Norfolk’s towering black stone monument to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was literally falling apart last October.
When a slab of granite near the top came loose and fell, the city closed lanes around the monument, located at the center of the intersection of Church Street and Brambleton Avenue.
After assessing the damage, the city opted to strip the granite façade off to allow for repairs. But the problems were far more pervasive than city inspectors initially realized and have turned into a nearly-complete rebuild of the 83-foot pillar’s internal structure.
Tammy Halstead, a civil engineer with the city and the project manager on the monument restoration, said an earlier inspection revealed that the steel skeleton that held up the granite facade was starting to deteriorate.
“Once we got it down, we realized we’d have to replace all the steel,” Halstead said.
With the stone faces off the monument, city workers found the poorly ventilated interior of the monument had lead to moisture buildup over the last 20 years. The galvanized steel holding the whole thing up also hadn’t been treated with water-resistant coatings to prevent rust, and was badly corroded.
Halstead said the city is in the process of getting the new steel coated and expects to start erecting the skeleton on June 1. If the weather isn’t too wet through the summer months, she expects the granite facade will be fully restored by early August.
Because they had to do a full tear-down, Halstead said they’ve taken the opportunity to and upgraded several other parts of the monument. An upgraded ventilation system and fountain will be installed with the rebuild, along with improvements to the lighting that illuminates the column.
The push to commemorate King with a monument began in the mid-1970s by the late Joseph Jordan, a major figure in Norfolk’s civil rights movement who became a General District Court judge and vice mayor.
After decades of fundraising, the towering black obelisk was constructed in the center of Church Street and Brambleton Avenue in 2000 without city involvement. It was handed over to the city within a year or two of its construction.
Ryan Murphy, 757-739-8582, ryan.murphy@pilotonline.com