Union Mission

Taking an impromptu tour of an abandoned building in downtown Norfolk, Va.

For some reason — some might call it strange — my eye has always been drawn to the things and places that seem lost or have been left behind.

This is especially true when I see decaying buildings and structures that once were part of a thriving community but, due to a combination of age and neglect, are in danger of being torn down or replaced. While acknowledging the effect of gentrification on a city’s population, I appreciate when developers save and resurrect these buildings and find new uses for them.

In terms of resurrection, this story has a happy ending, but when I entered the former Union Mission building in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, a dozen years ago, no one was sure about its eventual fate. At that time, it was an empty relic of the city’s past.

Well, almost empty…

On this day, my wife had a meeting in Norfolk. Having recently been laid off, I joined her as an excuse to get out of the house and take pictures.

Walking around downtown, I saw the early 20th century structure that had housed the Union Mission. It was obviously abandoned, but I noticed someone walking behind the front desk, so I knocked on the door. An elderly gentleman let me inside.

In 1907, John D. Rockefeller provided the funds to build the multiple level structure for the YMCA to honor “the brave men of the Navy” stationed in Norfolk, a port community about three hours southeast from our home in Northern Virginia. For more than 50 years, the gentleman told me, the building was the site of numerous social events with its marble floors and ornate chandeliers.

In 1972, the building was purchased by the Union Mission, a nonprofit that serves Norfolk’s homeless population. The mission remained in the building until 2009, when crowded conditions — 30 to 70 men slept on the lobby floor at night — and pressure from the city forced it to relocate.

I asked if I could take pictures inside the structure, which was listed as one of the most endangered historical buildings in Norfolk. The gentleman, who said his job was to “keep an eye on the place,” said I could do so on two conditions.

First, I had to walk around by myself, which was fine. Second, I could not use a flash.

I spent more than an hour walking around, snapping pictures of the empty rooms and the signs that had been left behind. Everything was fine until I saw an extension cord in the hallway on the fourth floor.

The single bathroom on the floor had shaving cream and a razor. Clothes were hanging in a laundry room. I walked toward a noise down the hallway and heard a television set on in one of the empty rooms.

At that point, my self-guided tour ended. I nodded to the man on the way out. He nodded back.

No End, New Beginning

This building’s story, as I mentioned, has a happy ending. Instead of being torn down to make way for something new, developer Buddy Gadams — Norfolk’s largest private real estate owner — purchased it from Union Mission at “break-even cost” a couple of years after my impromptu tour.

Gadams, president of the Marathon Development Group, subsequently restored and repurposed the building (now called The Rockefeller) into high end apartments. Here is a picture of The Rockefeller lobby today, taken from the complex’s website.

Gadams also has done the same with numerous other downtown buildings, adding more than 2,000 residential units to the downtown area over the past decade. It’s a lovely example of adaptive reuse.

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More Union Mission Photos

At the time of the impromptu tour, I had been taking photography seriously for a handful of years, and the equipment I was using was rudimentary and resistant to low light. I pushed the ISO to 3200 — the highest setting I had at the time — and hand held each image.

Most of my shots were only at 1/30th to 1/60th of a second, and I remember several blurry ones I could not rescue. However, I took at least three exposures of each picture and managed to keep my hands steady enough to get these.