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Roseberry’s Charlottesville

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Edwin S. Roseberry began his photography career in Charlottesville, Virginia after returning from serving in WWII in the Pacific. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1949 but continued working for UVA and around Charlottesville for decades. The majority of his collection is focused on the 1950s -70s and includes everything from buildings to public events to aerial photographs. While he also provided other professional photography services for weddings, portraits, and advertising, our interest at C’ville Images has been those photographs that documented the city and the University and provide a visual history of Charlottesville. In 2016, C’ville Images published “FLASH: The Photography of Ed Roseberry” after working with Mr. Roseberry for several years scanning 1000s of images from his archives. That book is available at select retailers and can be ordered through our store. This online exhibit gathers some selections from the Roseberry Archives that were not included in “FLASH” making it a nice supplement to the book.

“Roseberry’s Charlottesville” is just one of several rotating exhibits you will find here on our website. Check back often for new exhibits and occasional changes and updates to current exhibits.

Dogwood Festival Parade, Main Street, 1970. This was just a few years before the downtown section of Main Street would be converted into a pedestrian mall.

 

Ed Roseberry photographed this Charlottesville neighborhood near Georgetown Road from a U.S. Army aircraft piloted by his brother Bob on a cold, snowy day in the early 1960s. Note the airplane’s wing in the lower portion of the image.

 

This view looking west was taken from the National Bank Building at Second and Main Streets, N.E. It was taken before the demolition of the buildings on Vinegar Hill (center of photograph) and the residential neighborhood just beyond. Circa 1960.

 

The corner of Second and Main Streets, N.E., 1964. The buildings on the right were lost to a fire in 1973 and that part of Main Street was redeveloped as Central Place with the construction of the pedestrian mall.

 

This early-1970s photograph was taken from a building on West Main Street looking back over Downtown Charlottesville toward an undeveloped Pantops Mountain. In the middle-distance you can see Miller & Rhoads and the Jefferson Theater. Both of those buildings are still there. In the foreground you can see Russell Mooney Oldsmobile Dealership and an American (later Amoco) station. Both of those are long-gone.

 

Dam at Woolen Mills, circa 1968. The dam was removed in recent years.

 

A February 1977 fire destroyed the First Baptist Church on the corner of Second and Jefferson Streets, N.E.  Built on this location in the early 20th Century, the brick church was designed in the Romanesque Revival style. The front door faced diagonally toward Lee Park. An ornate belfry located between the columns seen here was destroyed by the fire. The congregation now worships at their current location on Park Street.

 

This aerial view from the 1970s shows the old C&O railroad yard including a turntable (minus the roundhouse). Also seen here is the Belmont Bridge with ramps connecting to Main Street and Water Street. The top part of the image shows a significant portion of Downtown Charlottesville including City Hall, and the Monticello Hotel.

 

A typical weekend crowd at Carroll’s Tea Room at the intersection of Barracks Road and Emmet Street. The roadhouse was a popular watering hole for UVA students in the 1940s and 50s. It was removed to make room for Barracks Road Shopping Center which opened in 1959. The sign in the parking lot boasted “Warm beer – Lousy food” and alerted patrons that there was “No Carroll’s – No tea – No room.”

 

Ken Staples, a long-time barber at his shop in Barrack’s Road Shopping Center. Seen here in the 1960s, Mr. Staples led a team of barbers at his popular shop for decades. He died in November, 2017 at the age of 85.

 

Main Street, Vinegar Hill, circa 1960.

 

In June of 1955, the film production crew for “Giant” came to town to film the opening sequences for the epic movie that would be released the next year. In this shot, actors Rock Hudson and Paul Fix stand outside the train that brings Hudson’s character to the fictitious town of Ardmore, MD. The railroad depot at Keswick was used and local riders were recruited for the hunt scene that opens the film.

 

This aerial photograph from 1963 shows the Medical School and Hospital at UVA as it looked in those days. The lower part of the view shows the rooftops of several of the buildings on The Corner, the commercial area along University Avenue.

 

A rainy registration day for classes in the 1950s at Memorial Gymnasium, University of Virginia.

 

Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong preparing for a concert at University Hall at UVA in the 1960s.

 

 

Residential properties in the neighborhood just below the commercial part of Main Street known as Vinegar Hill. Both commercial and residential properties were demolished in this part of town in the early 1960s as part of an urban renewal program.

 

The clock on the Rotunda was occasionally the subject of pranks over the years including this one during the Nixon Administration featuring Vice President Spiro Agnew.

 

An aerial view of Scott Stadium at UVA taken during a football game in September of 1980.

 

500 Block of East Main Street in Downtown Charlottesville. This view of the south side of the street gives a sense of what it looked like in the 1960s/early 70s. Reid’s Market on the right was a full-service grocery store with parking underneath the building. It would be lost to fire around 1980. Main Street was drivable at the time but by the mid-1970s this part of Main Street would be bricked and several blocks of Main would become the Downtown Pedestrian Mall.

 

Ed Roseberry’s 1941 Cadillac Fleetwood at a car show in the Downtown Mall, 1980. The location is the 200 block of East Main Street, across from The Paramount Theater. Standard Drug, seen here, is now the location of CVS (note the second story of the building looks pretty much the same today). The Cadillac is still humming along, as is Mr. Roseberry now well into his 90s.

 

A very early photograph from Ed Roseberry taken near UVA on Brandon Avenue. Ed’s brother, Bob Roseberry, is on the right. Their friend David Walker is on the left. The view is looking north from the Brandon Avenue Apartments toward The Lawn. The building in the far left distance is Randall Hall (College of Arts & Sciences) which was dormitories at the time. That building is still there but no longer visible from this spot. The photograph was probably taken in the late 40s. Ed graduated from UVA in 1949 at age 23 after serving in WWII in the Pacific.

 

Noel Paul Stookey, Mary Travers, and Peter Yarrow, better known as the folk music trio, Peter, Paul and Mary. Seen here backstage at a performance at the University of Virginia in 1962. They were a very new musical act at the time, having just been formed the previous year from the NYC folk scene by Albert Grossman who also managed Bob Dylan, among others.

 

This is a rare image from Ed Roseberry in that it is both a night time shot and in color during a time he was shooting mostly in B&W. This photograph was taken in October 1963 on a rainy night downtown. The view is from the 300 block of East Main Street, looking west and shows the Paramount Theater in the distance with its original lighted blade sign above the marquee. That sign was removed sometime during the 1960s and the theater would close in 1974. The theater would be reopened in December 2004 but it would be another 11 years before the restoration of the historic theater was completed with the installation of its iconic blade sign, a replica of the original from 1931.

 

Dogwood Court, Dogwood Festival, Spring 1964. The Court is made up of young ladies from Charlottesville and surrounding counties with the 1964 Dogwood Queen, Janice Harper, standing in the center. Roseberry took this shot while the group was touring Monticello during the festivities.

 

The 400 block of East Main Street in the1970s, the early years of the Downtown Pedestrian Mall. The willow oaks seen here have grown rapidly in the 4 decades since this this photo was taken and now tower above the rooflines and shade the brick pavement below. Not the water fountain kiosk at the left.

 

Scott Stadium, home of the Virginia Cavaliers. Originally built in 1931, the stadium is seen in this photograph taken in September, 1974 a few years before the upper decks were added. Note the hearse parked in the lower righthand corner; hearses were once commonly used as ambulances.

 

UVA Medical Center, circa 1977. The building under construction in the foreground is the Primary Care Center. Old Pinn Hall (Jordan Hall) is just behind it. There was actually a street (Park Place) between the two buildings at the time. Lee Street, seen in the lower right hand corner, looks very different today. Note the large pile of coal near the heating plant at the right of this view. The older portion of the hospital (1950s and earlier) is partially visible at the top of the image.

 

All photographs by Edwin S. Roseberry. Images not to be used without permission.
© C’ville Images, 2018