Arcangelathanos t1_iu2tw5b wrote on October 28, 2022 at 3:21 AM

Those apartments near RIR on Laburnum with the giant hills of dirt in front of them? Those are earthworks they built in the 90s to prevent drive-bys.

Canard427 t1_iu423x6 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 12:13 PM

You sure? I was always told those are earthworks left over from the outer confederate defense rim.

Arcangelathanos t1_iu474vy wrote on October 28, 2022 at 12:57 PM

So my childhood church is nearby, and I distinctly remember sitting there in the early 90s and the youth pastor and the teenagers talking about how they had been recently built for that reason.

Johnny_BigHacker t1_iu4eq1u wrote on October 28, 2022 at 1:55 PM

People would just randomly fire at an apartment building so they put up hills between the road and the apartments?

Arcangelathanos t1_iu4jmi5 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 2:30 PM

Yes. Drive-by shootings and those aren't random apartments. It was really rough there. Hell, my BFF told me that when her brother had just started with Henrico County PD ages ago, he was assigned to those apartments and all he did was ask folks to do their drug deals under the streetlights so everyone could see what everyone was doing, and no one would get shot. She was like, what was a single white guy going to do? Arrest everyone there?

I was about to say don't forget what it was like in the 80s and 90s, but then I realized that I have no idea how old you are.

Johnny_BigHacker t1_iuhrlkz wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:04 PM

I'm late 30s but I got here in early 2000s

I did buy on the edge of Church Hill when residents were still highly aware there was an area that had like the top murders per capita in the 90s or something like that. A square district somewhere around M street and the 20s to 30s Streets.

Arcangelathanos t1_iui1lit wrote on October 31, 2022 at 2:22 PM

Yeah, things were just starting to turn around then. According to one of my professors who used to be the US attorney for the area, one of the main reasons for the improvement was Project Exile - enforcement of the federal law forbidding firearms to be held by felons.

wagonboss t1_iu777vx wrote on October 29, 2022 at 2:00 AM

Those apartments are called St Luke’s, and I will withhold the adventures I’ve gone on inside of that. But I will say there’s no need to purposefully be anywhere around there.

The neighborhood on the Richmond Henrico Tpke side behind it doesn’t even want the roads to go through to it anymore.