Cradock, VA
One of three developments planned near Portsmouth / Norfolk, VA.
In the segregated South, Cradock was planned for the white workers needed to populate the Portsmouth Navy Yard.
Area planned: 310.60 acres. Housing planned: Detached houses, 801 families; semidetached houses, 170 families; row houses, 160 families; row two-flat houses, 104 families. Total: 1,235 families. Workmen in Barracks (planned to be used by Navy after construction of Cradock), 2,000.
Houing constructed: Detached houses, 417 families; semidetached houses, 144 families; row houses, 94 families; row two-flat houses, 104 families. Total, 759 families.
1919 excerpt describing the site:
"The area chosen for this development was mostly open farming land, bounded on the north and cut into from the east by arms of Paradise Creek...The soil had a very high water plane, randing from the surface of the ground in wet weather to about 3 feet below the surface in dry weather.
"The tidal variations of the water in Paradise Creek introduced a serious problem, because though the creek is very attractive at high tide it is largely a mud flat at low tide...at present it is proposed merely to do such filling and cleaning as will prevent the standing of any fresh water to breed mosquitoes.
"To provide reasonable access from Cradock to the navy yard on the shortest line, and thence to Portsmouth, two bridges are necessary, one postponed for the present, to carry Gilmerton Boulevard on a continuous line across the creek, the other, already built by the Housing Corporation, connecting Gilliss Road with Gilmerton Boulevard, as extended. Also it was necessary to construct and properly pave the extension of Gilmerton Boulevard from the creek to the navy yard, both for the future traffic to and from Cradock and for the convenience of the present construction of the town, for the existing roads, poor enough at best, were turned into a slough in wet weather by heavy traffic.
The Cradock Site Today
Street View Today
Renderings, 1919
