Peninsula In Passage

Brothers Craig and Greg Parker, who with their father, grandfather and uncle, ran stores on the Driver crossroads, remember posting handbills about the latest acts coming to the park and selling sandwiches, drinks and groceries to the entertainers. By the middle 1960s integration had become the law and in early 1964 the park closed. A businesswoman, Mary C. Williams, built a two-story house in front of the motel and opened a home for the elderly, the “Senior Citizens Village.” The home closed years later, Whedbee remembered. A group of 14 investors from Norfolk and Portsmouth bought the remaining 120 acres of the park site with the idea of developing an affordable housing project. They planned 400 homes priced at $12,000 to $14,000, with a six-acre commercial/retail center, underground utilities and plenty of room for churches and recreational green spaces. Premier Development Corporation hoped to start with 50 homes – all brick and California redwood construction – and build more as the demand increased. The area is still referred to as the Midway Park subdivision, but few of the planned

homes were ever built and the rockin’ Midway Park is only a musical memory.

Annette Montgomery, Assistant Archivist, Norfolk State University Library

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