New Brick Work Ordered Again for West Freemason Street Historic District

On Columbus Day 2009, Norfolk, Virginia’s city workers were busy at the corners of West Freemason and Yarmouth Streets gently digging up the brick work that was laid the week before. According to a supervisor on the scene the brick pattern was not to the liking of someone at city hall despite the sign-off on the project at the time of installation. As a result the bricks were lifted by backhoe and piled for the bricklayers to redo the work.

The street supervisor told 42N that street bricks were most likely of African origin from the 1800s. The bricks served as ship ballast during the voyage and were eventually unloaded onto huge brick piles near the city’s docks during that period.

Norfolk, Virginia’s West Freemason Street Historic District is known for its visual chronology of residential architecture that represent over three centuries of styles dating from 1686. Surviving fires, floods, wars and the march of time, this area displays a progression of homes from the Federal style, Greek Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Romanesque Revival, Beaux Arts Classicism, Queen Anne, and Georgian Revival styles. The street was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Know that.