ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. (AP) - Growth, decay, renewal.
That’s the story of McMorrine Street in Elizabeth City, where families of black entrepreneurs are working to bring people and prominence back to a once-thriving minority business area.
Joel Taylor is among those entrepreneurs. He runs “Heart of Arts,” an umbrella company for youth programs in music, theater, performing arts and more; he also noted he works with the city’s Police Athletic League. Apart from all that, he’s also picking up the torch from his mother, Ann Taylor, and taking over JoVon Fashions when she retires soon. Joel quipped he’s happy to serve the ladies; his mother warned sweet talk isn’t going to get anyone free clothes.
Beyond the fashion store and his other ventures, Joel Taylor said he’s trying to work with businesses in and near “The Shoppes at Renaissance Square” to raise the profile of McMorrine Street and build a sense of community. The Shoppes are a business incubator opened by the River City Community Development Corporation; it includes JoVon Fashions and several other family-owned businesses.
The Shoppes, now two years old, have helped revive the block, the Taylors explained. But many people don’t even know the businesses are there, they said; and others still fear the crime once there.
When it comes to McMorrine Street, Glover Shannon and his son, William McCaffity, have had a front-row seat. They’ve run the Keystone barber shops many years; William works at the original, decades-old Keystone on McMorrine passed on to them by the late Burley Moore, while his dad now works at the newer one around the corner on Shepard Street.
“It used to be thriving, hustling, bustling,” Shannon said Friday. Back in the 1960s or so, he said, there were barber shops, salons, a dry cleaner, restaurants, a confectionary store, even a movie theater. Though not claiming to be a historian, he said it’s likely segregation fostered the growth of black businesses there.
But McMorrine started deteriorating in the 1970s or so, he said. It was subtle, but businesses faded away one by one. Fast-forward to the 1990s, he said, and crime did start filling the void and drug dealers operated openly.
The area’s reputation got pretty bad, McCaffity explained.
“If you saw a Caucasian here, you knew they were looking for drugs,” he said.
Shannon said mindsets are slow to change, but the area’s been safe and quiet for a long time; he also noted that today he cuts hair for all kinds of people, including local US Coast Guardsmen. The neighborhood has a “positive outlook” now, he said. He added he knew people who’d start businesses there if starting capital wasn’t such a challenge.
Bonita Jones has lived the area’s history as well. She runs Stella’s II on McMorrine, which is reopening today as a cafe where “tweens and teens” could come in, buy a hot dog and hang out for a while. She noted her mother, Selma White-Kyles, runs the first Stella’s on Greenleaf Street in Sawyertown, and both stores are named after Jones’ grandma.
Jones also recalled the area’s many businesses back in the day, noting the “Gator Theater” once occupied the Shepard Street Community Center building, showing westerns and other movies for 25 cents. She said she also recalled when Southgate Mall and Gateway Cinema were thriving on Ehringhaus Street - and likely helped siphon business away from McMorrine. She also said businesses faded away as owners died and their families, for one reason or another, didn’t continue them.
Jones said teens in Elizabeth City often feel there’s nowhere to go in town, and Stella’s II hopes to fix that. She also said it helps add to the mix of stores and services on McMorrine.
Jibreel Salaam is one young, new face on McMorrine. He and his dad, Ali Salaam, run Salaam’s International Cafe in the incubator. The cafe whips up coffee and provides a unique atmosphere for people, he explained. Thanks to a conference room, he said the cafe also hosts small gatherings and often sees students from Elizabeth City State University. The cafe’s only a few blocks from campus and provides a quiet place to work and study - especially right before midterms when the GR Little Library is packed with people studying.
Salaam vouched that McMorrine is a quiet place to do business, commenting he’s never had problems in the year or so they’ve operated there. If anything, things are too quiet - the area greatly needs exposure and traffic, he said. He noted that Elizabeth City is getting a Starbucks on Halstead Boulevard Extended. Far from fearing the competition, he said he wished the coffee giant was closer by. That’d bring people to the area - and they’d find they want coffee from a unique, more personable business.
“Starbucks is a robot,” Salaam said.
As businesses work to establish themselves on McMorrine Street, there’s another challenge they face: many aren’t supposed to stay there.
As a “business incubator,” The Shoppes are supposed to provide businesses help and low overhead while they find a permanent home. Though unavailable for comment this week, River City CDC President Lenora Jarvis-Mackey said in past interviews she expected businesses to stay there one to three years. In theory, some businesses should be moving on soon.
As a mature business that operated for years downtown before coming to McMorrine, Ann Taylor said JoVon Fashions could handle moving. She’s built personal relationships with many customers over many years, she said, and business will follow her. It could still be hard on newer businesses to move, she said.
One business did tell the Advance it has plans to move: WM Heckstall, Inc. Owner William Heckstall said he’s built up his concrete contracting business over many years, after first starting in 1994 in an office in his mother’s home. He and his son, Alex Heckstall, explained they do work in Virginia as well as locally now, and they’d like to have their own space within two years.
In the mean time, he said McMorrine Street has been a good place to be. His uncle once ran a barber shop where The Shoppes are today, he said, and things continue looking up for the area.
“It’s a whole different atmosphere,” he said.
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Information from: The Daily Advance, https://www.dailyadvance.com/
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