Readers: I’ll be in Woodbridge, Virginia tomorrow (Thursday), June 22 at 2pm at the Potomac Library (2201 Opitz Blvd, Woodbridge, VA 22191) to talk about land use, development, and traffic in outer suburbs. Stop by!

Here’s today’s building, in Richmond, Virginia:

It has been abandoned for some time, since the 1990s. (It may also, much earlier, have been somewhat modified from its original form.) What do you think it was?

For decades, based on a Facebook group post, it was some sort of pool hall and club. Some recall it being a strip club, others just a nightclub or private social club. Somebody found the building pictured in a history book, which notes that it was a club/social venue beginning in the 1940s, named at some point the Railroad Club. Throughout the same period, it was partially used as a bus depot as well. In recent years the property was still used to park buses, but the building itself is apparently no longer in use. It’s now owned by a Richmond nonprofit.

While it has a bit of a factory/industrial look, its original life was as a train terminal! Specifically, the Richmond & Rappahannock River Railroad, one of any number of regional railroad lines/companies that used to exist all over the country. While many of these old buildings remain, most are no longer in use—at least for anything to do with rail.

But apparently, after the building ceased to be a terminal in the late 1910s with the closure of the rail company, and with some other uses in between, its social-club life was oriented towards rail and bus workers. Some recall that, anyway. There are always different accounts of the details when a building goes back this long. Here’s a screenshot of the page from the history book:

It’s in a relatively poorer part of Richmond, with a number of abandoned buildings or empty lots in the surrounding area. This building, for example, is just next door. It basically looks like a shack designed after a rowhouse. It has an official build year of 1900—is that true, or a placeholder for a lost record? Who knows.

You go back to 2007 or 2008, when Google Street View imagery first appears, and these streets look pretty much exactly the same. It’s always a shame to see these urban places stuck in a long-term state of semi-decay, especially when they have interesting histories.

Bonus: while trying to find the old terminal on the map, I ended up finding another Railroad Club—or the same relocated one?—which is still operating as a nightclub/event space.

Cities have their problems, but they’re so full of local color and obscure history.

Related Reading:

Board for Books

Records and Stations

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #14

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