Category: News

At the height of its short career, Danielson and Rolph’s company, D&R Development, held more than $10 million in Mall property. Onlookers credit two of their projects in particular––the Charlottesville Ice Park and the Regal Cinema building––for catalyzing the Mall’s evolution from a shell of empty buildings to an urban streetscape where people live, work and play.

Instead of enjoying the fruits of victory, however, D&R Development collapsed in a bitter legal brawl over money and control of the company. Now the fight between Danielson and Rolph has ended. The blood and sweat have been wiped up and the crowd has dispersed. As new owners with new agendas buy the remnants of D&R’s vision for “Charlottesville 2000,” bystanders wonder what it all means for the future of Downtown’s million-dollar development game.

 

It’s Friday afternoon, and the Mall teems with the sights, sounds and smells of prosperity. Swarms of bodies in summer clothes, the loose banter of after-work drinkers, the clink of silverware, the sounds of street musicians and the waft of prepared seafood.

There is a noticeable tatter in the fabric of the Mall’s historico-yuppie playground. For nearly 30 years, four buildings between 101 and 111 E. Main St., just west of Wachovia bank, have sat vacant. Home lately to a Boys and Girls Club, a real estate rental office and a troupe of rag-clad gutter punks, the four buildings present a shabby, boarded-up view to diners feasting on oysters and shrimp by candlelight at Blue Light Grill’s outdoor tables across the bricks.

Today, the buildings are an anomaly. Ten years ago, however, they fit right into the Mall’s fabric, which then could have been described as a sketchy urban dead zone. A few restaurants and bars clung to life amid numerous vacant buildings, and the Mall became desolate after 6pm.

“You could throw a rock down the Mall and not worry about hitting anybody,” says John Lawrence, who, at that time, pushed a coffee cart along the eight blocks with his wife, Lynelle. Their business would eventually become the Mudhouse.

Soon, however, the Wachovia buildings will catch up with the rest of the Mall’s commercial flavor. Last month developer Keith Woodard’s Woodard Properties put a contract on the four structures, which together are assessed at a total $1.74 million. He expects to close the deal by July. Although there are no final plans, Woodard says he envisions offices or apartments on the upper floors with restaurants and retail at ground level.

“There’s a strong demand for newly renovated historic places on the Mall,” he says. “We’re not particularly worried about being able to find tenants for the new buildings.”

The Wachovia buildings were formerly owned by D&R Development, which planned to demolish the structures and rebuild the site as part of “Charlottesville 2000,” their plan for revitalizing the Mall. D&R’s efforts with the Wachovia buildings were frustrated by the City’s Board of Architectural Review, which claimed the buildings were not merely old, they were historic. The four buildings went on the block when D&R collapsed in litigation.

Woodard’s confidence in his investment rests on the sheer number of bodies strolling past his new purchase every day—and evening. Many Downtown observers say they can trace the Mall’s current vitality directly to D&R’s vision. In other words, the company may be dead, partners Lee Danielson and Colin Rolph may now be adversaries, but the aftershocks of their business are still being felt.

“Lee Danielson started this whole thing,” says Chuck Lewis, the developer behind York Place and a former rival of Danielson. Lewis says D&R’s initiative spurred other developers to spend big money Downtown: “If it wasn’t for Lee, we’d still be where we were 10 years ago. He came to town and said what the Mall should be when it grows up.”

In 1992, Danielson moved his wife and four children from California to a farm in Keswick. “I came here to retire,” Danielson told C-VILLE recently. At the time of his move, he was 45.

The former linebacker arrived with a multi-million dollar trust fund and a background in building high-end condominiums in Los Angeles. With an athlete’s brash confidence, Danielson believed he could turn the dying Mall into an upscale entertainment district, along the lines of commercial districts in San Jose or Santa Cruz.

“Right away, I saw tremendous potential,” Danielson says. “But I didn’t have the financial wherewithal to do it on my own.”

Right from the start, Danielson announced his aims to the political establishment. David Toscano was the mayor when Danielson called him in the fall of 1993.

“I’ll never forget it,” says Toscano. “He called me out of the blue and asked if I wanted to have coffee.” Danielson told the mayor he wanted to build an ice skating rink Downtown. “I said, ‘You want to do what?’” Toscano recalls. “That sounded interesting.”

Danielson’s ambition appealed immediately to Toscano, a socially liberal attorney who believed Charlottesville needed a business-friendly climate to pay for the City’s growing social services budget. Entertainment, said Danielson, would bring people to the comatose Mall.

“He clearly had a vision from the very beginning that saw Downtown as an entertainment destination,” Toscano says. “Bring the entertainment, and the other economic activity would flow from it.”

With the Mayor on board, what Danielson needed next was a partner with deep pockets. “I was trying to impress other investors, but none of them would believe in it,” he says.

Given Danielson’s grand ambitions, which he called “Charlottesville 2000,” his first project Downtown was comically small. He partnered with SNL Financial owner Reid Nagle to rent a square of bricks near the Paramount Theater for $50,000. In 1995 the pair unveiled—ta da!—a newspaper stand. After a year of disappointing sales, Nagle donated the kiosk to City Hall.

Nagle wasn’t interested in Danielson’s larger schemes, so the developer mingled with Charlottesville’s elite, looking for a new partner. Although he was a paper millionaire, Danielson didn’t have enough liquid assets to secure big bank loans, and as a result he lost bids for some properties. He placed then dropped contracts on the vacant Rose building (which Lewis bought and turned into York Place) and the former Woolworth site (where Oliver Kuttner recently completed his Terraces project).

In his search for money, Danielson broadcast his “Charlottesville 2000” vision to anyone who would listen. In 1994 he echoed other developers and some City officials by calling for a Mall crossing at Second Street. Danielson was aiming to site a six-plex movie theater at 200-212 W. Main St. Although others advocated for the crossing, Danielson’s brash manner sufficiently irritated some people to the point where they formed a group called Townwatch. They rallied with picket signs to “Save the Mall” from Danielson, whom Townwatch identified as an archetypical bad-guy developer.

“We felt that a developer shouldn’t be dictating traffic planning,” says City Councilor Kevin Lynch, then a member of Townwatch. “There’s always a big question about how much City Council should give up to developers.” Ultimately, Council voted 4-1 in favor of the car crossing (the dissenting vote was from Rev. Alvin Edwards).

The Mudhouse’s Lawrence says many people worried Danielson wanted to “Californicate” the Mall with high-end chain retail shops like Banana Republic. In fact, that was exactly Danielson’s mission.

“It might have been all about his style and delivery,” says Lawrence. “In Virginia, we’ll start talking about the weather first, then you work your way around to what’s going on. Maybe Danielson just dispensed with some of the small talk.”

While Danielson’s big ideas made some people nervous, they emboldened other entrepreneurs who hoped renewed life on the Mall would perk up their businesses. Danielson’s pitch, for example, convinced the Lawrences to give up their cart in 1995 and open the Mudhouse on the Mall’s west end. “We took a risk, but we were confident things were changing Downtown,” Lawrence says.

Restaurant owner Tim Burgess was also staking his future on Danielson’s promises. He and his partner, Vincent Derquenne, contemplated relocating their restaurant, Metropolitain, from Downtown to Ivy. Danielson got wind of that and approached the partners.

“Danielson told us to hang on,” says Burgess, who with Derquenne now owns Bang, Bizou and Metro. “He said they had big stuff going on. And once he started closing on those buildings, things started happening pretty fast.”

While Lawrence and Burgess watched Danielson’s moves with guarded optimism, others thought Danielson’s cocky demeanor was setting the stage for misfortune.

“There’s a saying, ‘Don’t breathe your own exhaust,’” says Lynch. “You see guys getting big in the press, that’s always a sign their stock is about to slide.”

 

In 1995, a mutual friend told Danielson that his neighbor, Dorothy Batten Rolph, heiress to an estimated $800 million fortune generated by Landmark Communications––a media conglomerate with interests in newspapers, broadcasting, electronic publishing and cable programming, including the Weather Channel––might be interested in funding Charlottesville 2000. Dorothy was married to Colin Rolph, a native Canadian who, like Danielson, had come to Charlottesville by way of Southern California. Batten Rolph declined to comment for this article. Rolph bought into Danielson’s vision, and––as a lifelong hockey fan––was especially committed to the idea of an ice park.

With that, D&R Development was born. A big boost to the new company came in 1996, when Batten Rolph undersigned a $17.5 million loan to D&R from Wachovia bank. Danielson says that sum would have been impossible to obtain without Batten Rolph’s largesse.

“She was extremely instrumental in making the vision a reality,” Danielson says.

Rolph and Danielson seemed like an ideal match. Danielson played the role of the big-talking ideas man while Rolph’s reserved nature cast him as the silent partner with a fat billfold. According to a former D&R employee, they were close friends.

By the late ’90s Danielson and Rolph were certainly not the only people making big moves Downtown. Gabe Silverman, Charles Kabbash, Kuttner and Lewis all spent money on Mall or near-Mall properties believing that Downtown was changing. By all accounts, the competition was friendly, with developers sticking up for each other in the press. But the combination of Danielson’s personality (C-VILLE dubbed him “Central Virginia’s version of Donald Trump”) and Rolph’s checkbook made D&R Development the most powerful player.

“Having Lee and Colin come was great. It brought in more players, more people to push the envelope,” says Silverman. “They did something none of us would have done––the Ice Park and the movie theater. They could afford to take chances. They had more money, more chutzpah, you could say.”

In 1995, a smiling Toscano led a groundbreaking ceremony at a parking lot that, one year later, would become D&R’s flagship development, the $4 million Charlottesville Ice Park. Then, in summer 1996, D&R opened 200-212 W. Main with new tenants, Regal Cinema. (An ill-fated ice cream parlor and the steakhouse directly across from the movie theater were also among D&R projects during this period.)

The process leading to the cinema and ice park wasn’t smooth, however. D&R faced legal challenges from construction companies and the City. The BAR, which enforces aesthetic guidelines regarding Downtown architecture, spanked D&R when the company tried to put a stucco façade on the Regal Cinema building. The City also ordered D&R to replace several outdoor lights on the Ice Park. D&R complied, but not without public tirades from Danielson, who commanded the Planning Commission to “stay out of the way, period.” Danielson called for chief planner Satyendra Huja’s resignation and threatened never to build in Charlottesville again.

Danielson responded in 2000 to what he perceived as government roadblocks by forming a political action committee, Opportunity for All. During the City Council race that year, the pac sunk $20,000––a whopping sum in local politics––to support a business-friendly hybrid ticket of Republicans Jon Bright and Elizabeth Fortune, plus Democrat Meredith Richards. Opp for All also called 3,000 potential voters in what C-VILLE at the time branded a “push poll” to promote the controversial Meadowcreek Parkway.

There were other problems shrouding D&R, too. Faulconer Construction, which built the Ice Park, sued D&R in May 1996, charging that the developers had not paid a $326,000 bill. D&R settled the suit, but inside sources say the Ice Park’s construction was a fiasco that would haunt and ultimately doom the D&R partnership.

The company was structured like this: Rolph, Batten Rolph, Danielson and his wife, Barbara, acted as D&R’s four directors, with the women taking only a periphery interest and the men working together on day-to-day business. Danielson and Rolph each held 50 percent interest in D&R.

The pair set up limited liability companies (LLCs) for each property they purchased. For example, “Charlottesville 2000” held the Ice Park, while “Downtown Cinema Partners” held the Regal Cinema buildings. There were other LLCs for D&R’s three other holdings––the Exchange Center at 201-207 W. Main, which houses the Downtown Grille and the Southern Environmental Law Center; the four Wachovia buildings; and 200 E. Main, the former home of Boxer Learning. D&R also built a $4 million ice rink in Fredericksburg.

The strategy, says Danielson, was to keep each property a separate entity, “so one wouldn’t drag down the other.”

However, the Charlottesville Ice Park was “nowhere near” making money, according to sources close to the partnership, especially considering its expensive construction. Rolph was funneling D&R money into the Ice Park. Danielson objected to this, and, according to court documents, stated he wanted to shut the Ice Park down.

By 1997 the relationship had begun—perhaps inevitably—to deteriorate. According to a lawsuit filed by Rolph in Albemarle Circuit Court, Danielson asserted he was president of the company even after D&R hired Tim Slagle for that position in April 2000. Danielson fired some employees, Rolph rehired them. Danielson tried to change the locks on D&R’s offices to keep Rolph and Slagle out. Rolph’s suit says Danielson “refused to approve the application of funds to meet the financial obligations” of the company, “causing creditors’ invoices to remain unpaid.”

The conflict between Rolph and Danielson went much deeper than company leadership, however. D&R suffered significant debt. In 2001, the total appraised value of its properties was $10.8 million. But Danielson and Rolph each owed Wachovia $8.75 million dating from the bank’s $17.5 million loan to D&R in 1996. The company also owed First Union Bank (now merged with Wachovia) another $1.2 million on the Exchange Center building.

Furthermore, Rolph loaned Danielson “substantial sums” for personal expenses, according to court documents. In a deposition of Owen Strange, the attorney for Danielson’s father, Strange said, “As long as I’ve known [Lee], he’s been in debt. He’s a businessman.”

In a handwritten agreement dated 1996, Danielson promised to repay his debts from his share of his family’s inheritance, estimated at between $16 million and $19 million. But when Danielson began collecting the money in 2000, Rolph alleges, his partner refused to pay up.

In October 2001, with a quarterly interest payment coming due to Wachovia that D&R would be unable to pay, Rolph sued Danielson to dissolve the partnership and have its properties liquidated by a receiver. As a result of the lawsuit, Albemarle Circuit Court handed over all $10 million-plus of D&R’s holdings to developer Gaylon Beights. He was instructed to manage the properties and sell them for their “highest and best” value. Before the properties went to the open market, however, Rolph and Danielson each had a separate chance to buy them back. Danielson bought 200 E. Main and the Fredericksburg Ice Park, while Rolph purchased the Charlottesville Ice Park, the Regal Cinema building, the Exchange Center and the Wachovia buildings.

The court records are filled with Rolph’s account of Danielson’s transgressions, but they contain little of Danielson’s side of the collapse. A gag order forbids him from talking about the suit, but, naturally Danielson, who now lives in California, can’t stay silent.

“The great thing about real estate is that if one thing doesn’t work, you reconfigure it. But [Rolph] wasn’t willing to change anything about the operation,” Danielson says.

“The whole thing was mishandled from the beginning,” he says. “It never should have gone to court. In a business situation, you go through a business solution. Rolph was basically covering up his mistakes.”

Rolph would not speak on the record in response to Danielson’s comments.

 

 

In April of this year, Batten Rolph sued Rolph. In the court documents obtained from Albemarle Circuit Court, she alleges that in 1996, he began to withdraw money from their joint account to fund D&R’s projects without her knowledge. She says she didn’t learn about the “deception” until Rolph’s suit against Danielson. In June 2002, Batten Rolph says, she agreed to purchase D&R’s property from the receiver and to pay off the company’s debts to help end the Rolph-Danielson feud. Batten Rolph’s divorce suit appears to be the impetus behind the timing of the recent sales of the Wachovia buildings and the Charlottesville Ice Park.

Rolph referred queries about what he calls these “disputed” allegations to his attorney, Daniel G. Dannenbaum, who told C-VILLE “These are hust allegations in a court pleading. Nothing, obviously, has been proven.”

 

One person who claims not to know or care much about the Rolph and Danielson battle royale is Bruce Williamson. “All I know is what I read in the papers,” he says. “It’s not a matter that concerns us.”

His stance is curious, perhaps, because Williamson, along with three other partners––his wife, Roberta Bell Williamson, Robert Toby and Ellen Anderson––now owns the Charlottesville Ice Park. The four partners call themselves Acme Ice Company. They would not disclose the sale price, but the City assessed the Ice Park last year at $3.4 million.

Like Rolph, Williamson is a hockey fan, albeit a recent convert. “I learned to skate and play hockey two years ago,” he says. “I fell in love with playing goalie.”

Last year, Williamson says, at least one other party wanted to buy the Ice Park from Rolph and give the building a new use. But Rolph wanted to sell to someone who would retain the ice rink.

“We knew skating was in trouble,” says Williamson. “If we didn’t get the Ice Park, we would have built one.” He says there’s “zero” chance of the new owners dispensing with the ice.

The recent sale of some of what became Batten Rolph’s holdings––the Ice Park and the Wachovia buildings––signals the final demise of D&R. The properties that were once part of the ambitious Charlottesville 2000 vision are now in the hands of separate owners, each with his own vision. But now that the Mall has become the bona fide entertainment district Danielson believed it could be, the new owners are taking significantly less risk on the properties than did D&R.

“We’re not concerned with what happened in the past,” says Williamson. “The important thing is that those people had the vision to build this.”

Danielson left town in 2000 because, he says, his wife wanted to move back to California. “People thought I left town because I owe people money,” he says. Danielson says he doesn’t owe anybody anything, but that he lost “significant” money with the demise of D&R.

“Hello baby,” he says, “I’ve had to adjust my lifestyle dramatically.”

Danielson may be on the move again. His 8,000 square-foot home in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood is up for sale for $7.9 million, reduced from an original price of $10 million.

Rolph is still in Keswick and refuses to discuss Danielson. “What we did Downtown was nothing new,” Rolph says. “It happened in Santa Monica in the mid ’80s. It was the right place and the right time for Charlottesville.

“Whenever I come Downtown on a Friday, and see all the people, I’m proud of what we accomplished. I’m proud for all the restaurants and businesses, for everybody.”

Brad Eure

Once upon a time, newspaper publishers, television producers and radio station managers actually lived in the communities they served. Now, with more media falling into the fold of corporate conglomerates, the phrase “locally owned” is practically an anachronism. Brad Eure has managed to survive the dog-eat-dog radio market by staying tuned in to Charlottesville.

Eure Communications owns three radio stations––WINA, 3WV, WQMZ––in a local market increasingly dominated by behemoth Clear Channel, which owns five stations and effectively flaunts regulations by running a sixth in a management agreement called a “time brokerage.” In 1996, the Telecommunications Act loosened restrictions on station ownership, and since then Clear Channel has bought up over 1,000 local stations nationwide. There are a total of 10 stations in the Charlottesville market; Eure says that under current rules, one company is allowed to own six stations in a market, but not more than half.

Eure’s parents founded the company more than 30 years ago in Petersburg. He took over in 1984 and moved the business to Charlottesville four years later. “I learned to do broadcasting by being involved in the community, to reflect the mores of the community in the programming,” he says.

Eure’s stations touch the main bases of commercial radio––WINA provides local news on the AM dial, 3WV offers what Eure says is more “male-oriented” programming, broadcasting from bars and letting fly with the occasional potty joke. When there are kids in the car, listeners can tune into WQMZ’s lite rock without fear, he says. Also, the Eure Communication Grant, in its second year, offers $50,000 in advertising to non-profits like the Salvation Army and Children, Youth and Family Services.

“It’s really important to know what’s going on in Charlottesville, and what’s important to each stations’ listeners,” Eure says. “You have to go beyond the music that you play.”

 

Rev. Alvin Edwards

For 20 years, Alvin Edwards has held center stage at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. After serving as City Councilor and Mayor during the 1990s, Edwards remains an offstage player with one of the most important skills in local politics––the ability to fill a room.

Last year, the arrest of 10 black CHS students for assaults on white UVA students prompted renewed hand-wringing about race relations in Charlottesville. And Mt. Zion served as the rallying point for political leaders, community activists, parents and young people. A group called Citizens for a United Community emerged from those lengthy, sometimes heated gatherings. Two months ago, CUC held a mass meeting exposing the un-secret that race issues infest economics, housing, education, social habits and nearly all aspects of life in Charlottesville.

Just as the problems do not waver, nor does Edwards’ conviction that the purpose of all the gatherings has been “to heal the community.” Cynics will note the apparent incongruity in members of the town’s white elite joining hands and singing Negro spirituals, as they did at the close of the CUC meeting, and they’ll wait perhaps for this group to fizzle along with the promise of previous such collectives.

Nevertheless, the CUC is earnestly trying to address Charlottesville’s complex and deep-seated race problems. Charlottesville still has miles to go on the issue. Cynics and optimists alike can agree on that, and on the fact that Edwards deserves credit for getting the conversation started. Again.

 

Amy Gardner

Amy Gardner feels personally responsible if even one Charlottesville woman has to drive to Richmond or Tyson’s Corner to find the shoe (or handbag, or scarf, barrette, necklace, bracelet) of her dreams. For the past nine years, she has been adorning Charlottesville feet with the likes of vibrant suede flowered Kate Spades, bronze wrap-ups from Claudia Ciuti, comfortable aqua driving loafers from Mezlan and orthopedic-styled yet fashionable Donald J Pliner mules.

At the tender age of 24, Gardner opened her store, Scarpa, in the North Wing of Barracks Road shopping center. Terribly light on product at first while the proprietor struggled to get loans, Scarpa was a mere shell of its presently jam-packed self.

“I thought it would be far better to try it,” says Gardner, “than to wake up one day in the middle of my life and know I had a good idea but was too chicken to do it.

“Besides, after two gin and tonics I thought, ‘How hard can it be?’”

After the modest beginnings, apparently not that hard. During her famous annual sale, Gardner soothes the bodies and soles of scores of cents-minded yet fashionable women, ringing up more than 175 transactions per day. Furthermore, with the opening in November of her newest indulgence boutique, Rock, Paper, Scissors on N. First Street, Gardner breathes new life into stuffy paper products, like rubber bands in fanciful animal shapes.

“I don’t want to fill my stores with everything that’s out there because I don’t believe in everything that’s out there,” says Gardner.

“It’s just my taste at the end of the day,” she says.

 

Satyendra Huja

City Planner Satyendra Huja recalls that when he arrived in Charlottesville in 1973, people told him to “go back to India with your crazy ideas.” Now, after 30 years, Huja is retiring with the proverbial last laugh.

When he came to town, businesses and residents were moving to Albemarle, and City leaders feared Downtown Charlottesville would soon be a husk of vacant buildings. Sprawl multiplied like bacteria along Route 29, with subdivisions and strip malls connected by wider roads and ever more spacious parking lots.

As Albemarle welcomed cars and pavement as agents of commercial growth, Huja took the opposite view. The way to save Downtown, he said, was to get rid of cars altogether. One of Huja’s first and most controversial big ideas was to turn E. Main Street into a pedestrian walkway in 1976.

For more than a decade afterward, the Downtown Mall felt like a ghost town after 5pm. People said it was a failure. But as the Mall added housing, restaurants and bars, it became one of the few such pedestrian malls in the nation to successfully concentrate jobs, homes and entertainment in a walkable space.

As the City’s lead planner, Huja enjoys the credit for eventual triumphs like the Mall. But his position also makes him a target for those on the losing end of the City’s agenda. Recently, Huja employed his disarming demeanor to assuage business owners on Preston Avenue who say a proposed City development there will ruin their businesses. He tried the same tack with renters on Prospect Avenue who fear the City’s plan to increase middle-class home ownership will push the poor out of Charlottesville.

Whenever the City acts as a developer, emotions run high. As the City grows more dense, more gentrified, and more crammed with boutique accessory stores, Huja’s name will be the one praised––or cursed.

 

John Grisham

The name John Grisham may not immediately bring the word philanthropist to people’s lips. His lucrative dynasty of legal thrillers tends to overshadow his gifts to humanitarian causes, but Grisham contributes far more to the community than take-a-number signings at New Dominion Bookshop once a year.

Last year, Grisham and his wife, Renee, donated $280,000 to the Legal Aid Justice Center, facilitating its move from the old Albemarle Hotel building on W. Main Street to the renovated Bruton Beauty Supply warehouse on Preston Avenue. He also chaired the advisory council for the center’s capital campaign, convincing other donors to pony up the total of more than $1.85 million necessary for Legal Aid’s relocation. Readers of his novels know Grisham to be a champion of those in need and his statement on the center’s website confirms that his beliefs are more than the work of fiction: “Legal Aid is at the center of the last line of defense for the basic civil liberties of the poor. If this line fails, we are all at risk.”

Need more reasons to praise Grisham? How about his generous donations to regional baseball. He sponsored the construction of the pristine Cove Creek Little League park in southern Albemarle and a stadium at St. Anne’s-Belfield. He is rumored to be an anonymous donor behind UVA’s new baseball complex, too. It’s nice to know the man’s John Hancock graces some well-placed checks to area causes and not just the title pages of his latest bestseller.

 

Leah Stoddard

When Second Street Gallery Director Leah Stoddard moved to town in the summer of 1999 she intended to take some time off. But restlessness overtook her and she soon nabbed a gig as part-time development director of the City’s oldest independent gallery before quickly being promoted to executive director. The job, if not the title, suited her.

“I changed it to simply ‘director’ as I thought ‘executive’ sounded too daunting,” she says. “I wanted a kinder and gentler contemporary arts space.”

That sums up Stoddard’s vision for the 30-year-old gallery. “What I wanted to do, and I think a lot of museums/galleries are trying to do, is break down the elitist conception of arts spaces, but still maintain a level of scholarship,” she says.

Her work has paid off: Last year Second Street earned a $40,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation to support the organization’s innovative and scholarly presentations of contemporary art. The gallery will take it to the streets even more come fall, when it moves from its current location in the McGuffey Arts Center to a new, more accessible storefront in the soon-to-be-completed City Center for Contemporary Arts.

Stoddard sees the move as a huge boon for the organization—and the timing doesn’t hurt, either. “I am sort humbled by this,” she says. “Not only did I have to help design the space, but I have to do right by our 30th anniversary and put together an exhibition of the last 30 years. I’ve only been here three years and I’m just trying to do right by this organization’s impressive history and do it all justice.”

 

Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice

The blue anti-war signs that suddenly mushroomed across local lawns at the start of the year were but one indication that the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice stays on top of its game—even if membership numbers rise and fall like so many political fortunes. Founded 20 years ago as the Interfaith Peace Coalition, the group’s first agenda was to promote nuclear disarmament. In those days, they pressed City Council to declare Charlottesville a nuclear-free zone, an action they emulated in the spring when they spurred Council to pass a resolution in support of continued Iraqi weapons inspections and opposed to unilateral military action.

Through perseverance, outreach and well-timed public events (such as the free lecture by C-VILLE columnist Ted Rall), CCPJ kept the war debate alive and kicking during the early months of this year. The protests have dwindled and other stories preoccupy the ever-fickle national press, but CCPJ is not off the case. The mission now: Continue the dialogue about how citizens can respond non-violently to future political and military crises worldwide that are sure to arise.

 

William Lewis

By day, William Lewis runs his 15-year-old small copier business, Duplex Inc., on the Downtown Mall. By night, he’s a small-business counselor, a television show co-producer and mentor to at-risk kids—seven of them, to be precise.

Lewis’ show, co-produced with Greer Wilson, is appropriately dubbed “FYI” and runs on Government Access TV, Adelphia cable channel 10. In a one-on-one conversational format, the show tackles everyday issues like living with Alzheimer’s and features interviews with prominent African-Americans like UVA Dean of African-American Affairs Rick Turner and former Virginia Delegate Paul Harris.

In an upcoming installment, “FYI” will tackle death and dying—and how to pay for the sudden expenses. In the coming weeks, the seven protégés—all television producers from the Charlottesville-Albemarle Technical Education Center—will be hosting their own show, under the guidance of Lewis and Greer, of course.

“This is just one way for these kids to have up-close access to real business people that they otherwise may see as people they could never talk to,” says Lewis.

 

Aaron Hawkins

Forget Avril’s “Sk8ter Boi.” Energy & Rhythm proprietor Hawkins is the real “extreme” deal. The former pro snowboarder and current skateboard aficionado, designer and salesperson at the local skateboard shop has spent the past five years trying to make a positive scene for Charlottesville’s halfpipe crowd.

“I saw how much of a gap there was in between the kids and the sort of underground culture and there not being an actual meeting spot for that,” says Hawkins. “Aside from Barnes & Noble and the University itself there really wasn’t a centerpiece for information or a creative outlet. I felt like I had a lot of things I could share with the kids.”

So in 1998 the lifelong skater (he started at age 6) started Energy & Rhythm, moving it from its original Elliewood Avenue location to W. Main Street last year.

That’s not all. Hawkins got involved in the renovations at the McIntire Skate Park, presumably to do more than just build a dedicated clientele for his cool boards and related stuff. While he says the resulting park, finished in 2000, is only about 60 percent of what he had hoped for, Hawkins isn’t complaining. In short, he is thrilled to be the big kahuna of the local skater scene, which he figures numbers between 200 and 300 avid members ranging from ages 7 to their late 40s.

“I like the scene here, everybody knows each other,” he says. “It’s communal and super-cool, and not a lot of cliques. And I’ve tried to promote that sense of reality and brotherhood.”

 

Daphne Latham

Few people better embody the City’s dual nature—wanting at once to be a small town and to be the City (read: New York)—than Daphne Latham, the inspired hair and makeup artist who lends her talents to Live Arts (and runs her own business, Running with Scissors, by day). Raised by local jazz bluebloods John D’Earth and Dawn Thompson, Latham spent half her childhood in the bustle of the Big Apple and half in Charlottesville’s more sheltered environs. Lucky for us, the trend hasn’t changed.

Although Latham’s talent and sensibilities could easily sustain her in the metropolis, where she still spends much of her time, she has devoted a great deal of energy and hair gel to Live Arts. She became involved with the production of The Rocky Horror Show two and a half years ago, after meeting Live Arts board member Cate Andrews. Since then, audiences have seen Latham’s work—whether they’ve realized it or not—in about 17 productions, including The Wiz, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Wild Party and currently Bat Boy, in which she is also a featured actor.

“I didn’t ever know I was going to get involved in the way that I did,” says Latham, whose Running with Scissors business caters to private clients as well as stage, video and photo productions. “This year, because I’ve been so much more involved at Live Arts, I’ve spent less time in New York.

“That’s not a bad thing,” she hastens to add, then notes in typical Charlottesville form, “I didn’t used to say that I liked Charlottesville, but as I get older I really do.”

 

Coran Capshaw

You’ve got to give Coran Capshaw his props. He struck gold managing Dave Matthews Band and could live comfortably anywhere in the world, yet he’s chosen to stay in Charlottesville––and piece by piece buy up the whole town.

Fittingly, he’s got the music market cornered. His Starr Hill Music Hall is the only stage in town for mid-level touring acts like The Wailers and local stars like Corey Harris. His Musictoday.com business hooks up music fans with all their favorite band paraphernalia. And Red Light management guides fledgling acts to the next levels of stardom.

Capshaw also has a restaurant empire, including Starr Hill Restaurant & Brewery, Blue Light Grill and, most recently, the Belmont tapas joint Mas. He’s a tough businessman, but he has softened his reputation as town father by donating thousands to local charities through the Charlottesville-Albemarle Foundation.

Now Capshaw is dipping his toe—well, his foot, leg and hip, actually—into real estate. Bulldozers are at work on a Capshaw-owned apartment complex across W. Main Street from Starr Hill. Whole chunks of Downtown are in his portfolio, too. But perhaps his biggest coup will come when he closes a deal with the City to manage the revamped Downtown Amphitheater, a deal that will draw on Capshaw’s many areas of expertise. The City is planning to pour millions of Federal and local dollars into a bus transfer center and pedestrian plaza on the east end of the Mall. The City wants to turn the amphitheater into a 5,000-seat outdoor pavilion better suited for big music acts, then lease it to Capshaw. Word has it he’ll probably open a restaurant there.

 

Dragana Katalina-Sun and Sun Da

They filled a canyon-wide niche, namely for a cheap, fast and reliable Downtown lunch. For that reason alone, Dragana Katalina-Sun and Sun Da could earn a place among this year’s C-VILLE 20. But there’s more. The owners of Marco & Luca, a.k.a. the dumpling shop on Second Street, embody an American dream. Since they opened their closet-sized operation on December 31, 2001, the couple and their two adorable children (for whom the shop is named) have captured the imaginations—and stomachs—of hungry Downtown denizens.

They met in Germany in the mid-’90s, she a refugee from Bosnia and he a refugee from China. By 1999 they were transplanted to Charlottesville, beginning to dream of owning their own business.

“We wanted to bring the people quality and quantity,” says Dragana, “and we wanted to bring it to all kinds of people, all classes.

“We love that everyone can afford it,” she says. Indeed, at $2.50 for six fresh-made dumplings or $3 for a tub of sesame noodles, it’s no wonder Marco & Luca customers line up around the corner for their meals (Marco & Luca averages 120 customers per day).

“We love it here, so many people are so very friendly,” says Dragana. “My friend from Sweden was telling me just today that if you say hello to someone there, they look at you as if you’re insane.”

 

Craig Littlepage

During his sophomore year as UVA Athletic Director Craig Littlepage has effectively declared his concentration: To pump up sports at UVA like so many linebackers on Androstenedione. It’s good news and bad news. A successful athletics program will pour even more tourist bucks into the local economy and make Charlottesville a top-tier destination within the state. But with that acclaim will come traffic congestion and possibly dilution of UVA’s academic reputation.

Littlepage must be betting on the positive side of the equation. Consider that $129 million basketball arena, which broke ground earlier this month and that theoretically will improve recruiting possibilities for coaches Gillen and Ryan even as it contributes to severe traffic congestion in the Ivy Road/Emmet Street neighborhood. Or the shiny new baseball stadium, which enjoyed a decent virgin year as the team went 29-25 for the season (but only 11-12 in the ACC). How about the NCAA championship-winning lacrosse team that prompted the question “Syracuse who?” among legions of ESPN viewers last month?

And then there’s the football program, by which we mean the Pep Band. The pigskin ’Hoos have been on the road to recovery for a couple of years already under Al Groh. But after the state of West Virginia threw a collective hissy fit over a satirical skit presented during halftime at a UVA-West Virginia away game, Littlepage evidently concluded that a big-time sports program is best served by something conservative and predictable—like a marching band. Littlepage has earned UVA notice for other reasons, too. The first black athletic director in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the former basketball coach last week was named Athletic Administrator of the Year by the Black Coaches Association. If all goes according to plan and UVA improves its rank in the sure-to-expand ACC, bringing more TV and promotional rights to the University in the bargain, Littlepage’s fame likely will grow brighter.

 

Susan Donovan

With a souring political climate internationally and increasing numbers of displaced persons, Susan Donovan’s work becomes ever more important. That’s because as regional director of the International Rescue Committee she helps settle more than 100 refugees in the area each year. When she took her present position in 1998, Donovan had lived in the City off and on for almost 15 years. She spent much of the ’80s traveling with IRC. She wanted to work with the group, she says, “because it’s so effective. It meets problems directly, without bureaucracy.”

IRC resettles 10 to 15 percent of the refugees who enter the country, and the Charlottesville office is the smallest in its 19-branch national network. The group opened an office here, Donovan says, because “Charlottesville is so welcoming and full of community spirit, and it’s so easy to network here.”

In addition to the City’s openness to newcomers, Donovan cites the region’s freakishly low unemployment rate (currently at 2.8 percent) as a bonus. Her office sponsors a refugee clinic at UVA and an interpreter service with bilingual speakers of 12 languages, including Serbo-Croatian, Burmese and Swahili. On June 20, Donovan’s office celebrates IRC’s 70th anniversary and World Refugee Day on the Downtown Mall. Meanwhile, Charlottesvillians can celebrate the countless contributions Donovan and her colleagues have made in the five-year history of the local IRC.

 

David Toscano

After 12 years in local government, attorney David Toscano is tucking a $6 million feather in his political cap.

As a former City Councilor and Mayor, Toscano witnessed the Downtown Mall’s evolution from sketchy dead zone to the center of Charlottesville’s social life. Now he’s overseeing a multi-million-dollar project to usher in the Mall’s next incarnation as a tourist net.

While building the Mall in 1976, the City ran out of money before it could finish an east end plaza. In 2001, Council decided that a $6.5 million Federal grant for alternative transportation could be used for a bus transfer station and pedestrian walkway outside City Hall. (The space is tentatively dubbed President’s Plaza, although Toscano is asking creative citizens to suggest a more inspired name.) The City also will pour local money into a Mall overhaul, including a new amphitheater, a complete rebricking and destination signage (may we suggest “This way to boutique-and-latte wonderland”?).

Council tapped Toscano to lead a steering committee of Downtown business owners. They’re supposed to be advising the project’s architects, although some members complain the committee is merely a rubber stamp for the City’s agenda.

Either way, Toscano is presiding over the biggest changes to Downtown since the Mall’s construction. As a Councilor, Toscano helped bring the Federal dollars to Charlottesville, and he helped get the project underway as the Feds warned Council to use the money or lose it. Just as 30 years ago a proposed change to the Mall engendered controversy, so does this transfer station project make some skittish. As a former elected official, Toscano is unfazed by the noise: His affinity for the give-and-take of politics is still making things happen in Charlottesville.

 

Margie Shepherd

In the name of higher teacher’s compensation, eighth-grade civics teacher Margie Shepherd has been a major pinprick in the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors’ sides for years now. As President of the Albemarle Education Association, she’s not afraid to come out kicking.

At the March 12 Board of County Supervisors budget hearing, Shepherd, who teaches at J.T. Henley Middle School, stood before the large crowd and screamed into the microphone, “We get awards for excellence in our schools and you get awards for being too tight-fisted to give budget increases?” When it comes to bread-and-butter issues, Shepherd has a long history of yelling the loudest.

“You find the money,” she hollered at the Supes, referring to the 2003-04 fiscal budget. “It’s all in the priority!” The next month, they approved the 2003-04 school operations budget exceeding $104 million and coming in at $4 million above the previous year’s budget.

Victory is sweet, but Shepherd will continue to fight, she says.

“I think that the County School Board is headed in the right direction,” she says, “but the Supervisors are more concerned with keeping the budget low than they are doing the right thing by the students and educators.”

She has other fights up her sleeve, too, like extra planning time for teachers. “There’s been an increase in demands with no increase in teachers’ time,” she says. For the 2003-04 school year, Shepherd plans to add mentoring projects to her busy schedule—including a project for new teachers to be managed in conjunction with UVA.

That doesn’t mean she’ll lose sight of her core concern. Where advocating for teacher’s salaries is the matter, she says, “It’s definitely not a done deal!”

 

Sonia Cabell

Sonia Cabell of 10 1/2 Street NW is tired of her neighborhood’s reputation as a haven for crime and drugs. There were 21 reports of drug activity in the 10th and Page neighborhood last year, according to police records. But turf battles and JADE busts are not the whole story, says Cabell. People there are working to improve their lives, she says.

“People are always going to look at this as a drug area, and I don’t think it’s right,” she says. “They don’t give us a chance to change.”

Cabell represents 10th and Page in a program called “Block by Block.” A City-sponsored group called the Quality Community Council wants to recruit block captains for 11 Charlottesville neighborhoods. Cabell’s goal is to encourage more City involvement with her neighborhood.

“In the past, the only time we see City people is when a crime is going on,” Cabell says. “Where are they before the crime happens?”

Cabell is getting her wish. The City is trying to spruce up 10th and Page just as public, private and University interests undertake new development on W. Main Street. Last year police installed two permanent officers in the neighborhood. Moreover, the City, in partnership with the Piedmont Housing Alliance, has bought 16 houses in the neighborhood to refurbish and resell.

Gentrification will be part of the future for 10th and Page, but for now Cabell sees her role as bridging the gap between City Hall and people historically neglected by and suspicious of government. Since becoming a block captain in December, Cabell helped persuade the City to put up four-way stop signs on her street. She’s also conducting bake sales to help her neighbors afford the increased trash-sticker fees.

At first, Cabell feared she’d catch hell from her neighbors for working with the City.

“There’s been no grief at all,” she says. “It’s all about my neighbors. We’re working on this together.”

 

Pamela Peterson

Pamela Peterson had been baking crunchy canapés at home where her dog, Sam, would regularly enjoy them. One day a co-worker at Boxer Learning recommended she sell the treats. So, taking the advice, in 2000 Peterson began peddling her delectable dog treats at the City Market. Within a week, the appropriately dubbed Sammy Snacks were building a loyal clientele. Encouraged, Peterson quit her job and went into the bone-shaped treat business full time. Since then she’s been on a crusade to restore good eating to the City—and country’s—canines.

The idea behind Sammy Snacks was to create a treat that Peterson could share with her dog—something free of preservatives, chemicals, cholesterol and sodium.

“I was so unhappy with the treats available at the store,” says Peterson, “and Sam always wanted a bite of what I was eating.” Her latest crunchy product, a CranOat treat that has earned a “Virginia’s Finest” designation, has a light granola texture.

She can bake a yummy snack for Bowser, but Peterson’s deeper contribution is as an employer. Seven of Peterson’s 10 employees are highly functioning adults with mild to severe brain injuries.

“These are intelligent, functional individuals,” she says, “who didn’t have sheltered workshops geared toward their specific needs.”

At present, Peterson’s treat-loving customer base only continues to grow—she distributes 2,000 pounds of doggie biscuits and 20,000 pounds of all-natural dog and cat food per month to upscale pet boutiques nationwide. Next month, Peterson will relocate to the corner space of the Gleason’s building on Garrett Street. There, locals can pick up a 10-ounce container of Sammy Snacks for $5.50. Maybe it’s a dog-eat-dog world after all.

 

Charlottesville Downtown Foundation

For an organization that previously operated in relative obscurity, the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation has taken a lot of heat in the past couple of months. Now nearly everyone knows the name of the non-profit group behind Court Days, the Dogwood Blues Festival and Fridays After 5. But the newfound fame does not come because CDF has been successful in its mission to promote the Historic Downtown area nor because it contributes profits to a slew of local charities. No, CDF’s notoriety arises from a $3 price tag—the fee the group attached this year to the Fridays’ gate, which for the previous 15 years had been free.

While it’s possible that no one will ever be able to tabulate the real value of a Foreigner concert (the ’80s rockers will play a rescheduled show at the Downtown Amphitheater on September 19), the public has offered plenty of other wisdom to CDF—to wit, find new sponsors, raise the beer prices, if you must, but for Pete’s sake keep Fridays free.

As if Fridays didn’t raise enough sparks, CDF’s already burned credibility (high employee turnover and a perception of mismanagement hasn’t helped) went to charcoal with the news last month that it would discontinue its annual Fourth of July fireworks display.

The clock is ticking. A dishwasher furiously scours knives as the grill chef checks the fryer by his station. Amidst the loud intermittent clank of utensils and pans against stainless steel countertops, Tim Burgess, co-owner of Bang and chef for the night, swiftly dices mint in preparation for the many Thai carrot salads and peanut-sesame vinaigrettes he’ll serve this evening. It’s 4:30pm and in less than one hour Bang will be a flurry with Charlottesville’s hippest. They’ll devour Pacific Blue snapper, grilled oyster mushrooms and 60-second sirloin. The trademark cosmopolitans and boutique martinis will flow, if not exactly freely in this upscale, see-and-be-seen restaurant, then liberally. Burgess and partner Vincent Derquenne are the brains—and the whisks—behind the operation.

 

Meanwhile, outside on the Downtown Mall, it’s a typical Saturday night. Weekend tourists and locals flock to the pulsating heart of Charlottesville. By nightfall, the eight blocks of pedestrian promenade will be transformed into a kind of ocean-less boardwalk. Vagabond musicians set up their drum circles and guitars as street vendors refold and re-pile their tables of T-shirts, scarves and sweaters. Waiters set tables at any one of the 20 outdoor cafés. One by one, moviegoers flock to buy tickets for the early show.

At some point during the evening, the same thought will cross many Mall visitors’ minds—dinner. That’s where Burgess and Derquenne step in.

They are the co-owners of three of the most popular and successful Downtown restaurants—all within two blocks of each other. Together, the duo has created Metro, with its new Mediterranean flair reigning over Water Street; Bizou, Burgess and Derquenne’s flagship diner directly on the Mall; and the youngest in the restaurant trio, Asian-infused Bang on Second Street around the corner from Metro.

On this night while Burgess directs Bang, Derquenne will baby-sit Metro, creating appetizers like antipasti, charcuterie platters and mozzarella tarts smeared with caramelized onions. He’ll also be in charge of the fish—gulf shrimp swimming in creamy polenta, pan-fried soft shell crabs dunked in remoulade cream sauce and salmon-wrapped phyllo with roasted polenta under a layer of rich tomato.

Bizou, which by design is staffed by veterans of the Derquenne-Burgess team, will be taking care of itself. There, chef Sean Lawford, in his sixth year at Bizou, will serve up such longtime local favorites as homemade meatloaf with chipotle ketchup and banana bread smothered under praline sauce and vanilla ice cream.

He won’t have a second to sit down once the patrons start pouring in and lining up for outdoor tables, but Lawford has no complaints. “Vincent and Tim have been mentors and give me a lot of culinary freedom and support,” he says. “I doubt I’ll ever work for anyone else again.”

 

It’s 5pm and Burgess has just finished typing the evening’s menu for Bang. Clad in clingy black halter tops and tight slacks, the bartenders and waiters arrive. By 5:30pm, Burgess will have pored over the selections for the evening with the staff. By 6:30pm, five waiters, two bartenders, one dishwasher and two chefs will be knocking elbows in the 13’ X 20’ kitchen that harks back to the former house’s Depression-era roots.

A waiter vacuums beneath the black booths, brushing off the faux, slightly tattered leopard-skin seat cushions as a bartender wipes down a lime-green shellacked counter. Someone clicks on the stereo, and the lilting beat of Macy Gray reverberates off the maroon-veined wallpaper (which is also beginning to show a few signs of wear—perhaps a symptom of Bang’s life in the fast lane). During the course of the evening, this tight, dimly lit space will serve upwards of 70 people. With the same number expected to visit Metro, and a whopping 220 at Bizou, Derquenne and Burgess will please the palates of nearly 400 diners on a single night. Burgess and Derquenne may be riding a wave of success that is the envy of every would-be restaurateur in the City, but it’s a far cry from where they started.

Theirs was a chance meeting in the late 1980s, when both worked in a Crozet restaurant known as The Gallery. How could the then-20somethings know that at the intersection of routes 240 and 250, Derquenne’s Parisian upbringing and Burgess’ West Virginia roots would eventually become ingredients in one of the longest lived and most successful restaurant partnerships in the City? Could they have any idea, moreover, that together they would stumble upon what would soon become a trait of Charlottesville cuisine—the new French-Southern cuisine?

In 1991, Derquenne, who had by then been out of The Gallery for one year, began to work at one of the few restaurants on the deserted Downtown Mall. It was an upscale diner named Fat City. The menu evidenced some culinary strides, such as meats nouvelle, a fine wine list and gourmet desserts, but internally, the Fat City partnership was falling apart.

“Those guys were doing some very interesting things,” says Derquenne.

“Fat City was a great concept, with a great chef,” adds Burgess, “but a horrible business partnership.”

After what Derquenne describes as an impromptu board meeting at the Dragon Lady restaurant, he and Burgess decided to purchase Fat City. In those days a location on the barren Mall came at just the right price, but it was still a lot to the fledgling entrepreneurs. They combined a $10,000 loan from Derquenne’s father with another $10,000 that Burgess had saved and the proceeds from a home-equity loan that Burgess and his wife took on their house to launch the business. Scared to death of the recession, and worried about coming off as too high end, Burgess and Derquenne took their time transforming Fat City into their first baby, Metropolitain.

“We had no pricey cuts of meat, nothing too fancy,” says Burgess. ”There was even a burger on the menu. We very slowly removed certain things, while adding others.”

Nevertheless, the first two-and-a-half years were little more than a struggle for the partners. Neither the sparkle of Burgess’ bright blue eyes nor Derquenne’s Gallic charm (“dees dish is some-ting spectaculahr”) could conquer the Mall’s declining economy.

Downtown shops and boutiques were failing, upper floors of nearly every building were vacant, and most merchants shut their doors at 6pm. In terms of dining, Eastern Standard on the west end and C&O on the east end were upscale bookends on either side of nothing.

Among local companies and establishments, The Michie Company (later Lexis-Nexis), the National Ground Intelligence Center and SNL Securities made their home Downtown. Nearby employees came out for lunch, but rarely hung around for dinner.

“Lunch was packed every day,” recalls Terry Shotwell, who has owned the Nook since 1990. “There was nothing else down here to eat. For lunches, it was us and the Hardware Store.

“The thing is, no one was open for dinner except for maybe Miller’s and Sal’s.”

Shotwell, who had previously owned Terry’s Place around the corner on Fourth Street from the present-day Nook, even recounts the point when City Council approached the proprietors of Sal’s Pizzeria, The Hardware Store and Miller’s to sell them on the idea of “café-style,” or outdoor, seating.

“They were doing everything they could to draw people Downtown, make it more inviting,” she says.

Burgess and Derquenne had no illusions about what they were facing. Indeed, even in robust settings, one-third of new restaurants go out of business in less than a year, according to the National Restaurant Association. By year five, the figure jumps to 70 percent.

“We worked and cooked out of fear, period,” says Burgess. “It definitely wasn’t going to our heads.”

More than once the thought crossed their minds that they had made a mistake.

 

Derquenne and Burgess waited until well into Metropolitain’s third year to add the sort of culinary delights they had their sights set on from the beginning. It took that long to build up an adventurous clientele.

At the end of 1994, a fancy new restaurant named Brasa opened at 215 W. Water St., the current location of Oxo. Brasa was the first to bring big-city flashiness to Charlottesville. The interior was a spectacle and the glowing restaurant reviews in major newspapers were attractive, to say the least.

“They were the first outfit to dump a bunch of money into a big space like that,” says Burgess. “Up until then, everyone else was just sort of winging it, including us.”

During the same period, Doug Smith and Sean Concannon purchased and re-opened Eastern Standard (which had been shuttered by its first owners, Ken and Betty Jane Mori). Trying to peel off Standard’s former reputation as having “the slowest service in town,” like Derquenne and Burgess, Smith and Concannon were struggling to make themselves known with little money.

“We were sort of the poor stepchild of Brasa when we opened,” says Smith. “We just didn’t have the big splash.”

“We had to look at this like it was our contribution to Charlottesville,” says Concannon, who recounts going out every morning to pick up trash in the empty parking lot across the street where the ice park is now located just so customers wouldn’t see it while dining.

Ever nervous about business, Burgess and Derquenne methodically continued to add new dishes to Metropolitain’s menu, while wiping away conventional stand-bys like hamburgers. Inside, the act of embellishing the menu with dishes like whole quail, potato chevre croquettes and blackberry gastrique may have spurred massive anxiety attacks in the partners. But outside, those same dishes were beginning a buzz—one Burgess and Derquenne wouldn’t apprehend for some time.

“Not only was Metropolitain sort of the new place in town,” says Concannon, “but they were really setting the standard for fresh food and new ideas.”

 

By 1995, the partners saw the light at the end of the tunnel—or at least saw it as well as their bleary eyes would permit, given the exhausting hours they were putting in at Metropolitain. The economy was flush again, and Downtown development was becoming the new name of the game.

“We had a talk with [high-profile developer] Lee Danielson,” says Burgess, “and he said, ‘Hang around, don’t go anywhere, we’re going to be changing this Mall.’

“And, so we stuck it out.”

Indeed, in the couple of years to follow a renewed vitality began to simmer on the Downtown Mall—and restaurants soon followed.

The Charlottesville Ice Park (a project of Danielson and then-partner Colin Rolph) broke ground, with a new movie complex and the Second Street crossover next on the to-do lists (also Danielson-Rolph projects). High-tech companies moved to Downtown buildings instead of renting Lysol-laden cubicles in the County. Live music, street vendors and packed outdoor cafés attracted more and more visitors to the Mall.

In 1996, Bill and Kate Hamilton gave birth to Hamiltons’ in the former H & M shoe store, whose renovation was the brainchild of another high-profile developer, Gabe Silverman. Barbara Shifflett (now of Station and Mono Loco) walked past the present Mono Loco location on Water Street (then Rose’s Burritos) and asked the power man what business he was cutting off. The rest is crazy monkey history. Christian Tamm opened the highly successful Sylvia’s Pizza next to the Hardware Store (later he relocated his business and dubbed it Christian’s Pizza).

As Shifflett went on to transform Mono Loco into a Caribbean-style eatery, Hamiltons’ became the airy, brightly colored destination for New American cuisine. These business owners, like other up-and-coming restaurateurs, looked to Derquenne and Burgess.

“They were already players,” says Bill Hamilton. “They figured in heavily on how we were going to market ourselves, but really we wanted to complement what they were doing.”

But that would prove difficult, for Burgess and Derquenne were already growing restless with the state of Metropolitain.

Amidst the rising tide of Mall rejuvenation in 1996, Derquenne and Burgess decided to expand. They would add another restaurant to their assets, and add more formal, innovative cuisine to their repertoire.

They moved Metropolitain to its Water Street location (now Metro). With the upscale endeavor came a dressier space, an open kitchen, white coats and a new menu: Eclectic and artistic dishes emerged, like coq au vin with sautéed arugula and rabbit livers with toasted brioche.

But the site of the first Metropolitain would remain their flagship restaurant. They renamed it Bizou (meaning “sweet kisses”after the parting words Derquenne regularly uttered to his mother, “Bizou, Bizou”) and hired a chef. They would retain most of the diner-style favorites on the menu, like cornmeal-crusted catfish quesadillas and ice cream soda floats. With their personal drive for variety and excitement, they now offered Charlottesville one elegant diner, and one elegant dining experience.

“Before I met Tim,” says Derquenne. “I had never even seen a grit. When I go home, even today, I try to explain what grits are and people have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.”

 

Early last year, Derquenne and Burgess made another purchase: the former Memory & Company space on Second Street. They set out to make their third restaurant, Bang.

A few days before opening night in March 2002, with characteristic aplomb, Derquenne and Burgess decided to scrap the entire Bang menu and go strictly for appetizers, pursuing another dream—to invent and serve Asian-influenced food. On top of that, they would create a drink menu as spectacular as the food.

“We really wanted to distance this place from the other two,” says Burgess.

They were also in the process of completing renovations at Metropolitain, eventually creating an ultra-colorful, geometric, “Romper Room”-style space, including a Mediterranean-infused menu. They reduced prices, and the name. The space would now be called Metro. It would feature dishes like duck prosciutto, pecorino pizzas and tuna stuffed with caponata.

Expanding to three establishments carries some risk, as many agree that part of the success and charm of the first two restaurants lies with Derquenne and Burgess themselves. Juggling minor and major details alike is a task the two carry seamlessly—all three restaurants tallied in at zero critical food violations in recent State health inspections. Personality and the human touch are essential ingredients in the restaurant business, says Concannon, whose Eastern Standard has now become Escafé.

“That’s the most important part to owning a successful restaurant,” he says. “Tim and Vince had it, naturally.”

Tamm concurs. “It’s the look on the owner’s face, him greeting you, the consistency of that, in general, that makes or breaks a restaurant,” he says, adding that Bizou (where neither owner cooks regularly anymore) is the absolute best meal on the Mall for the money.

“When an owner’s not there, the customer can feel there’s a different atmosphere in the store,” Tamm says.

And then there are the dangers of handling too many projects at once.

“Your focus can get distracted,” says Shifflett, who also opened Rapture. “You move your eye to a different area of interest.

“But, when you have a lot of energy, it’s hard to limit yourself when you feel limitless.”

Still, on this busy Saturday night, 12 years after they first hung out their “Open for Business” sign, both Burgess and Derquenne are confident that Bizou is in good hands.

“You always want every restaurant to be self-sufficient,” says Burgess. “Right now, that’s Bizou.”

Back at Bang, as the bartender slides behind him to rinse a bucket from the bar, Burgess whisks the remaining chocolate chips into the mousse for the popular Chocolate 3 Way dessert. He puts it into the fridge and pulls out another handful of mint.

“At any moment,” he says with a wisdom born of years of working Charlottesville’s best kitchens, “a customer may pop their head through this curtain and say, ‘Hey, what’s good tonight?’”

Riverview Park

Chesapeake Street

Woolen Mills Neighborhood

A few hundred yards beyond Riverview’s parking lot the Rivanna curves into sight, past the playground equipment and a stretch of grass. There’s something beautiful about that murky brown snake. During the American Revolution, the City’s most prominent river provided an indispensable transportation route, and Thomas Jefferson’s moniker “River Anna” gave rise to its present name.

The original brown stone and sand trail that traverses the Park was completed in 1993, with the forsythia-bordered river loop finished the following year. Cutting through both forests and meadows and sticking close to the water, the trail is one of the City’s finest, especially for a summer walk with Fido. The park is one of few to allow dogs off leash—Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Riverview features a few sandy spots great for fishing—one’s only option since Tropical Storm Fran pilloried the original fishing pier in 1996. Between dogs, angling and the river, this is the place for an afternoon impersonating Huck Finn.

 

Dome Room

UVA Rotunda

University Avenue

The Dome Room of the Rotunda is a bit like the sunglasses you can’t find because they’re on top of your head. Like the shades, the Dome Room is hidden right there. Not only that, it’s often unoccupied: The Downtown set avoids UVA at all costs, like the proverbial elephant in the room, and students avoid the Rotunda because it’s for tourists.

Few know that the room is open to the public. Cozy niches encircle the space, each with chairs, tall windows and glassed cases stuffed with old books. Pouring through the circular skylight and over the blonde wood floors, sunlight ennobles the neo-Palladian aesthetic Jefferson so admired. Over one of two fireplaces hangs an old colored drawing of Jefferson’s “academical village,” depicting the Rotunda with its northern extension that was scrapped after the 1896 fire. Pairs of Corinthian columns feathered with acanthus reach toward the dome, which seems so vast and empty that it alters sense of scale. The Dome Room could easily serve as an airy ballroom or an intimate lecture hall—or an excellent place, as we found, to spend a quiet afternoon with a book.

 

Third floor

Daedalus Bookshop

Corner of Fourth and Market streets

The former barbershop at the intersection of Fourth and Market streets has housed Daedalus, Sandy McAdams’ idiosyncratic bookstore, for 30 years. Like its namesake Athenian inventor, McAdams crafted the store’s maze of titles and built all the shelves by hand. “I’ve never measured,” he says, “but there must be miles of them.” A customer could hardly refute that claim, after browsing three floors where every available inch of wall space is covered with used books.

Upstairs discover a poetry-lover’s dream—a comfortable room filled with poetry volumes stacked so high a ladder is needed to reach the top rows. A window looks out onto Market Street, and sunlight filters in through a tree, leaving a fresh and open aspect. A solitary metal lamp hangs from the ceiling and casts its little circle of yellow light on a chair and stepstool. What else could there be to do but pull down a volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay and start reading?

 

Leander McCormick Observatory

Observatory Hill

UVA

Nestled at the crest of Observatory Hill at the southern edge of Charlottesville proper rests the 13th-largest refractor telescope ever built. Inside the circular building, smaller telescopes and several astrometric tools are dwarfed by the grand instrument. As the three slits in the top of the rotating dome open to the nighttime sky, Jupiter—one of many sights observed through the lens—becomes a world all its own: Great red spots move within the shadows of Jupiter’s four moons, and cloud bands hover in the planet’s high wind speed, scribbling loops and swirls around the planet.

Along with the breathtaking view of the sky, which later this summer will feature a closer-than-ever-before view of Mars, the Leander McCormick Observatory offers a fascinating history. McCormick, whose brother Cyrus invented the reaper, donated the observatory to UVA on Thomas Jefferson’s birthday in 1885. As the family became supremely wealthy and moved from Virginia to Chicago, McCormick sought to donate the largest telescope in the world back home, to UVA. But thanks to the Chicago fire, which reduced his fortune to cinders, he had to wait a decade to build and then donate the telescope—actually the second largest of its time.

 

Blue Hole

Sugar Hollow

White Hall, Albemarle County

The trip to Sugar Hollow, off Garth Road, may be some of the best 30 minutes you could spend in a car. For once you’ve wended your way through the makeshift parking area and foot trails, up above the reservoir and its flowing dam, you’ll discover a luscious little swimming spot straight out of The Blue Lagoon.

The woodsy and silent Blue Hole, as it’s known to frequent visitors, is about a 15-foot climb down from the wide and rocky Sugar Hollow trail, a fire road reputed to be the onetime main route from Albemarle to Lynchburg. The azure oasis, fed by a bursting white waterfall, stems from a fork in the rich Moorman’s River.

The daring can swing from a handy Tarzan rope into the deep pool. The less daring can cannonball from the slick rock beside the falls—the middle of the hole is said to be more than 12 feet

 

Scoops

485 Valley Street

Scottsville

Certain places convey the feel of a Norman Rockwell painting, and that can be a good thing, especially when it comes to ice cream parlors. At the end of a drive down Route 20S to Scottsville, there on the main drag sits Scoops, the enterprise of David Dodge and one of our favorite hidden treasures (it’s so hidden, it’s in Scottsville!).

A canvas awning shelters the front stoop, and two wooden benches face Valley Street. Inside, the place is spotless, polished from top to bottom. Everything gleams. That white tornado aesthetic combined with the warm yellow walls and cream-white valances over the windows adds an almost surreal cherry to the nostalgia sundae. It’s like the ice cream shop remembered from a childhood summer vacation. In the freezer there’s row after row of homemade ice cream that Dodge buys from our City’s preferred parlor, Chaps. Eat a scoop of mint chocolate chip with a scoop of moose tracks in a waffle cone while sitting on a wooden bench in a small town, and suddenly it’s 1955.

 

The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum

400 Peter Jefferson Place

Formerly a plantation home, the Kluge-Ruhe building is now home to more than 1,600 paintings, sculptures and artifacts from all over the comparatively unknown world of Aboriginal Australia. Crossing the threshold of the house just off Route 250E launches the visitor into another cosmos. This is no truer than with the latest exhibition, “Object Lessons.”

But new visitors are not left to navigate the new/old world on their own. Acrylic works, bark paintings and other organic pieces carefully handpicked from the museum’s permanent collection hang alongside lengthy explanations.

“We’re so close to this art,” says associate curator Julia May, “that we sometimes overlook the obvious.”

The museum itself came into being in 1997 through a gift by Albemarle billionaire John Kluge, who began collecting Aboriginal art in 1988.

Between the collection and archives of the late Aboriginal expert Ed Ruhe and Kluge’s pieces, the museum offers one of the foremost private collections of true Aboriginal art in the entire world.

Right here, in our own backyard.

 

Top Deck

Market Street Parking Garage

Downtown Mall

Unexpectedly, one of the most striking views of Downtown is obtainable from a parked car or Downtown’s only glass elevator. Besides the incredible vista, different layers of the area’s history surface from the top floor of the Market Street parking garage. The site of the garage rests well within the original boundaries of early Charlottesville, a 50-acre plot defined by Jefferson Street to the north and South Street at the other end. If you’re daring enough to peer over the edge, you can catch a glimpse of Main Street, too, which became the City’s primary business district during the 1840s—about the time businesses began radiating away from Court Square (180 degrees from the view seen here).

The brickwork of Main Street lies below, as well, a testament to the 1976 facelift that spawned the Downtown Mall. Beyond the east side of Main, past another garage on Water Street, stretch the Blue Ridge foothills, certainly as important as the City’s buildings. Especially in this trumpeted Lewis and Clark bicentennial year, the historical strata on display here take on deeper meaning, from the center of the City to those manifestly destined hills in the distance.

 

Back Room

Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar

East end of the Downtown Mall

Down the rear hallway of the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar and beyond the restrooms, there’s a room on the right. A comfortably worn, green couch sits against one wall, and one good-sized table with four chairs occupies the middle of the room. Ornamented with plants and a wooden statue of the Hindu god Ganesh, it’s the kind of room in which you’d conduct a business meeting after yoga class. Two skylights cut through the ceiling, and two windows and a door open onto a large deck, which has a few judiciously placed tables and some bright red benches—and some ashtrays, too.

There’s something terribly urban about smoking cigarettes while drinking puerh tea in the surroundings of vaguely tropical plants, rattan, Hindu gods and satellite dishes that poke into sight from nearby roofs. Momentarily, one might even get the sense of standing on an East Village rooftop patio, before quickly realizing there’s far too much space for that to be true. It must be Charlottesville.

 

Courtyard

Albemarle Historical Society

200 Second St. N.E.

Paul Goodloe McIntire was the original philanthropist extraordinaire of the greater Charlottesville area. It might seem fitting then that the courtyard established in his memory behind the Historical Society continues to give and give—give a peaceful place to rest, that is. The cobbled bricks and serene air are themselves a trip back to the 1900s.

Within the viridescent City courtyard lies the perfect shady spot for a quick lunch (for you or the birds) or maybe a meditation on the great philanthropists of yore like McIntire.

Born in 1860, McIntire was a clerk for the C&O Railroad, until he went to New York to dabble (successfully, it must be said) in the stock market. He returned to his hometown in 1918 and dispensed more than $1 million across the town, from the land for McIntire Park to an endowment for UVA Hospital.

Twelve years ago, the Historical Society took over the building behind which sit the courtyard and bust of the great man himself. The site actually dates to 1920 when Charlottesville’s first library was opened, built by—you guessed it—Paul Goodloe McIntire.

“CCPJ provides a way for those in our community who care about peace and justice to join with kindred spirits,” says CCPJ steering committee chair Bill Anderson, above. “As our name suggests, we in CCPJ believe that peace and justice are inextricably intertwined. When we work for one we promote the other.”

Twenty years ago, CCPJ began as the Interfaith Peace Coalition, promoting nuclear disarmament. One of IPC’s coups was hosting a talk by Vitaly Churkin, from the Soviet embassy in Washington. Later, with an office in The Prism coffeehouse, the group renamed itself the Charlottesville Peace Center. Operating on limited donations, the CPC held rallies, talks and asked the City Council to declare Charlottesville a nuclear-free zone. During the years, CCPJ members have been Quakers, Jews, pacifists and priests, as well as professors and parents, journalists, students, teachers and anybody committed to their cause.

The group has had its share of detractors, too. Anderson identifies them as “People who are themselves misinformed, who do not understand that peace making is everyone’s responsibility…the very thing that makes democracy stronger, and the world safer.”

CCPJ perceives peace, creativity and culture as going hand in hand, along with a good deal of introspection. Their means of protest and proactive discord have not been limited to banners and bullhorns. Local music teacher and CCPJ member Betty Gross (left), for instance, will soon be seen on the Downtown Mall playing her viola, singing “America the Beautiful” and the “Star-Spangled Banner” to call attention to the problems in the Middle East now perpetrated in the name of homeland security.”

Further, in March, to coincide with 998 readings in 59 countries and all 50 states, CCPJ co-sponsored a reading of Aristophanes’ anti-war Greek comedy Lysistrata in which Athenian and Laconian women end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex from their hawkish husbands.

And for years, during its annual commemoration of Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day, CCPJ has taught children to fold paper cranes on the Downtown Mall, while reading the story of Sadako, a Hiroshima girl who died of leukemia before she could complete the 1,000 paper cranes that are a Japanese blessing of good fortune.

Not everybody is keen on CCPJ’s mission. Here and there across town, posters and pro-war rallies popped up, praising Bush. CCPJ diehards, still fixtures (in dwindling numbers) outside the Federal building on Ridge-McIntire every Thursday, take the insults right along with the approving honks.

CCPJ member and UVA English professor Herbert Tucker finds opposition all around: “On the right, reactionaries who confuse patriotism with apologetics for the ruling order and defense of the status quo,” he says, “on the left, radicals who demand solutions at once to problems it will take generations to solve.”

Act local, think global is the CCPJ motto. The group remains vital, says Herbert Tucker (left), because “It puts a nearby face on solidarity for those working on issues that can seem neglected at a time that definitely seems inimical.”

CCPJ has some unlikely allies. Local Army Recruiting Station Commander, Staff Sergeant Tom Hamilton respects CCPJ, despite their presentations at local high schools about students’ Selective Service conscientious-objector options. “Organizations on the other side of the fence, I think it’s great they’re there. It kind of puts things in check and balance,” he says. “Without any of them, you have one side running the fence. That’s dictatorship.”

Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo was thankful to have CCPJ coordinating the anti-war demonstrations. “When we look [at what happened] around the country, we had a relatively peaceful, conscientious group here.” Longo spoke of having an understanding dialogue with CCPJ.

We are all participants in democracy, says Longo. “I believe that it’s the responsibility of every American to assure a sense of peace and justice and to carry that out in a way that’s peaceful and doesn’t jeopardize public safety or property rights.”

Congressman Virgil Goode (right), on the other hand, credits our liberties to the muscle of our massive military and effusively praises the troops. He credits CCPJ’s existence to military might. “Organizations like CCPJ and anti-war rallies have freedoms and constitutional protections in this nation, unlike in Iraq,” Goode says. Ironically, on April 25, a Charlottesville judge ruled that protestors who had been charged with trespassing in Goode’s office on the day war broke out had no right to read their explanatory statements of protest during the trial.

Chief Longo admits that his officers, too, were displeased with what CCPJ was promoting during the Goode sit-in and at other times. “We are a paramilitary organization,” Longo says. “Our officers served in foreign conflicts. When you give that much of yourself, you may be upset when others are not in agreement with what you were fighting for.”

Bush has declared “victory.” Now, City Councilman Kevin Lynch (above) asks peace activists to “remind the country that the point of this adventure was long term peace in the middle east, as opposed to say, $1.20 per gallon gasoline. I would encourage anyone who still thinks the Iraq war was about weapons of mass destruction, to check out www.newamericancentury.org and then think long and hard about whether it was a good idea to entrust American blood and treasure to this crew.”

And the specter of upcoming elections looms large. “I hope that the new peace activists will be more constructively engaged in electoral politics,” says Lynch. “Too many activists on the left would rather talk to each other—and vote only for ‘ideologically pure’ candidates—than work to get their ideas into the mainstream of the Democratic party. We need to work together if we don’t want American policy in the hands of a bunch of Troglodytes.”

Former State Delegate Reverend Peter Way, who spoke at a pro-troops rally in the thick of war season, has a somewhat different assessment: “The City Council of Charlottesville are pigs,” he says. “They’ll do anything to promote liberalism.”

Council, of course, sees it another way, one more suited to CCPJ’s message. “To question is our duty. It’s the American thing to do,” says Councilman Blake Caravati, left, who defends people’s right to voice their condemnation of the Bush administration’s “dismal diplomatic failure.” He quotes Teddy Roosevelt, who wrote during the first World War, “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

Mayor Maurice Cox, right, seems to agree. “You can’t underestimate the benefit of having groups that mobilize citizens to influence their legislators,” says Cox, with regard to CCPJ’s mobilization of the city’s anti-unilateral-war resolution. “The supporters of our resolution and the millions of others who supported like resolutions sent an overwhelming message that Americans have a responsibility to question our government.”

The war is over, or at least in remission. Where does CCPJ go from here? Member Ben Walter says, “Anti-Bush all the way, 24/7. This guy is looking at Syria and Iran. God knows what he’ll do in Iraq.”

The new mission includes taking action on domestic and international injustices. During its May 4 meeting, the group discussed thwarting the “anti-terrorist” Patriot Act, which was passed by Bush in 2001. According to CCPJ, it violates civil rights by giving sweeping new powers to cops and international intelligence agencies. Locally CCPJ members have worked with the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library to make sure patrons know that their borrowing records are now turned over to the authorities, for instance.

And more restrictive laws are reportedly on the way. CCPJ sees its work as more important than ever. Helena Cobban, who is also a member of the prestigious, London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, proposes two questions for the future:

 

“1. How can we work to have our country build the capabilities for serious, effective, nonviolent responses to the crises it might face in the future?”

and

“2. How can we continue to explore and share information about the facts of Americans’ interdependence with the peoples of the rest of the world—even in a public climate that is increasingly triumphalist, and in a way that is respectful of and sensitive to the feelings of our neighbors, friends and legislators?”

Who you are

They call him “Bugs”: Mostly those of you willing to discuss your sex lives with complete strangers are young, single, straight and horny. And, as is true for the general population, slightly more than half of you are female. Seventy percent of survey respondents are between the ages of 21 and 35 and nearly 60 percent are single. Fully three-quarters of survey-takers identify themselves as hetero, with 10 percent claiming bi-sexuality and 7 percent homosexuality (10 people checked “other,” which suggests—what? Abstinence? Bestiality? We’re not going there…).

You don’t have kids (save for 65 parents in the entire survey), but that’s not for lack of opportunity: Sixty percent of you got some nooky (we assume with another person) within the week you filled out the survey. The number went up to 76 percent when we included those who had had sex within two weeks of completing the survey. Like we’ve said, someone should rename the place Bunny-ville. (The outliers in this category, by the way, were eight people who had been two years between copulations and five others who had gone a lonely five years since having a partner.)

Turn up the volume: On the question of sex partners, either there is a lot of K-Y jelly moving off the pharmacist’s shelves, or somebody is telling tales. (It reminds us of that joke about women making poor architects because they’ve always been told that this much is 12 inches.) Truly, are there a half-dozen people circulating out there who have had “more than 100” sex partners? Are there another 10 who have slept with more than 50 people? Those of you who have had between two and 20 partners equals, we swear, 69 percent. When counting just men, however, that figure drops to 58 percent. But it climbs to 76 percent when it comes to women who have had more than one and fewer than 20 lovers (and you thought she was just running out for bread and Diet Coke at Kroger!). Eight percent overall have had a sole sex partner to date.

As for the age of deflowering, most of you—56 percent—first tasted the petal of love between the ages of 15 and 19 (this fact didn’t vary significantly between men and women). Apparently those high school sex-ed classes achieved their implied purpose: to reduce the number of virgins enrolling in America’s colleges.

Trading places: When it comes to verbal blunders—you know, saying the wrong honey’s name to the naked sweetie in your arms—it’s a male problem. Men say they have done that twice as often as women claim to have done: 22 percent for the guys compared to 10 percent for the gals. But cheating knows no gender boundaries. Thirty-nine percent of men have borrowed sugar next door; 39 percent of women have had their wheels adjusted at another mechanic. (Our guess is 75 percent of all cheaters have run into their dental hygienist, dog-sitter or co-worker while running around in Charlottesville. Didn’t we tell you it’s a small town?)

Better safe than sorry? Remember that ancient story about all the men who got inside a Trojan? That would be a good concept to ponder, oh Charlottesville, as less than half of you are using condoms during sex. Hello? STD much? Unwanted pregnancy much? Did we miss the press conference when Donald Rumsfeld declared victory in the War Against Killer Viruses that Enjoy Traveling in Semen?

Even more stunning is the fact that fewer women than men say they use condoms: 35 percent compared to 50 percent.

Taking the half-full perspective, it is a fine thing that 45 percent of you rabbits generally are using birth control of some sort. But really: “Pulling out” as a form of contraception? Somebody’s been listening to a lot of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” Get a prescription, people. Let science do the work that Meat Loaf could not.

…with an order of “Biggie” fries: When it comes to breasts, men and women are equally indifferent to size, perhaps subscribing to the familiar adage that with mammaries, more than a mouthful is wasted. But the penis, we’re sorry to report, gents, benefits from no such equanimity. Of those who addressed the question (it was phrased for “ladies and gay men,”) 72 percent confirmed that size does matter.

New power generation: To an overwhelming degree, readers, you have not a) paid for sexual services, b) had sex with a person in a position of authority over you, or c) traded sex for material gain (well, there was that one time when floor seats for Phish at the Garden were at stake, but otherwise…). Of the small number of you who have paid for sex, you’re all men, which, to our mind, speaks to a marketplace issue. Note to new entrepreneurs: Consider a gigolo service

Desk job: We asked you to identify the weirdest place you’ve ever had sex. In a car on a highway was a favorite in this category, suggesting it’s more commonplace than weird. The surprise to us was the number of people with some variation on the answer, “on my boss’s desk.” One respondent said she did it on the executive desk with the executive boyfriend! Talk about insubordination. Other strangeness includes in a patch of poison ivy (visions of chafing!), an elevator, a computer lab, and—our favorite—Ruckersville.

Three’s company: The overwhelming response to the question under what circumstances you would have sex with someone is: after three dates. Possibly once you’ve exhausted the “What brought you here” topic over first-date drinks and the “What are your hobbies and dreams” conversation during dinner on the second date, the next logical query on the third date is “What do you look like naked?”

Among the small group of gays and bisexuals who answered the survey, a majority said they usually had sex with someone on the first date. That was also the answer for the self-proclaimed heterosexual member of the Century Club. Why waste perfectly good time that could be spent unzipping for the 114th time on needless niceties like conversation or a snifter of Frangelico and the promise of another encounter?

“Let’s just get started”: As we know, half of you are not using condoms. What we don’t know is if that’s a conscious decision you’re making based on what you know about your sex partners. People are talking about safe sex (for instance, “don’t get wet near an electrical outlet”), and slightly more than half of those conversations are occurring “once you’ve started messing around.” Among those of you who bring up the rubber question in the early rounds, that is, “as soon as one of you invites the other back,” men slightly eke out women. And of those who wait to discuss safe sex until they’re “enjoying a post-coital cigarette,” 90 percent are male, proving that Monday morning quarterbacking is not just for football anymore.

Clean talkin’, dirty livin’: Seems nobody out there is getting laid. Or at least you’re not calling it that. You equally prefer to refer to coitus as “making love” or “having sex” (gratefully, nobody said “coitus”). The other choices on the survey were “have intercourse” (one clinically-minded respondent took that answer) or “other,” which earned about five percent of your non-specific votes.

Not exactly the Cirque de Soleil: Flash back to 1986 and sing it with us now: “Sex is best when it’s…one on one.” According to the survey results, that’s how most of you do it most of the time: Merely 17 percent claimed that two is he greatest number of people they’ve had sex with at any given time.

“Maybe when I finish shopping online…”: Except for the youngest respondents, women answering the survey would like to have sex with their partners a couple of times a week. (The 21-25year olds are happiest with a daily dose of love.) Men, on the other hand, would generally like to have sex daily, regardless of their age. Women know this. Given the frequency with which readers are getting it on (see “They call him ‘Bugs,’” above), we can only conclude that the name of the game is compromise. Interestingly, women’s sex drive seems to increase again when they hit 40, judging from the small sample. Could there be a link between waning fertility and rising libido? Hmm…

Mouthing off: You like oral sex and you like talking about it, you cunning creatures! Not everybody answered every question, but for our query on how best to describe your opinion of oral sex, there was a 95 percent response rate. A couple of strays answered with our fourth choice—“It’s illegal in the State of Virginia and I am a law-abiding citizen.” Well hip, hip, hooray for law and order!

Sixty-seven percent of women say 69 is their favorite number. The guys dig the mutual pleasure option at a rate of 86 percent. Makes us consider that next year we should advance to the “swallow” question.

Bum rush: Like oral sex, anal sex too is illegal in the Commonwealth, but that doesn’t keep people from playing with the merchandise. While 31 percent of women reporting their opinion of anal sex said, “Get away from there, you filth bucket,” the rest professed acceptance at some level. Those willing to allow finger play totaled 28 percent. “Tickle my kiester” was the call of 19 percent of women, and 11 percent wanted it deep, deeper, deepest. Men had a slightly more, um, can-do attitude: Twenty-six percent said “No way,” and the remainder was divided almost evenly among “deep,” “fingers” and “tickle.”

Toys are us: It’s playtime in Charlottesville, and the survey says 45 percent of you are using sexual toys and aids to have fun. Another 38 percent rely on finger, lips and toes to get the job done. As for the rest of you…lighten up!

Smut hut: You don’t just like pornography, you sexy things, you love it! We asked if you viewed pornography, and more than 51 percent of you said, “View it? Does the word wallpaper mean anything to you?” Yes, what it means is you better switch screens, your boss is coming down the hall!

‘til you’re satisfied: Overwhelmingly men and women report being happiest simply having sex—alone or with a partner, it doesn’t matter. The feeling seems to be that if you’ve got the equipment, it’s best to use it. Carry on!

 

What you’d like to do

“Oh, Brad! Brad!”: On the subject of dreaming that you’re with another while wrapped in the arms of your lover, the odds are about even that you’ve done it. Forty-nine percent overall said they’ve fantasized that way. Women, however, are slightly more prone to do it than are men. We think of it as the Pitt Factor.

“You get the apron, I’ll get the feather duster”: There are plenty of actors in this town—and they’re not all appearing on stage! Again, the “yes” votes and the “no” votes were about even on the question “Do you ever play out your fantasies with your partner?” Forty-nine percent of respondents said they do it.

“Lock the door on your way out”: Needless to say, the other 51 percent prefer to fantasize when they’re alone. And whether you’re working that imagination solo or in company, you say you’re comfortable with your fantasies. That’s a relief!

Harry meets Sally again: Is it heartbreaking, unsurprising, funny or something else entirely to know that 55 percent of women admit they have faked orgasm? How do you feel about the fact that 5 percent of men have reported the same?

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but…”: Maybe you can’t handle the truth, but you want it anyway, ladies and gents. If their partner cheats on them, 78 percent of women want to know it. Two-thirds of men want the bad news, too. All we can say, considering that as reported above nearly 40 percent of respondents have cheated at some time, is “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” By the way, half of the people answering the question said they have fantasized about cheating on their partners. In the interest of full disclosure, must that be shared, too?

Keeping score: What exactly constitutes “cheating” anyway? There are a handful of you who feel betrayed if your partner has a drink alone with someone else, and about 4 percent who don’t much care for their lovers sharing personal feelings with someone else, either. Foot massages and back massages have 9 percent of you uneasy, but the numbers start raging when you get into genital massage, kissing and necking. More than 90 percent of men and women agree that oral sex constitutes cheating, and without exception orgasm is commonly understood as infidelity.

Whispers and moans: According to our survey, there’s a six out of 10 chance that talking will turn your partner on. But the question remains what to talk about. Sex—“dirty sex,” “noisy sex,” “touch-me-here sex”— was a common answer. But the human species takes many forms, and so do our turn-ons. When talk of “harder, faster” grows old, consider these suggestions from C-VILLE readers:

High-definition TVs

Housework

Politics

Current Events

And the Peloponnesian War.

 

PQ

With 76 percent of you having had sex within two weeks of completing the survey, someone should rename this town Bunny-ville.

If their partner cheats on them, 78 percent of women want to know it.

Women are slightly more prone than men to dream of another while in their lovers’ arms. Call it the Pitt Factor.

Like oral sex, anal sex is illegal in the Commonwealth, but that doesn’t keep people from playing with the merchandise.

Flash back to 1986 and sing it with us now: “Sex is best when it’s…one on one.”

Nearly three-quarters of women say penis size does matter.

 

Cyber sex

Web sites for adult education—and we don’t mean porn

Believe it or not, there really are some sexually educational sites on the web that have nothing to do with porn (we’re confident you can find that yourself with no problems). The following is just a sample.

www.cuff-va.com The Charlottesville Underground Fetish Fellowship sums itself up as safe, sane and consensual. We’d like to add educational. This site provides information on a variety of topics (and levels) along with a social network for adults who share interests in bondage, discipline, fetishism, cross-dressing, dominance and submission. Find out about monthly meetings, get directions to Club 216, or learn the full meaning of the word “pansexual.”

www.solotouch.com Our survey might be devoted to those who have a partner, but what about those who choose to go it alone? The purpose of this site is to help men and women of all ages develop a positive attitude toward their own bodies and sexuality. Translation: masturbation is neither strange nor abnormal, so get with it, would ya? Techniques, tools, toys and readers’ contributions—this site has all the advice you need for a romantic evening alone.

www.ashastd.org Sponsored by the American Social Health Association, this is the authority for sexually transmitted diseases and their prevention. The Herpes Resource Center, the Cervical Cancer Prevention Project, help centers in your area and in-depth information on various diseases—this is a one-stop resource for STDs. The site also has approved treatment guidelines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

www.The-penis.com Does size matter? Premature ejaculation problems? This site might be the only place in the world where it really is all about Mr. Happy. Learn about more satisfying positions, male menopause and the mid-life crisis. Note: If you’re losing your drive, ambition, enthusiasm for sex, life and love, this is the site for answers. There’s even a complete penis page to check out lumps, bumps, spots and unwanted hair—a good place to answer all those questions you’re too afraid to ask.

www.ncsfreedom.org Brought to you by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, this site has its roots firmly embedded in privacy rights to the people. The NCSF even offers you recent outspoken politician du jour Senator Rick Santorum’s personal e-mail address and a previously edited script: “Tell Santorum that consenting adults do have the right to privacy in their own homes, and that his moral objections to adult consensual sexual activity affects millions of people. Tell the Senator that he doesn’t have any business being in the bedrooms of his constituents.”

www.womenrussia.com For gents desperately (like, desperately) in need a partner, we give you the first site ever created about Russian women by Russian women. But this isn’t your typical mail-order Russian bride site. It tells the truth about who they are, what they like and why they are so available. Cultural misunderstandings aside, you might be surprised by what you find. “Do not apply to women from Moscow or St. Petersburg,” the site advises. “These cities have completely different conditions of life from the rest of Russia. Some foreigners told me that Moscow and St. Petersburg were not Russian cities, they are rather European. Women there have better chances to meet foreigners as many agencies organize tours with socials to those destinations, and ladies are becoming spoilt and demanding.” Who knew?

Last year, local hospitals treated more than 53,000 patients for cancer. From prostate and breast cancers to melanoma and pediatric lymphoma, these numbers show no signs of abating. In 2003, the American Cancer Society estimates, cancer will strike 32,800 more Virginians. The State-wide death toll this year is estimated at 13,700.

It’s hard to obtain firm figures for the dollar value represented by that much disease and death. But this much is known: Treatment numbers for cancer care have nearly doubled in the past decade. Clearly millions of dollars are changing hands locally in the pursuit of cance research, treatment and, ultimately, a cure. But the wave of cancer money does not crest only at the UVA Cancer Center and Martha Jefferson Hospital where primary diagnosis and treatment take place. Five miles north of the Downtown and Corner areas, at UVA’s North Fork Research Park, is PRA International, a clinical research organization that specializes in oncology. Inside the 80,000 square-foot facility, PRA provides drug development services—that is, drug trials—on a contract basis to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Founded in Charlottesville in 1976, PRA has since spread to six continents and 60 countries. It employs more than 2,000 employees in total.

Where other local employers have announced cutbacks in response to hard economic times, in 2002 PRA reported 25 percent workforce growth, hiring 75 additional employees to a local staff now topping out at more than 300. Indeed, at $140 million, PRA’s revenue beat out the $115 million generated by the UVA Cancer Center’s clinical care.

Unquestionably, cancer is big business in Charlottesville.

And as is usually the case when plenty of money is flowing, a competitive market has sprung up. There’s a contest for cancer warriors being waged behind the scenes. Fueled by steady growth, leadership opportunities and the comparatively stress-free work environment that it offers area physicians, nurses and research experts, PRA may well be winning this hidden battle for the sharp minds and unfaltering dedication needed to build a strong army against the disease.

Bob Fritz is a case in point. Now a medical director with PRA, Fritz closed the doors of his family practice more than a decade ago. His career had been marked by devotion to his patients, but with the changes in medical care, he simply couldn’t afford, mentally or financially, to keep his practice afloat.

He gave up the ghost in 1996 and joined PRA to monitor and support drug and vaccine trials.

“I grew to truly dislike the direction of modern American medicine,” says Fritz. “I simply couldn’t do it anymore.”

 

UVA and Martha Jefferson hospitals each treat cancer patients, but in terms of sheer girth there is virtually no comparison. Recently rated among the nation’s top centers by U.S. News & World Report, the UVA Cancer Center offers 34 doctors in direct care, and many dozens of specialists on staff.

UVA attracts more than 2,100 new in-patients and 50,000 outpatients annually. Two-thirds of patients come from an 80-mile radius while 24 percent travel from other parts of Virginia. And 10 percent fly in to be treated from around the world.

“During one of my appointments I was sitting beside people who had traveled hours to come to the UVA center,” says Mary Kay Ohaneson, a 54-year-old two-time cancer survivor, who was treated in both cases at UVA. “I felt so fortunate. I had traveled about 15 minutes.”

Martha Jefferson’s cancer center saw 801 cases in 2001, the most recent year for which data is available. With its new Martha Jefferson Outpatient Care Center inside a 14-acre, 94,000 square-foot facility at Peter Jefferson Place on Route 250E, Martha Jefferson plans to ramp up its cancer care, especially in the area of medical imaging when doors open in mid-September.

The $28 million building will be updated with state-of-the-art machinery such as a new PET scanner, which detects changes in the body at the cellular level. Martha Jefferson will also be offering the only open MRI machine in town.

But with a smaller workforce than UVA, only 56 Martha Jefferson medical staff are involved in or specialize in cancer diagnosis and treatment, 32 of them nurses with cancer specialization. In reality though, all physicians at Martha Jefferson and UVA are directly or indirectly involved with cancer care.

“A good family physician should be the conductor of the orchestra as far as all cancer treatment goes,” says Fritz. “The family doctor doesn’t have to be the one turning the switch of the chemo machine, but someone has to be the cornerstone and coordinator of the treatment.”

Three units at UVA are solely for cancer patients, with 35 beds in total. Out of the 106 cancer nurses at UVA, 33 are certified oncology nurses, the highest level of training attainable by nurses in the field of cancer care. UVA has the largest concentration of oncology nurses in the Commonwealth.

But beyond greater numbers of certified doctors, nurses and specialists, UVA has the deeper pockets.

As one of 60 clinical cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute, UVA receives more than $60 million each year to support some 200 cancer researchers. In conjunction with PRA and other research companies, UVA has more than 250 patients enrolled in clinical trials, reflecting the industry-wide bias for research.

“I would absolutely make the argument that clearly the way to eliminate cancer is through research,” says Michael Schwartzberg, media advocacy manager for the American Cancer Society.

Just this year, UVA received about $3.5 million in additional research grants from the American Cancer Society.

UVA doctor Michael Smith is getting about $623,000 of those funds for his research project. By studying the hepatocyte growth factor, or HGF, which, when it grows uncontrollably defines cancer’s basic manifestation, Smith hopes to block the activity of the HGF receptor. His work, if successful, could help uncover a treatment for gastric cancer, the second-leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.

On the direct-care side of things, UVA’s cancer center was recently named a “designated” cancer center by the National Cancer Institute—one of 13 in the United States—all of which adds up to a top-notch cancer facility at UVA.

“Patient satisfaction is the main outcome you want in any care situation, period,” says Janice Fabbri-Fritz, a public health nurse who previously worked at Martha Jefferson, “especially where cancer is concerned.

“We’ve finally discovered that we can no longer be the all-powerful doctor telling the little patient, ‘You’ll be fine.’”

 

Even as new bedside ethics put patients first, some doctors and nurses find themselves wanting to do more.

“I was a frontline oncologist for more than 20 years,” says Bruce Silver, a physician who oversees medical and safety management of numerous clinical trials for PRA. “Yes, it’s extremely ennobling work. But all my work, and all my efforts, would have been futile if I had no drugs to use.”

Indeed, what PRA seems to have going for it in the contest for doctors and research experts is the chance to mingle with other thought-leaders in pursuit of cutting edge oncological discoveries. Additionally, PRA’s draw is simply the escape from what some physicians call the “pressure cooker” of modern medical practice. For a patient-oriented doctor like Fritz, for instance, PRA offers a space where he no longer has to worry that his productivity is scored by the number of patients he moves through the mill.

“I have finally found a platform to preach about patient advocacy and the important relationship between doctor and patient,” says Fritz. “I’ve been looking for it for a very long time.”

Joy Stockton, a senior clinical safety associate with PRA, is a former UVA neurosurgical nurse. After seven years in the intensive care unit as a “weekend warrior” (the crew that works ‘round the clock on weekends) Stockton was looking for a reprieve. Sure, she wanted better hours and no pressure to work holidays or nights. But beyond that, she wanted to avoid burnout.

“When I first started at UVA, the nurse-to-patient ratio was one nurse to every two patients,” she says, adding that there was also a charge nurse on duty, who had no patients of her own and covered for people when they took breaks.

“By the time I left, I would be the charge nurse for the shift, and I myself would have two patients,” says Stockton.

Ideal staffing, according to Stockton, would be seven nurses to every 12 beds. But in reality, the numbers were more akin to four or five nurses for every 12 beds. Although Stockton left her direct-care position five years ago, her friends remaining in various nursing departments say the shortage, the stress and the bureaucratic red tape is only getting worse, making drug development firms such as PRA more attractive than ever before.

That being said, these corporate firms aren’t for everyone. Dr. Peyton T. Taylor, a specialist in gynecological oncology and the deputy director of the UVA Cancer Center, says he, like others, could never be the people person he is in the world of PRA.

“It’s a very different world,” says Taylor. “There you look at data, and a low white blood cell count is simply an event rather than a friend of yours who has cancer.” Although Taylor, also a proponent of clinical trials (he has completed several himself), describes his daily activities as “very painful” emotionally, he believes that for hands-on, patient-oriented oncologists such as himself, there would be no place for him at PRA.

“Without throwing stones, I think that detachment is the appeal at PRA,” he says. “When you cannot invest emotionally in each individual patient, you invest in the research.

“That way, you still feel as if you’re helping people, just indirectly.”

For those unlike Taylor who are willing to make the leap, PRA has open arms for them. “Nurses and doctors are a very high commodity for us because the thrust of our work is interacting with physicians and hospitals,” says Silver. “We need former doctors and nurses who can communicate most efficiently, especially when it comes to medical and procedural questions, documenting and reporting adverse side effects of trials to the Food and Drug Administration.”

With cancer-related research such a large component of PRA’s work (46 percent of PRA’s overall contracts are in oncology), Charlottesville’s hospitals provide a fine pond in which PRA can fish. “Oncology nurses, with their expertise, are critical to our success,” says Bruce Teplitzky, senior vice president of worldwide business development for PRA.

While PRA offers a less frustrating venue for some medical practitioners, it also offers a higher rate of compensation. UVA oncology nurses’ entry-level salaries generally begin at $34,000, and can go up to $73,000 for the most experienced nurses. While she wouldn’t reveal how much PRA pays, Stockton says that the company generally beats those figures.

“It’s the value of the salary that’s more important,” says Stockton. “What you have to do to earn it is better.”

 

PRA is the world’s largest privately held contract research organization. And with an impressive acquisition track record of five other CROs since 1997, the company is now one of the top five drug development organizations in the world. Growth has not been trouble-free, however.

In the United States, only 2 percent of cancer patients are enrolled in the company’s tests. Some physicians blame this phenomenon on the growing number of aging baby-boomers being diagnosed with the disease. Older generations, some believe, are far more likely to be skeptical about clinical trials, while others hear the diagnosis, and immediately anticipate the worst. “Why bother?” they think.

Furthermore, according to Silver, only 3 percent of all physicians participate in the administering of the tests. PRA employees worry the reluctance to participate lies in not only physicians’ indifference, but also in a misapprehension of clinical trials generally. This, in turn, puts the clinical trials themselves at risk to suffer.

But patient and doctor anxieties are misplaced, says Fritz, adhering to the company line, and pointing out that physicians administer various drugs regularly without strict guidelines or oversight. “These are no longer guinea pig trials anymore,” he says. “This, in fact, is the best form of cancer care for a lot of people.”

In trials, cancer patients get constant attention, screenings they might not have been able to afford before, and strictly FDA-regulated care.

On the other hand, even if all physicians nationwide wanted to participate in studies, PRA wouldn’t want them. PRA maintains a clinical-trials blacklist, of sorts, full of the names of physicians the company shuns. In trials, individual physicians are paid a per-patient stipend, which apparently motivates some to hide adverse side effects in the trial patients to whom they’re administering drugs. When PRA discovers this, the doctor is cut off.

“There are sites that are money mills,” says Fritz, “but then again, wherever you have money, you will have greed and fraud.”

 

For Virginians, out of the 13,700 forecasted to die of cancer this year, 3,900 deaths will be from lung cancer—the most prevalent form of cancer in the State. The UVA Cancer Center reports that the number of general cancer patients it sees grew 6 percent annually between 1996 and 2000, and Martha Jefferson’s center saw a 15 percent rise in 2001 from 2000. Even more staggering, over the past decade, Martha Jefferson’s annual total of cases diagnosed and treated rose 67 percent to 801. Due to the aging population of area residents and local population growth—more than 28,469 people in the last decade—cancer growth numbers in Charlottesville are soaring.

All of which means there will, unfortunately, be plenty of business for expanding cancer programs including UVA’s new $1.9 million Breast Cancer Center. Set to open in July, it will house 7,500 square-feet of consolidated breast cancer services, equipped with valet parking in front. Martha Jefferson hopes to acquire even more acreage at its new Peter Jefferson Place as soon as the Board of County Supervisors approves rezoning plans.

“The oncology field is never ending,” says Fritz, “not until cancer is either cured, or at the least, kept under control.”

But even the glitz of new digs and greater renown can’t win back the hearts of some doctors and nurses who have seen the ugly side of health care in the age of managed care.

“We’ve done some bad things in the medical profession—we’ve empowered lawyers and insurance companies,” says Fritz. “I’m proud of what I do, but I’m not proud of what my profession does.”

That’s an excerpt I like from “Whitman in 1863,” a song on local folk musician Brady Earnhart’s new album, Manalapan. In a way, it’s only fitting that the enterprise contains a tribute to America’s bard. Earnhart wrote his dissertation on the man many consider the country’s first original poet, and his songs, while the product of an original voice, evidence Whitman-esque powers of observation, particularly with regard to nature and location. For years before Earnhart ever began recording songs, he wrote, studied and published poetry.

There is another similarity between the two: Earnhart is gay. Does that matter? Should you think of him as a gay songwriter? Well, that depends on what you mean.

“When I hear a song that’s self-consciously dedicated to some cause, even one I agree with, my heart tends to clam up: The singer isn’t singing to me anymore. I’m just convert fodder,” he says. “On the other hand, if you forge a personal connection with the audience, you can’t help but be political on some local level, because you’re reminding people that they’re powerful and human, maybe in ways they hadn’t realized before.

“What good songs do is give us maps to places we need to know but never quite knew about. They throw flour on the invisible man.

“I don’t sit down to write about an issue. If I did that I would feel manipulative and dirty,” Earnhart says. “I write about what I see as the truth.”

If you have even a passing interest in Charlottesville’s folk music scene, chances are Earnhart’s name is familiar. He has been performing in Charlottesville for years, since coming to town in 1992 to start his graduate studies (he now lives in Harrisonburg, where he teaches creative writing at James Madison University), and many of the area’s better-known artists are friends with him, or have worked with him, or both.

Indeed, Earnhart’s contributions to music in Charlottesville are legion. The “King of My Living Room” 2002 concert series was inspired by a party Earnhart threw for Mardi Gras at which a group of local songwriters stayed up late playing and singing. Eventually they made a pact to do the same thing as a concert (the title is taken from Earnhart’s song of the same name, on his album After You). Earnhart wrote the string arrangements for The Naked Puritan Philarmonic’s Live Arts album. Nickeltown, the duo of Jeff Romano and Browning Porter, has covered some of his songs. The list goes on.

“I’ve known Brady to be a gregarious catalyst for the music scene here in Charlottesville,” says Romano, who, with Earnhart, co-produced Manalapan. “I doubt we’d be as cohesive a group if it weren’t for Brady and his parties.”

Charlottesville-based folk singer Paul Curreri’s first experience with local musicians was through his participation in the King of My Living Room series, after moving to town last year. He recalls Earnhart’s welcome fondly.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the teacher in Brady, his just being supportive and kind to younger writers or musicians, but I specifically remember Brady earnestly thanking me, giving me a copy of After You and saying, ‘Welcome to Charlottesville, Paul. I look forward to seeing you around,’” Curreri says.

Earnhart’s songs are, in one sense, recognizable folk music: Most numbers feature his deep, slightly mournful voice (all the more memorable for its acknowledged imperfections) and skillful guitar arrangements of varying complexity. But it’s folk music with a twist as the electric guitar, cello, saxophone and French horn all make appearances in Manalapan.

Lyrically, however, enough simply cannot be said. Earnhart has a knack for evoking location (“The fleas never die in Delray/and the patio peppers with mold”), whimsy (“If this had been a hit song/I’d have paid off this guitar/but I’d lose my excuse to sing off-key”) and, of course, unrequited love (“I’ve prayed all my life to change/to anything I can for you/but if you loved me I would even/be this thing I am for you”).

Earnhart speaks from the point of view of other characters, often literary or artistic figures, like Whitman or Stephen Crane, who have influenced or interested him. “I think he has the history of literature under his belt. After all, he holds a Ph.D. in American Lit,” Romano says.

“He sometimes writes from a long-ago perspective that can only be mastered by being touched by the writers of our past.”

He does not always, or even often, overtly address his sexuality, but when he does he shows insight and humor. In “Honey Don’t Think Your Mama Don’t Know,” one of Manalapan’s catchier numbers, Earnhart sings “it wasn’t just a slacker fad to keep/a Playgirl underneath the mattress pad/maybe you can fool your dad/but don’t think she don’t know.”

To wit, sometimes being gay is the subject of Earnhart’s music. More often, it isn’t—or doesn’t have to be. As music writer Keith Morris wrote in his favorable review of Manalapan, published in this newspaper, “Fact is, there is a paucity of literate music out there, and Earnhart’s songs may well be the most subtly poetic, skillfully crafted, and all-inclusively human stuff I’ve heard in years.”

Romano puts it another way: “Many of his love songs transcend sexual preference, you could easily change the pronouns and have a beautiful love song for any alien in the universe.”

For Curreri, “Brady’s sexuality generally plays no more or less a role than yours does in writing this article, or certainly, than mine does in songs: Both enormous and none.”

 

Earnhart was born in Florida, a place he still visits and that is featured prominently in many of his songs (Manalapan is a Florida town where Earnhart snorkels). Earnhart, who was not taken with sports, became interested in music as a “social galvanizer,” a “way to get to people,” he says. He vividly remembers a skiing trip when he was 16 in which a group of youngsters ended up trading songs in a room.

“I was an eccentric kid, and it just seemed magic to me what a guitar could do,” he says.

Still, for quite a long time, music was not the first priority. During college, Earnhart, who attended William and Mary, spent most of his time on creative writing, afterward earning an M.F.A. degree in poetry from the University of Iowa’s prestigious program.

It was only after a six-year relationship came to a close, that Earnhart, living in upstate New York at the time, began to take composition and playing more seriously.

“It started to seem very lonely to write poems,” he says. In person, the 46-year-old Earnhart is handsome and self-possessed. He looks a bit like a classy character actor who you know you like, but whose name you struggle with.

“It’s just a very solitary business,” he says. “I wanted to write the kind of thing that would bring me in contact with other people.”

His attitude toward songwriting is sober. “To me, music is a serious thing,” he says. “Even when it’s funny, it should have a serious side to it.”

He is not interested in disposable pop, or clichés of any sort. “The best symbol is the accurately drawn, concrete object,” he says. Hence, Manalapan is grounded in everyday detail but also serves as a metaphor for the imagination and how it can become “a sanctuary, or a friend.”

For Earnhart, poetry and songwriting are distinct tasks, each with its own objective. A songwriter must “think a lot about setting, motivation, like a dramatist,” while “poets don’t have to think so much,” he says. “A poem is more allowed to be just a stray thought.”

When it comes to forming a connection with the audience, however, studying poetry has helped. “Poetry is all about finding places where the intangible and the tangible intersect. That’s how it creates experiences, instead of just talking about them. It brings them within reach of the listener’s sensual imagination,” Earnhart says. “Big abstractions tend to fail. They’re indigestible.”

He describes songwriting as similar to “cleaning house”: You can start with anything—a chorus, a scrap of music—and then build out from that. The most important thing is to “figure out who it is that is singing the song, to get a sense of the character.” Then, Earnhart says, you can figure out how smart they are, what language they might use, what rhymes are appropriate, etc.

And what about the gay question? Earnhart is wry about the effect of that word. One the one hand, he resists labeling. On the other, he knows it is inevitable and recognizes the potential for benefit.

“It’s probably a good thing for me right now, because singer-songwriters are multiplying like rabbits, and there’s less and less you can do to distinguish yourself from the pack,” he says.

Earnhart expresses skepticism that many gay men would readily take to his music, even were they exposed to it.

“All marginalized groups are extremely conservative. A lot of young gay men are so hungry for identity, that sadly they’ll snap up a stereotype because it’s the most readily available identity there it is,” he says.

For these reasons, Earnhart said, a young gay man may be more comfortable listening to dance music and hanging up Judy Garland posters than listening to another gay man singing seriously about passion in a personal way. That “might seem a little too novel to be comfortable.

“An ironic attitude is a really safe attitude to adopt,” he says. “You’re much less vulnerable. But to me, if a song doesn’t have vulnerability, it’s probably not going to be very important to me.

Earnhart would like to reach a larger audience, but downplays the possibility of far-reaching fame. “I’m a passionate fan of other singer-songwriters,” he says. “I’m a devoted listener. And I make music that’s not out there yet that I wish were out there.

“Why would a solitary and sort of ‘arty’ singer-songwriter get famous?” he continues, rhetorically. “Maybe if I save somebody in a car wreck, or my brother is elected president.”

It’s a dilemma others have noted.

“On one hand, he seems to have a built-in audience that is just waiting for someone like him to come along,” Morris says. “And he does that niche wonderfully, about as artistically and directly as anybody I’ve heard. So on one hand, he has got this built-in audience, but on the other, maybe the danger is that he’s just too good. That his music is too subtle, it’s too intelligent.

“And people, whatever their sexuality, are just not that intelligent. The mass audience might not be smart enough to get Brady.”

Nevertheless, Earnhart doesn’t seem particularly troubled about occupying a smaller space, aware as he is that fame of any sort perhaps more often than not involves compromise. And the alternative has its own rewards.

In King of My Living Room, Earnhart sings, “I don’t mind three-dollar wine/and I guess I won’t too soon/won’t be a kept monkey/on TV country/I’ll be the king of my living room.” And later in the song: “Say it’s got something for everyone/then I know it’s got nothing for me.”

Truth be told, to listen to Earnhart for any length of time, whether in person, on a record, or at a tiny show at the Live Arts LAB space, is to realize that any discussion about fame, sexuality or politics ultimately falls just a little shy of the point.

“I guess songwriting makes my own life seem more real to me,” he says. “It makes me feel like my ideas and emotions are valid.”

They say that in Charlottesville, the guy who serves your coffee probably has a PhD. Increasingly, the coffeeshop where he works likely serves another function too: art gallery. In the past several years, all over town, new art spaces have proliferated—in restaurants and boutiques, and as cooperatives and nonprofits. The town’s concentration of visual art venues is earning it a national reputation, boosting tourism and attracting artists. “Charlottesville is definitely getting to be known,” says Leah Stoddard, director of Second Street Gallery. “Word of mouth travels fast.”

Examining the burgeoning local arts scene exposes some interesting issues, from the relationship between art and commerce to the quality of tourist-friendly art. But most local art experts agree that the more, the merrier: The variety of spaces benefits the art viewer, the artist and even the art collector. In truth, the wide range of venues—from commercial to non-profits to hybrids—helps showcase why each is a necessary component of a thriving arts scene. And as local artists attest, that’s what Charlottesville’s becoming.

 

Origin of a species

Ten years ago, art was mostly relegated to museums or more traditional art spaces. Now it’s hard to order a double Americano without catching a glimpse of a landscape, still-life or experimental photo work. More and more restaurants, bookstores, jewelers, churches and even office buildings decorate their walls with rotating art shows. Take, for instance, Downtown Mall coffee spot Mudhouse. Currently customers can see the works of abstract painter Delmon Brown Hall IV while sipping their java. Before the mid-‘90s, such a show would have likely been relegated to a handful of local galleries or one of the few forward-thinking bistros supporting local art.

Sarah Sargent was the director of Second Street Gallery from 1993 to 1999. “When I started at Second Street,” she remembers, “there was Second Street and McGuffey, and [now-defunct] Gallery X, and those were really the only three that were around.” She adds that the current trend of showing art in restaurants and stores was, at the time, almost unheard-of.

A symbiotic relationship between art and Downtown business has fueled the growth of each, say many observers. Whereas Sargent likens the Downtown Mall of 10 years ago to “a wasteland,” there are currently at least 20 separate places to see fine art Downtown, and more than 30 in Charlottesville overall. “It’s impossible now to get a restaurant table on a Friday when there’s an opening,” says Sargent. “I really feel like the arts were responsible for the development in the Downtown area.”

And in return, increased tourism—Downtown or otherwise—has been a contributor to the explosive growth of the gallery world. “We’re getting on the radar now as a regional art center,” says Jill Hartz, director of the UVA Art Museum, adding that Monticello-driven tourism can complement Charlottesville’s standing as an arts destination.

And certainly “in-town” tourism by locals hasn’t hurt the art scene: The popular First Fridays gallery walks have given a celebratory atmosphere to the local art world for at least one night per month. The well-marketed idea of the “Downtown arts district”—since, to be sure, that’s where most art venues are located—might turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I think that could only benefit [artists],” says Russell Richards, an artist and member of the McGuffey Art Center.

 

Everything in its right place

The expansion of art into the commercial realm has sparked some issues regarding culture and commerce. When Lynelle Lawrence, Mudhouse co-owner, talks about the only art show she’s ever had to remove from her Downtown coffeeshop, the story reveals a tension between high culture and the economic engines that underlie it. The show included a sizable pastel drawing of a nude man, surrounded by severed heads on platters.

It was not a hit. After the piece went up on a Monday, says Lawrence, “My phone was ringing literally nonstop. People said they wouldn’t come here, wouldn’t bring their children.” By Friday, the piece (and one other, a female nude with a breastfeeding baby) had been pulled. Lawrence says she herself didn’t mind the works, but “it was not an appropriate space to hang them.”

Lawrence maintains that art is an integral part of Mudhouse’s mission: “to create a space for free expression.” She also says that the severed-head snafu did not make her more skittish about showing provocative art. Yet, as a businessperson, she was forced to choose between art on the walls and customers at the counter.

That’s a consideration most non-commercial spaces—especially those solely devoted to art—generally don’t have to worry about. They can be bolder about what they show, and view controversy as an opportunity rather than a liability. Leah Stoddard, director of Second Street Gallery, recalls that several pieces by Todd Murphy (which dealt with Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with slave Sally Hemings) sparked strong reaction in 2000. The gallery responded by organizing discussions. “I felt like we were being responsible—not ignoring the controversy, not taking advantage of it, but encouraging the audience to have their say,” she says.

Even if a business is explicitly art-centered, it must strike a difficult balance between aesthetic and commercial considerations. Lyn Bolen Rushton, owner of Les Yeux du Monde (now sharing prime Water Street digs with E.G. Designs in Dot 2 Dot), says that her career as a Charlottesville art dealer has taught her about her market’s limitations. Back in the mid-‘90s when she was selling art out of her home, she says, “Some of the most experimental things that I thought were really interesting just didn’t click with the buying audience. People came, but it was hard for me to break even.”

Rushton is now betting on a new solution to the small-town problem of limited art markets: the “hybrid”—mixed-use art and retail space. Dot 2 Dot is now well-regarded by many observers for its mixed stable of local and nationally known artists, supplemented with prints and smaller works by contemporary masters like Jean-Michel Basquiat. Rushton describes her artists as “already-established artists who have a unique place in the art world, and that are somehow going to sell.”

Rushton then hastens to add, “I’m not going to sell out, ever,” and local art teachers and professionals tend to corroborate that statement, using words like “adventurous” and “serious” to describe the art Rushton shows. The vintage furniture and fine papers that make up the E.G. Designs part of the business, Rushton says, contribute to the cozy atmosphere rather than tarnishing the purity of the aesthetic.

There is a wider range of art to be seen in Charlottesville’s retail market than one might expect—even if you have to peer over stacks of merchandise to spot it. Willow 88, also on Water Street, deals in contemporary Chinese, Vietnamese and aboriginal Australian art, paired with antique Chinese furniture. Susan Flury, co-owner, says this is an art niche unique in Charlottesville (commercially, that is—the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection covers part of the same territory). GOvisual concentrates on photography exhibits. Some businesses, like Main Street Market and Les Yeux du Monde’s Starr Hill location, provide a platform for student work.

And, though some may fret about the dilution of the market—or about restaurants that should do their own interior decorating—it’s clear that local artists would have far fewer opportunities to show their work were it not for hybrid spaces. Lawrence says that, from 125 artists who apply yearly to show at Mudhouse, the 12 she chooses are overwhelmingly local. “We love to show first-time art, people that have been turned down elsewhere,” she says, adding that work usually sells briskly in the busy café. At Hamiltons’, City Centro, and Angelo, among others, Charlottesville artists have opportunities for exposure and, with luck, sales.

 

Feed your head

One group certainly benefiting from the explosion of art spaces is the artists themselves, many of whom delight in the increased opportunities for exposure. But some watchers lament a lack of experimentation in the majority of art shown in Charlottesville.

Rich Davis is a fifth-year studio art major at UVA who describes his own work as “not very traditional. I don’t know if a lot of people even call it art.” His dada-influenced projects include modifying electronic gear and making masks out of giant stuffed animals. Unsurprisingly, Davis finds much of the art in Charlottesville galleries “really conservative, really tried and true.”

Still, he says, “The gallery scene is definitely good for such a small town.” And he singles out the Downtown Gallery at Nature as the one venue he makes a point of visiting, since it sometimes offers video and installation pieces—much rarer in Charlottesville than painting and other traditional media. Piedmont Virginia Community College art professor Chica Tenny says her students, too, favor Nature, and that this is the natural order of things in a vibrant art scene. “It is important for fresh things to start,” she says. “There’s always someone thinking things need to change, and that’s the great thing about artists.”

The dissatisfaction younger, more experimental artists feel sometimes translates into action—a new space, or a temporary takeover of a non-art space, like the use of the Frank Ix Building on Monticello Avenue for the Fringe Festival last October. And having a critical mass of galleries—even conservative or commercial ones—may actually be a crucial factor in allowing experiments to blossom.

For one thing, art draws artists. “Artists are now making a decision to come to Charlottesville and make a home for themselves because of this environment,” says Stoddard.

Artists, in turn, are apt to band together, identify gaps, and fill them. McGuffey Art Center is a Charlottesville institution and the most venerable example of an artists’ cooperative in town, having provided studio and exhibition space since 1975. Richards, who’s had a McGuffey studio for three years, calls it “a fantastic resource” for its high visibility and tight community. Artists get 100 percent of sales from McGuffey walls, whereas commercial galleries, of course, take a cut.

Membership at McGuffey is seen as a mark of accomplishment, and many members are full-time artists. But less-established artists have outlets too. Members of BozART, a cooperative on the Downtown Mall, generally have day jobs, says member Karen Whitehill. “People who really expect to sell a lot are misled. But people who just want to feel like on Friday nights people will come out, be interested and give you some feedback,” she says, find BozART valuable.

Bullseye, meanwhile, is a newer and proudly informal entry in the co-op category. Director Kimberly Larkin says Bullseye’s studio spaces are its most important component. Though she and former partner Stacey Evans ran it as a regular gallery for a year, these days it’s a “vanity gallery” for the seven artists who share the rent.

Without a regular exhibition schedule and conventional hours, says member Monty Montgomery, the space—located under the Jefferson Theater—becomes a dynamic center for exchange and conversation. “I put the sign out at 10 at night” while working, he says. “People come down. Every night, I meet awesome people that can’t come down here during the day.” Bullseye also has a loose relationship with Nature, sometimes organizing joint exhibitions, and Larkin says Bullseye is flexible enough to accommodate possibilities like film screenings and puppet shows.

 

Tried and true

A true art scene isn’t just an art mall. Traditionally, galleries have served an equally significant purpose as places for artists (and especially students) to learn and be inspired. It is in that area—and in the ability to show more interesting, non-commercial works—that the established non-profit galleries differentiate themselves from upstart boutiques in the gallery world.

While strapped-for-cash artists might feel comfortable just standing and looking in upscale shops—Flury says that Willow 88 often plays host to artists asking about Asian and aboriginal techniques—traditional nonprofit art spaces are still better equipped to educate than their commercial counterparts. Stoddard says that at Second Street, “My whole shifting of the mission was away from the artist’s career to the audience. I’ve tried to make it more of a mini-museum.” That means more informative text to go along with exhibitions, as well as outreach efforts like partnering with local schools and universities for visiting-artist workshops. “I try to share that visitor with as many people as possible,” she says.

Ultimately, Stoddard and Hartz can show work even if they know no one will buy it. Both name installation art—which can be room-sized—as an important part of the contemporary scene that is difficult or impossible to sell, but has been exhibited at Second Street and the museum. Hartz points out too that, “Most of the galleries show contemporary art; there are not a lot that show other time periods and non-Western art. We can have the kind of shows [like the current Shunzhi porcelain show] that no other places in this community can do because of the budgets involved and the staff needed.”

Artists and art teachers agree that these older, non-commercial spaces are still the best for learning. William Bennett, a UVA studio professor, says “I think Second Street Gallery is a really good gallery. I think our students are missing out if they miss out on things that happen there.” Richards, who lived in Washington, D.C., before moving to Charlottesville, says that while he sees lots of peers’ work he respects at McGuffey, for him the UVA Museum is the only local substitute for the capital’s barrage of top-flight museum exhibits. In D.C., he says, “I’d go down to the museums practically every weekend. I really miss that.”

Small galleries at UVA and PVCC provide still more non-commercial—and therefore more adventurous—wall space. In UVA’s Fayerweather Gallery, says Bennett, “We pretty much do exactly what we want. We don’t feel constrained at all.”

 

Cultural cohabitation

Even with the growing hybrid and commercial art spaces, the three area art anchors—Second Street, the UVA Museum and McGuffey—will always have a place. But they are learning how to adapt to a much more crowded house. Second Street’s Stoddard says that publicity has become more pressing in the new climate. “I must admit that I got pretty passive about getting publicity out. I just assumed we would get coverage for exhibitions,” she says. “At first I was sort of like, ‘Hey!’ But then I adjusted my thinking and thought, ‘What am I doing? This is fabulous.’”

Hartz echoes her excitement about the growth of the art scene. “Galleries have become more professional,” she says. “It just adds a lot more vitality to this community. We’d like to be supportive.” Hartz adds that the new spaces create opportunities for city-wide themed shows like 2000’s “Hindsight/Fore-site,” which examined Charlottesville’s Jeffersonian legacy in 20 sites around town and was curated by Rushton.

That kind of synergy between educational, commercial and even government forces (the City helped finance the 1975 renovation of McGuffey School, for example) emerges as the most positive measure of Charlottesville’s arts scene. Established, experimental, academic and for-profit spaces may have different missions, but they don’t necessarily feel competitive.

The emerging “arts corridor” on Water Street (comprising Dot 2 Dot, Nature and the under-construction City Center for Contemporary Arts), says Stoddard, is a good example. “It’s a really thrilling time. There are things we haven’t even thought about that are going to happen with cross-pollination,” she says.

And, just as students need galleries to learn from, galleries need students, who represent future suppliers of their product. Chica Tenny of PVCC says that the school’s art department nurtures connections between students and the local marketplace. “I do think our faculty make an effort to connect them up with places to show,” she says. Whitehill, a former student, says this is precisely how she got involved at BozART. PVCC connects students to the Richmond art world too, since many faculty earned master’s degrees at Virginia Commonwealth University and have connections there.

UVA, says Bennett, is more insular, with students sticking close to grounds. “We’re working on that,” he says. “My colleagues and I would like our students to be a greater part of the arts community in Charlottesville.” The self-containment of UVA compared to PVCC may be unavoidable given that most UVA students grew up elsewhere and move on again after graduation. In fact, says Bennett, “I really encourage our students to leave town. They need a broader view of the world. I also encourage them to come back” after working or getting graduate degrees. Some students, he says, have indeed returned to Charlottesville to find their niches in the art community.

Ultimately, artists themselves provide an important barometer of the health of the art scene. Richards says Charlottesville has been a good environment for him since moving from D.C. three and a half years ago. He was already a full-time artist there and, he says, a big city is probably still an easier place to start an art career. But, he says, “I feel extremely fortunate to have this studio here. McGuffey is pretty unique to Charlottesville.”

Perhaps most tellingly, Richards feels that in Charlottesville he can both put food on the table and remain true to his vision, which sometimes includes explicit sexual content. “I think people are a little bit more enlightened around here than one might think,” he says. “I do have people come in here sometimes and look at my work and kind of turn pale and walk back out the door. But I’ve never felt censored.”

In early March, the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force arrested 18 people, ages 17 to 30, following almost a year of undercover operations in Belmont. Eight men and one woman face charges of distributing marijuana. One man faces charges of distributing both marijuana and imitation cocaine. Eight suspects face cocaine charges.

In JADE press releases and the accompanying daily newspaper articles, pot and cocaine were cast as equal threats to Belmont’s “quality of life.” But in real life, JADE honchos admit that marijuana dealing really isn’t a problem in Charlottesville.

“We could make marijuana arrests all day long, but that’s not our mission,” says Task Force commander Lt. Don Campbell, an 18-year City police veteran. “Our main goal in Charlottesville is reducing the violence and disorder associated with open-air drug markets. We don’t see the violence from pot that we see from cocaine.”

On one hand, Campbell’s line reflects the popular view that marijuana poses relatively little danger to public safety. Yet when agents nab a pot dealer, they are pleased that they have eradicated a social menace, perhaps because Federal drug laws still classify marijuana with other drugs—like cocaine and methamphetamine—that threaten the social order. And even as the area’s police officers acknowledge they face enough challenges just keeping up with citizen calls for service, other law enforcers, like the JADE Task Force and the Commonwealth’s Attorney, will happily wring stoners through the legal system if the opportunity arises.

Midway through his studies at UVA, “David” started feeling depressed. He took time off school, experimented with prescription drugs, and finally discovered that smoking pot helped him function. David started getting high every day.

“I went back and got my degree,” he says. “My last semester was one of the best I had at UVA, despite being a so-called pothead.”

David, who is being identified by a pseudonym for this article, graduated in 1995. He stayed in Charlottesville, working about 40 hours a week at a handful of service jobs and setting aside about $200 for recreational marijuana use per month.

“I had about five different friends who hooked me up. If one of us needed a hookup, we helped each other out,” says David. “It’s a social thing, not business.”

David, his friends and probably most of Charlottesville’s recreational marijuana smokers buy and sell the drug for fun, not profit—the point being to maintain a safe, steady supply chain instead of generating easy money. The marijuana trade is generally not conducted with the mercenary salesmanship and violence that police say describes the City’s cocaine market.

“Cocaine and crack drive the violence in this community,” says Campbell. “We know we can’t stop drug dealing. People will always want drugs, and other people will always make money off that. But we can disrupt it and drive it off the streets.”

City courtrooms reflect JADE’s emphasis on cocaine, says defense attorney Denise Lunsford. “Are they out there pounding the pavement looking for pot dealers? That’s not my perception,” she says. “They’re not going after it the same way as crack, cocaine, meth.”

But marijuana users do end up in court—last year Albemarle and Charlottesville Police collectively sent about 303 pot cases to courts, most for misdemeanor posession. Lunsford says these are usually wrong place-wrong time situations. A lead-footed driver might be pulled over with a joint in the ashtray, for instance. First-time offenders typically face misdemeanor possession charges.

“It’s fairly routine,” says City Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman. First-time offenders can have the charge dismissed and expunged from their record if they agree to pre-conviction probation. A second offense likely will earn a suspended jail sentence.

“I can’t remember the last time someone went to jail for simple possession,” Chapman says.

For Charlottesville police officers, busting marijuana smokers is like office work—unfulfilling, with lots of papers to shuffle. When police catch someone dumb enough to speed with weed, police will issue him a summons and let him go. The officer must return the evidence––all of it––to the station, tag it, bag it and place it in a locker, filling out forms along the way. The officer hopes the suspect will plead guilty, because if he fights it, the evidence must actually be driven to a Richmond lab to determine whether it’s cannabis sativa (for the sake of traffic and taxpayer concerns, we suggest all further such tests be conducted at C-VILLE offices). In the end, the marijuana is unceremoniously incinerated.

“A lot of officers feel like it’s a lot of paperwork for nothing. I hear a lot of comments like that,” says Officer Dwayne Jones, who patrols the Corner. “I treat it like a traffic citation. Sometimes I have to calm people down and let them know it’s not the end of the world.

“We don’t make the laws,” he continues, “but I have to say I believe the worst drug out there is alcohol. The overwhelming majority of calls we get, for traffic accidents and disorders, involve alcohol. I’ve never seen anyone behave violently when they’re high on marijuana.”

The JADE Task Force is not your average beat cop, however.

If the President’s drug policy had more to do with public safety, alcohol would be the first substance banned. The White House Office of Drug Control Policy and the Drug Enforcement Administration are multi-billion dollar bureaucracies arguably interested only in doing what they did yesterday. So the Drug War marches on.

In Charlottesville, Washington’s hostile posture toward pot allows JADE and the Commonwealth’s Attorney to treat smokers like enemy combatants, if they choose. It is often in their interest to do so.

The JADE unit––six police officers from Charlottesville, three from Albemarle County, two from UVA and one from the State, plus help from a DEA agent and three agents from the federal department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives––works out of an office below City Hall. Access is obtained by entering the correct digital code and then passing through a heavy wooden door. Inside the offices, there is a coffee machine and two posters. One shows Osama bin Laden in crosshairs and reads “Wanted, Dead or Alive,” with “Alive” crossed out. The other poster is a collage of marijuana plants and piles of buds with the words “It’s not medicine, it’s an illegal drug.”

After September 11, JADE added terrorist investigations to its list of mandates, and images of war and terror adorn the office walls. A cartoon eagle sharpening its claws is posted near Polaroids of weapons and drugs seized by JADE officers. A photo of the World Trade Center hangs in the room where undercover agents don wigs and bulletproof vests for undercover ops.

Campbell says JADE “is looking at some people” in their terrorism investigations, but won’t say more. Like the battle against pot, the war on terror is not his primary focus.

It used to be, Campbell says, that agents would find 50 people milling on a street corner dealing cocaine. Most arrests were “jump outs,” says Campbell, as in “jump out” and grab the slowest crackheads before they run away.

As City Hall tries to court middle class homebuyers, Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo says eradicating open-air drug markets is his department’s foremost mission. Campbell says it’s working.

“We don’t see people blatantly dealing in the streets anymore,” he says. “We had to adjust the way we do things. The dealers are moving indoors, and that’s more dangerous for us. Now we do more monitoring with devices. Civilian informants are our bread and butter.”

As a pot smoker, David’s interaction with the black market happened discreetly. He was not involved in either violence or big money, so in the era of “jump outs” he never would have registered on JADE’s radar screen. Because the Feds continue to classify marijuana as an illegal Schedule I narcotic, however, people like David have no choice but to associate with criminals in pursuit of their pleasure. This makes them fair game for JADE.

A mutual friend introduced David to “Brian,” a fellow pot enthusiast (also identified here by a pseudonym), in 1995, and David obliged when Brian asked for a hook-up. Four years later, Brian was arrested after twice selling cocaine to an undercover JADE officer.

According to documents in Albemarle General District Court, Brian agreed to a “cooperative agreement” to “do certain things in exchange for favorable consideration by the Commonwealth at his trial.”

Defense attorney Lunsford says some of her drug clients choose to inform in exchange for leniency. She says officers ask for names and whether the informant could immediately go buy drugs from that person.

“If they hear about someone dealing, especially in large quantities, they’re more than willing to use it,” Lunsford says. “Body wires, phone taps are no problem.”

In February 2000, Brian asked David if he was still “helping people out.” David said yes, and over the next five weeks he sold Brian marijuana three times in one-ounce and two-ounce quantities.

Nine months later, an unfamiliar number appeared on David’s pager. When David called, a member of the JADE Task Force answered the phone.

“I asked if someone was in trouble,” says David. “He said, ‘Yeah, maybe you.’”

According to David, the officer arranged to meet him at night in a parking lot near Downtown. When David arrived, he found three officers sitting in a parked car. Flashing badges, they asked David to take a ride with them. They told David they didn’t think he was a threat, and that he could help himself by helping them. He was facing three potential felony charges for distributing marijuana, with a maximum of 30 years in jail.

“They were sweating me. They wanted me to inform on anyone I could for any drugs—anyone selling marijuana, ecstasy, mushrooms,” says David. “They wanted me to give names and tell them if anyone had a gun. They gave me a beeper number and told me to think about it.

“It was a tough decision,” he says. “They asked me to betray the trust of people I’d known for a long time, to basically be a judge and jury on my friends.”

David never beeped the agent, and two months later he was arrested. “I have to say they were cool about it,” he says.

After consulting a lawyer, David pled not guilty “to buy time.” After his trial date was set he negotiated an agreement to plead guilty to two felonies if the prosecution would not request jail time. During sentencing, David’s character witnesses and pre-trial probation officer argued on his behalf. According to David, Commonwealth’s Attorney Chapman argued he was a “drug dealer” to the judge and “said something about how I might possibly involve kids.”

In January 2002, David received a five-year jail sentence, of which all but 30 days was suspended. He served 15 weekends sleeping on a mattress on the Regional Jail’s gym floor.

“It sucked. No heat, no blankets, and they left the light on all night,” he says. (Brian, by contrast, received no jail time for his cocaine conviction. Presumably his willingness to narc out his acquaintances helped his case.)

David paid his $1,800 fine and refrained from alcohol and drugs for his 18-month probation, during which time officers were allowed to search him or his property at any time, for any reason. He enrolled in substance-abuse counseling through Region Ten.

“If somebody says your name, then the agents know you,” says David. “Even if you don’t do anything that gives an officer probable cause, you can become a suspect just through the people who know your name.

“All this wasn’t exactly a nightmare,” David says. “But in my opinion, someday marijuana will be legal, and I’ll still be a felon. There’s a lot of resources being thrown down a black hole.

“Marijuana is part of the social setting in Charlottesville—business owners, students, professionals, lawyers, people in the media. Are we really saying that these segments of our society are bad people?”