on display, but we won't open it until May 17, 2000, when it was intended to be opened." Roike says the capsule may even be resealed, along with a few objects from 1999, and then reburied. "It's one option," he adds. "There are a lot of things we can do, and we're still looking at all the possibilities."
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