History
2011 was quite a year, to borrow a favorite phrase from longtime resident Sims Thompson, in “our fair city.” I know that’s vague, but it’s tough to turn a pithy phrase that sums up a year in a vibrant, bustling and changing city. We had tragedy and triumph, tumult and harmony. Alliances and rivalries. Echoes of the past and glimmers from the future.
More than 1,000 parents and children came to the Richmond PAL Center Sunday for a the 64th Annual Charles Reid Christmas Party, a community tradition begun in 1947 and carried on today by the Charles Reid Foundation and a handful of sponsors.
For more than a decade, Santa Claus and his natural white beard regaled the children at Verde Elementary in North Richmond every December.
Dozens of volunteers – many descendents of Charlie Reid, a North Richmond icon – plan to serve more than 1,000 children and parents with food and gifts at Sunday’s Charles Reid Christmas Party, an annual event supported by The Charles Reid Foundation. The event is scheduled for noon-4 p.m. Sunday in the Richmond PAL Community Center at 2200 Macdonald Ave.
Marquis Hamilton was a 20-year-old father of two. On Nov. 25, he became the fifth young adult homicide victim in the tiny neighborhood of North Richmond this year. Before that, a RichmondConfidential.org reporter got to know him a bit, and wants you to know him too.
Mourners and clergy remembered Hamilton, 20, as a fun-loving prankster who snatched the bed covers off his seven brothers and five sisters and borrowed friends’ bicycles without their knowledge – only to return them with a laugh.
Marquis Hamilton was smiling when he coaxed a store cashier into giving him a cigarette before wandering back to the street corner a few ticks past 8 p.m. on Friday night. Moments later, after an exchange of rapid gunfire at the corner of Market Avenue and Fifth Street, Hamilton was back.
Ed Moger, a Richmond resident and horse trainer, sat alone among the rows of grandstand seats high above Golden Gate Fields. One hand grasped a stopwatch and the other pressed binoculars to his eyes as he scanned the bustling track, waiting for his horses to come out for an early gallop. It was a cold, dreary morning in the Bay Area, but Golden Gate Fields was wide-awake. At 6 a.m., the skies may have been dark, but the track glowed…
Aboard the only surviving cargo ship produced in Richmond’s Kaiser Shipyards during WWII, the community gathered on Veterans Day to celebrate those that served their country. The ship is newly restored, and functions as a WWII museum. Check out the video to hear the stories of Richmond residents who lived through the wartime effort.