A long-lost photo of Franklin Street's moonwalker. by Edwin Slipek Jr.
Photo courtesy of Betty Stacy
Like many Richmonders, Betty Stacy was watching television coverage from Los Angeles following Michael Jackson’s death early Thursday evening, June 25. Suddenly she recalled a photograph she’d purchased on a whim some 30 years ago.
“I walked into another room and pulled it out,” Stacy says. She’d bought the image at a small flea market on the plaza outside the Richmond Coliseum around 1980.
What attracted the former Virginia Museum of Fine Arts librarian to the piece was how it captured a smiling and relaxed Michael Jackson standing on a downtown Richmond street corner. He and his brothers performed in Richmond at least four times during the 1970s. In the undated photograph by an unidentified photographer, Jackson wears a Civil War-era styled cap and iconic sunglasses and greets fans in the driveway of the Holiday Inn Downtown at 301 W. Franklin St., now the Doubletree Hotel.
In the distance is Greek Revival townhouse in the 200 block of West Franklin Street that once housed the Richmond Symphony.
