Change may be coming to make city hall more “welcoming to all.”
The Fredericksburg City Council heard plans to modify the entry way at last month’s work session meeting. Staff presented a proposal to remove, digitize and relocate the portraits of the city’s 29 former mayors that currently hang in the entry hallway of its building at 715 Princess Anne Street.
The portraits would each be processed with a Contex scanner to produce a full, high-resolution image of each of Fredericksburg’s former mayor. The back of each portrait would then be marked with the mayor’s name and terms in office before being preserved with Mylar, a common film used for preserving and protecting archival items. The digitized images would then be made available on the city’s website, where they would be publicly accessible online.
Where the portraits themselves go from there, however, is still up in the air.
The work session presentation to council was made by Kate Schwartz, Fredericksburg’s Senior Historic Resources Planner and Ellie Dauernheim, a University of Mary Washington senior majoring in historic preservation who has assisted city staff over the past year.
Schwartz tells hyperbole that the goal of the archival and relocation of the portraits is to “both digitize/appropriately preserve the images and modify the entry into City Hall.” She says the space for new displays in city hall is limited, and that the entry way area the portraits currently occupy is “well-suited to sharing a broader perspective on the city.”
The portraits of Fredericksburg’s 29 former mayors currently hang in the entryway to City Hall at 715 Princess Anne Street. They held terms ranging from 1844 to more recent leaders like Mary Katherine Greenlaw and the late Reverend Lawrence Davies.
During the work session, Dauernheim told council that she began the project in April with the Central Rappahannock Heritage Center to determine the best practices for the images.
“Some of them are kinda falling apart a little bit. And there’s kind of a mismatched form of all these frames that interesting, but kind of unique.”
Dauernheim says that the portrait project would allow for increased accessibility of the images and provides an opportunity for the city to “re-envision what they want city hall to tell you.”
“It promotes a welcoming entry for everybody, so anyone who enters is not gonna just see these mayors who are big figureheads up in the building,” Dauernheim told council.
“It’s also important to make sure everyone feels welcome in city hall.”
Dauernheim says the portraits would still be kept on permanent display, either in city council chambers or in a book or publication.
Several council members supported the idea of preserving the portraits, but also appreciated the “ramshackleness” that the current display collectively provides. Councilman Will Mackintosh asked staff look to preserve some of the historical “flavor” in whatever approach is undertaken to replace the portraits.
Mayor Devine also liked the idea of digitizing images of the portraits, but was less enthusiastic about the idea of moving them away the public’s physical access.
“I love the idea of digitizing them. I want them to be still be visible in more than ‘book’ form,” Devine remarked.
“We’re talking about our 300th anniversary, and I just think this tells such a story of Fredericksburg. And so displaying them, whether it’s a more modernized way of displaying them in the hallway or down in chambers, where people can access them.”
“There are local families that are still connected to some of these folks,” Devine said. She’d like to see them continue to have access to images of relatives or loved ones.
Many of the portrait name plates feature local name sakes with familiar forms on area signage, including Goolrick, Cowan, Rowe, Willis, Payne and Marye.
Devine also said that the existing hallway isn’t that accessible and doesn’t receive much public foot traffic. That entry way is currently occupied by an armed Fredericksburg Sheriff’s deputy.
Exactly when the former mayor’s photographs began to fall out of favor isn’t clear.
In 2017, City Manager Tim Baroody told the Free-Lance Star that the portraits were “symbolic” of the city’s hundreds of years of leadership.
“We are a great City with unlimited potential looking forward, in large part because of the leadership of these Mayors and the Councils they served with.”
That Free-Lance Star piece included a photograph of then-Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw with four of Fredericksburg’s previous mayors on the Fredericksburg Area Museum’s “Lincoln steps,” including Reverend Lawrence Davies, Josiah Rowe III, Bill Beck and Tommy Tomzak.
“Their leadership (Mayors and Councils) has gotten us to where we are today, a vibrant City with unlimited potential” Baroody said in 2017.
City staff did not respond to hyperbole’s questions about the reasoning or plan for the re-envisioned space, or if there sitting city council’s portraits (currently on the wall of the entry way vestibule) would be digitized and / or relocated.
