title: Selvaraghavan

text: Selvaraghavan then moved on to direct a Telugu film which he had committed to make since 2003 with Venkatesh in the leading role. Titled "Aadavari Matalaku Arthale Verule", he wrote the script, taking experiences from life experiences of friends who were unemployed graduates, like the film's main character. Featuring an ensemble cast also including Trisha Krishnan, K. Vishwanath, Swati Reddy and Srikanth, the film marked a move away from Selvaraghavan's hard-hitting films and was a simple romantic drama film. "Aadavari Matalaku Arthale Verule" opened to positive reviews in April 2007, with critics noting: "Selva reads the safe path in AMAV, and is most likely to emerge with a winner." Another reviewer added: "Selva Raghavan succeeds in touching the right chord by directing a big hero for the first time", adding "he concentrated on entertainment in the first half and mixed strong emotions in the second half to make sure that audience will have certain positive heaviness in their hearts when they leave the theatre." The film went on to gain recognition at award ceremonies the following year, while becoming amongst the biggest commercial successes in the Telugu film industry for 2007.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: After the disappointing reception to his previous Tamil film, Selvaraghavan took a sabbatical to plan future projects and set up a production company, "White Elephants", along with Yuvan Shankar Raja and Arvind Krishna, whose first project "Idhu Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam" began filming in November 2006. The team began shooting with Karthi, whose first film "Paruthiveeran" (2007) was awaiting release, and Sandhya. The film was stalled in early 2007 due to cinematographer Arvind Krishna's decision to leave "White Elephants" and the project was eventually shelved. In July 2007, Selvaraghavan announced a new film with Karthi and Reemma Sen in the cast, with Ramji replacing regular Arvind Krishna as the cinematographer. The film was titled as "Aayirathil Oruvan" (2010), and Andrea Jeremiah and Parthiban also were soon after added to the principal cast. Nearly six months after filming began, Yuvan Shankar Raja also left the project after falling out with Selvaraghavan, and was replaced by G. V. Prakash Kumar. After extensive development and pre-production which took four months for scripting, the film started the first schedule in the forests of Chalakudy in Kerala during October 2007. The project developed a reputation for its gruelling shoots, a novel concept in Tamil films, at an early stage of production. Shoots in all regions were tough and demanding for the crew as the film featured more than three thousand junior artistes from a variety of unions across India, with the language barrier becoming a problem. In February 2009, filming was completed after 263 days of shooting; therefore the producers signalled for a summer release, but it was postponed by six months.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: The film, an adventure fantasy, tells the story of an archaeologist, a coolie and a member of the army going in search of the archaeologist's father to a ruined city before they stumble upon the lost Chola civilisation and its king and find unexplained links between them and the culture. Uncut, the film was made to run for 220 minutes, but the theatrical release was heavily censored at 183 minutes and upon release in January 2010, the film remarkably gained mixed reviews. Sify.com cited that the film represented "something new in the placid world of Tamil cinema" adding that it "broke away from the shackles of the stereotypes". Selvaraghavan also was praised by the reviewer with claims that "the director transports us to a whole new world and at the end of it all, we are dumb stuck by the visuals, the packaging and the new way of storytelling". Rediff.com gave the film 3.5 out of 5 claiming that viewers should "steel your stomach before [you] watch it" and "regardless of the minor discrepancies, "AO" is definitely a movie to watch". In contrast, Behindwoods.com gave the film 0.5 out of 5 describing the film as "wildly crass", dismissing that "the underdeveloped script lacks everything – starting from strong plot twists to captive locations to graphics to credibility, above all". The film evoked a strong opening at the box office and gained average collections. Despite the mixed reaction to the film, Selvaraghavan has expressed interest in making a sequel to the film featuring Dhanush in the future.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: Selvaraghavan then relaunched his marital drama film "Idhu Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam" in November 2008 and filming started with a new cast of Dhanush and Andrea Jeremiah in the leading roles. Ramji and G. V. Prakash Kumar had taken over as the cinematographer and music director respectively. The film was described to be a "quick project" with Selvaraghavan and Dhanush's sister Vimalageetha taking up the production reins. However, filming was subsequently stalled for unknown reasons in February 2009. In August 2009, the film was launched again for the third time with a first schedule planned in Hyderabad and Selvaraghavan taking over exclusively as producer. However, the film was yet again abandoned in October 2009. The director had also begun pre-production work on a film featuring Vishal and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles in late 2008, however, the actor and director called off the project months later after having creative differences.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: After discussions which had been ongoing for a year, Selvaraghavan announced a collaboration with Vikram in January 2008 and worked on the film's script for a year during the making of "Aayirathil Oruvan". The project, dubbed by the media as "Sindubad", finally began shooting in September 2009 in Ladakh, with Swati Reddy signed on as the female lead with Ismail Merchant as music director. Filming continued in caves near the Himalayas with the team facing trouble with the freezing weather conditions, while Selvaraghavan announced that the next schedule would be held abroad in the United States. However, in February 2010, the film was momentarily shelved and the project subsequently never took off again after the producer Singanamala Ramesh walked out. Soon after in June 2010, another project announced by Selvaraghavan, a bilingual featuring Rana Daggubati set in 50 BC, was also postponed after the pair felt it was too early to work on the film. Likewise, another proposed project for producer Ramesh Babu titled "Pei Ottum Nilayam", featuring the producer's son Santhosh Ramesh, failed to materialise. In early 2011, Kamal Haasan agreed terms with Selvaraghavan to be the director of the actor's venture "Vishwaroopam". Months into the collaboration, he was ousted from the project, with Kamal Haasan unhappy at the director's commitment to the project. Selvaraghavan later noted that he expected creative control of the project, which Kamal Haasan was unwilling to offer him.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: After release of "Aayirathil Oruvan", Selvaraghavan began work on a fantasy romance script titled "Maruvan", which would yet again feature Dhanush and Andrea Jeremiah in the lead roles. Production started in July 2010 and the shoot of the film progressed slowly, with the project undergoing a title change to "Irandam Ulagam". However, the film subsequently ran into trouble after Andrea Jeremiah pulled out of the film, citing differences with the director, and Selvaraghavan chose to shelve the project and begin a new film instead featuring Dhanush and Richa Gangopadhyay. The film began production in May 2011 and the entire filming portions were completed within three months. During production, Selvaraghavan announced he would collaborate with Yuvan Shankar Raja again after G. V. Prakash Kumar became busy, but eventually later changed his mind and retained his original choice. The title was confirmed as "Mayakkam Enna" (2011), and the film depicted the story of an aspiring wildlife photographer and his struggles in life. Selvaraghavan revealed that he drew instances from his and Dhanush's lives and adapted the screenplay to make it applicable to "gen-next" audiences. The film opened in November 2011 to unanimously positive reviews, with a critic from "The Hindu" noting it is an "electrifying movie that captures the attention of the youth", and that "Selva's narrative style takes the film to a level that caters to all age groups". Sify.com wrote that the film has "simplistic story telling with hard hitting impact" and that ""Mayakkam Enna" will stay with you long after the lights have come back on", while Rediff noted that if Selvaraghavan "had tightened the second half, we would have had a masterpiece on our hands."


title: Selvaraghavan

text: Selvaraghavan then chose to restart work on "Irandam Ulagam" in September 2011, with a new cast of Arya and Anushka Shetty and began shooting for the film again from the start. Harris Jayaraj was signed on to be the film's composer, associating with Selvaraghavan for the first time, and production was under way in December 2011. The team shot long schedules in Hyderabad and then across Georgia, trying to replicate an imaginary exoplanet which is depicted in the story. The film narrates two love stories taking place in parallel universes and how they come to coincide, with the lead actors both playing double roles. Talking about the film, the director noted that he tried to readdress the problem of the "concept of pure love being lost to today's generation" and incorporated elements of mysticism, Sufism and a Zen feel to the story. By October 2013, the team revealed that all post-production work including computer generated imagery which took months was finally over and the content was locked and ready for release. The cost for the film eventually totalled nearly 60 crores, becoming the director's most expensive production till date. The film received mostly average reviews from critics upon release. "The Hindu" wrote: "With just a handful of movies, Selvaraghavan has announced himself a major filmmaker, and it falls on us to look at his latest venture, "Irandaam Ulagam", as the (worthy) next installment in a thematically connected oeuvre as well as a (problematic) standalone film. It's a love story without a shred of genuine passion". The Times of India gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote: "The disjointed way in which the scenes play out in this world at times makes one wonder if we are seeing the film version of a feverish dream Selvaraghavan might have had". Sify wrote: ""Irandam Ulagam" is not everybody's cup of tea, but film is made with a lot of passion and sincerity. However, like all his previous films, this one too is ahead of its time", while The New Indian Express noted: "brilliantly conceived, the film, however, falls short on execution". The high production values meant that the film became a box office failure and the producer suffered heavy losses on investment.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: In December 2013, Selvaraghavan began pre-production on a new venture titled "Alaivarisai", produced by Varun Manian, which would feature Silambarasan and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles. The film was put on hold in May 2014, with Manian announcing that Selvaraghavan had to sort out issues with his previous producers PVP Cinemas, before beginning work on the venture. In February 2015, Selvaraghavan announced that he would begin work on the film again with immediate effect and that the project would have new producers in the form of Selvaraghavan's wife Gitanjali and Siddharth Rao. Retitled as "Kaan", a photo shoot was held in April 2015 with Silambarasan, Trisha, Taapsee Pannu and Jagapati Babu, before Trisha opted out of the project and was replaced by Catherine Tresa. The film progressed and by July 2015, Selvaraghavan revealed that the film was scheduled to release by December 2015 and that the producers had also planned an international version. In a sudden turn of events in October 2015, Selvaraghavan put the film on hold, stating that financial restraints meant that the project was not viable. Selvaraghavan subsequently began pre-production work on another venture featuring Suriya, Rakul Preet Singh and Sai Pallavi.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: Following "NGK", his long-awaited "Nenjam Marappathillai", which was originally supposed to be released in 2016, released on 5 March 2021 to positive reviews from the critics and audience, though the predictability and climax of the film were criticized. A gothic horror film starring S. J. Suryah, Regina Cassandra, and Nandita Swetha, it was looked as his comeback, as a director, after the severe backlash to "NGK".


title: Selvaraghavan

text: Selvaraghavan made his debut, as an actor, with Vijay's "Beast", directed by Nelson Dilipkumar. Though it received mixed reviews from the critics and underperformed commercially, his performance was praised by everybody. He then followed it up with "Saani Kaayidham", co-starring Keerthy Suresh and directed by Arun Matheswaran, of "Rocky" fame. His performance in the film was highly acclaimed.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: His next release, as a director, is "Naane Varuven" with Dhanush in the lead. Kalaippuli S. Thanu is producing it under his V Creations banner, and Yuvan Shankar Raja is composing the music for the film, which is his eighth collaboration with Selvaraghavan.


title: Selvaraghavan

text: He has also announced the sequel to "Aayirathil Oruvan", with Dhanush, as the main lead. He has been involved in the pre-production for it, since 2021. It is being planned for a release in 2024.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Sharon Lorencia Horgan (born 13 July 1970) is an Irish actress, writer, director, comedian and producer who co-wrote and starred in the comedy series "Pulling" (2006–2009) and "Catastrophe" (2015–2019). She also created the HBO comedy series "Divorce" (2016–2019).


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan won the 2008 British Comedy Award for Best TV Actress for "Pulling", while the show's 2009 hour-long final episode won the British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Drama. A seven-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won the 2016 BAFTA TV Award for Best Comedy Writer for "Catastrophe" (with Rob Delaney). "Catastrophe" was also nominated for Scripted Comedy in the 2020 BAFTA TV Awards and for the 2016 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. She has also won five Irish Film and Television Awards in both acting and writing for her work on "Catastrophe". In 2021 Horgan won the "Irish Film and Television Award" in the category of Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in "Dating Amber (2020)".


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan has appeared in the films "Valiant" (2005), "Imagine Me & You" (2005), "Man Up" (2015), and "Game Night" (2018), "Military Wives" (2019), "Dating Amber" (2020), and BBC Two film "Together" (2021).


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan was born in Hackney, London, England. Her mother is Irish and her father is from New Zealand. When she was four years old, her parents moved the family to Bellewstown, County Meath, Ireland, to run a turkey farm.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: One of five siblings, Horgan later used her childhood experiences for the semi-autobiographical short film "The Week Before Christmas" for Sky Arts 1. Horgan went to the Sacred Heart convent school in Drogheda.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: As a young actress struggling to make ends meet she took a series of odd-jobs. At the age of 27, Horgan started a degree in English and American Studies at Brunel University in west London, graduating in 2000. Around that time, Horgan met British writer Dennis Kelly, while they were both working in youth theatre, and they started writing together, producing material they then sent to the BBC, for which they won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2001 for Sketch Writing and Performance.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan has appeared on stage, television and screen. Her first credited appearances on television were in "The State We're In" (2002) and "Monkey Dust" (2003), two sketch shows based on news and current affairs. She also contributed material to "Monkey Dust". Her first named acting role on television was as Theresa O'Leary in "Absolute Power" (2003), a comedy set in the world of public relations and starring Stephen Fry. In 2005 she made her big-screen debut as Beth in "Imagine Me & You", a British-American romantic comedy with Lena Headey directed by Ol Parker. She starred in 2 series of "Pulling", which she also co-wrote with Dennis Kelly. She has a supporting role in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" opposite Nicolas Cage which was released in March 2022.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan appeared as a guest booker in two series of "Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive" (2006–07), also on the BBC, a spoof comedy set behind the scenes of a chat show presented by Rob Brydon. She won a British Comedy Award in 2007 for Best Female Newcomer for her performance.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: In 2010 Horgan appeared in "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret". The US/UK comedy series was written by David Cross, who also appeared as the title anti-hero, an incompetent American who takes a job leading the London sales team for an energy drink. She played Alice Bell, the café owner on whom he developed a crush.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: In September 2011 she appeared in the world premiere of Saul Rubinek's play "Terrible Advice" at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. The play was set in Los Angeles and she played Delila, one half of its two warring couples.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: In June 2012 Horgan was part of the ensemble cast for the pilot episode of "Psychobitches", shown as part of Sky Arts 1's "Playhouse Presents" strand. In the sketch show, famous women from history are psychoanalysed by Rebecca Front's therapist; she played the novelist Jane Austen in the pilot, and later characters included Eva Peron, Cleopatra, Boudicca and Carmen Miranda. Two series of "Psychobitches" followed; the first was shown in May 2013, and the second in November 2014. She is well known for her role in "Catastrophe", alongside Rob Delaney, a show which they co-created for Channel 4 and Amazon. Horgan also appeared in 2020’s second series of "", BBC’s "The Borrowers" (2011), "Dead Boss" (2012) and Channel 4’s "Free Agents" (2009) and "Bad Sugar" (2012). She stars in and executive produces Channel 4 comedy-drama series "This Way Up" (2019–present).


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan played a supporting role in the 2018 dark comedy film "Game Night" as Sarah, a newcomer to the group of friends unwittingly roped into the game. She also appeared in films "Death of a Superhero" (2011), "Run and Jump" (2013), "Man Up" "(2015)", with Simon Pegg, "Military Wives" (2019) with Kristen Scott Thomas, "Dating Amber" (2020), and BBC Two film "Together" (2021) alongside James McAvoy.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: She has voiced characters in the films "Valiant" (2005) and the short film "Miss Remarkable & Her Career" (2010). In 2017, she provided the voices of Minerva Campbell (the long-lost mother of the protagonist, Finn the Human) in the Cartoon Network animated series "Adventure Time", and Courtney Portnoy in the animated series "Bojack Horseman". She voices  Queen Dagmar in Matt Groening’s animated series "Disenchantment", and Kathleen in the animated series "Bob's Burgers". She voices a Russian ex show cat Tabitha in 2021’s "Housebroken" which she executive produced.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan will appear in the feature film adaptation of the West End musical "Everybody’s Talking About Jamie" as Miss Hedge, which will be released in 2021.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan's career breakthrough was "Pulling", which she co-wrote with Dennis Kelly and starred in. She played Donna, an irresponsible marketing manager who calls off her wedding at the last minute, and one of three women sharing a flat in Penge, south London. It was noted for its broad humour about sex and the consumption of alcohol. "Pulling" was first shown on BBC Three in 2006, then repeated on BBC Two in 2008. The six-episode series became a ‘sleeper hit’, which gained iconic status with fans and was lauded by critics. A second series of six episodes ran March–April 2008 on BBC Three.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Despite good ratings and critical plaudits, "Pulling" was cancelled after two series, although an hour-long final episode was broadcast in May 2009. In 2007, the show was nominated for a British Academy Television Award and Horgan was nominated for a British Comedy Award. In 2008 she won a British Comedy Award for "Pulling". In 2009 she was nominated for a British Academy Television Award and the show won a British Comedy Award.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: In 2007 Horgan wrote "Angelo's" directed by Chloe Thomas and in June 2012 Horgan starred in "Dead Boss", a sitcom set in a prison, which she wrote with comic Holly Walsh.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: From 2015-2019, she co-starred and co-wrote the sitcom "Catastrophe" with American comic Rob Delaney. The two first met on Twitter, and because they made each other laugh decided to work together. They have both said "Catastrophe" was broadly based on their own personal experiences. In it she played Sharon, an Irishwoman living in London who becomes pregnant by Rob, an American she meets while he is on a business trip to London. Carrie Fisher played his mother. It was an instant critical success and after the second episode of the six-part series was aired Channel 4 announced it had commissioned a second series. Horgan was twice nominated for a Best Female Comedy Performance BAFTA for her role. in 2016, Channel 4, ordered a third and fourth season.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: She also wrote "Divorce" (2016-2019), a US comedy series starring Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays a New York woman going through a lengthy divorce. In April 2015, HBO announced it had picked up the series after the pilot episode, and the show is Parker's first major acting commitment since "Sex and the City". She was also an executive producer.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan wrote the short "Dreamland", which won the 2018 BAFTA TV Award for Best Short Form Programme and an episode of "Modern Love" titled “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive” (2019), which she also directed. She also co-created and co-writes "Motherland" (2017–present) for BBC Two, a programme about navigating the trials and traumas of middle-class motherhood, looking at the competitive side and unromantic take on parenting - not the cute and acceptable public face of motherhood, which is now in its third series.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: She co-created and executive produced "Shining Vale", alongside Jeff Astrof: a horror-comedy series for Starz. Courteney Cox has been cast as the lead. She is also writing alongside Kate Folk on a half-hour dramedy in development with 20th Television for Hulu, which will be set in the world of technology and dating and is based on The New Yorker Magazine short story ‘Out There’ by Folk. All three of these projects are co-produced via Horgan and Clelia Mountford’s production company Merman.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: In December 2012 Horgan made her directorial debut with the semi-autobiographical film "The Week Before Christmas", which was broadcast as part of the "Little Crackers" series of short films on Sky 1. It was set on a turkey farm in Ireland, and in it she played her own mother, while her father was played by actor Conleth Hill. She later directed an episode of Amazon’s anthology series "Modern Love" titled “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive” which starred Tina Fey and John Slattery.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: In February 2005 Horgan co-presented the first series of "The Friday Night Project" (later "The Sunday Night Project"), a comedy variety show on Channel 4. On 3 June 2011, Horgan was the guest host of "Have I Got News for You" on BBC1.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: She has presented a series of documentaries for Channel 4. In January 2012, in "How to Be a Good Mother" she talked to several families about their approach to child-rearing. In January 2013 in "Secrets of a Good Marriage" she discovered how various couples make their relationships work; and in "On the Verge of a Midlife Crisis", she spoke to six women who had coped with the experience.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan appeared on the BBC Radio 4 show "Chain Reaction" in March and April 2015. One week she was interviewed by Olivia Colman and the following week she interviewed Dennis Kelly.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: In 2014 Horgan established Merman, an independent production company, with Celia Mountford, who produced "A Young Doctor's Notebook", "Mr. Sloane", and "Cockroaches". The two women met while working on "The Week Before Christmas". The company now has offices in London, New York and LA.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Merman has co-produced many shows including "Divorce" (2016-2019), an American comedy series starring Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays a New York woman going through a lengthy divorce, Horgan also created the series. Merman produced the third series of "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret", which will be aired in late 2015. Merman also co-produced the critically acclaimed "Catastrophe" (2015-2019), BBC comedy "Motherland, and" W / RTE2’s "Women on the Verge."


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Merman also makes Sky and ABC’s "Frayed" (2019-present) created by comedian Sarah Kendall, which tells the story of wealthy London housewife is forced to return to her hometown in Australia, where she's forced to confront her past and the reasons that caused her to leave years ago. It is a co-production with Guesswork Television. Merman has also created BBC and Britbox’s "There She Goes" (2018-present) which centres around Rosie, a severely learning-disabled girl and her family. For Channel 4 and Hulu, Merman produces the BAFTA winning "This Way Up" (2019-present), a comedy about moving on, moving forward and trying to find happiness. Aine, played by writer Aisling Bea, is a whip smart English-as-a-foreign language (TEFL) teacher trying to pull her life back together after a “teeny little nervous breakdown”. Her sister Shona, is played by Horgan. Merman also produces Channel 4 and Amazon’s "Frank of Ireland" (2021–present), created by Domhnall and Brian Gleeson, the hilarious story of a man’s hapless search for respect.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Merman has also co-produced its first feature, "Herself" (2021) alongside Element Pictures, a female-fronted film that follows a broken family’s journey to find a home set during the Irish housing crisis. "Herself" had its debut at Sundance in January 2020, was selected for the London Film Festival in October 2020 and will be released in Irish & UK cinemas from 10 September 2021. It is available in cinemas in Australia now and is streaming in the US on Amazon. Merman co-produces 2021’s animated comedy "Housebroken" for Fox co-created with Clea Duvall, Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allan.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Merman has recently announced their Starz horror-comedy series "Shining Vale", starring Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear and Mira Sorvino.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: The company has won and been nominated for a whole host of awards, including film "Herself" longlisted for Outstanding British Film at the 2021 BAFTA Film Awards, "There She Goes" winning Best Returning Comedy-Drama Series at the 2020 C21 International Drama Awards and a Female Performance in a Comedy award at the 2019 BAFTA TV Awards. "Frayed" was nominated for 5 2019 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards. Merman was nominated for Multichannel Production Company of the Year at the 2020 Broadcast Digital Awards and Production Company of the Year at the 2019 Edinburgh TV Awards.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Horgan married businessman Jeremy Rainbird on 16 October 2005. The couple lived in London, with their two daughters. They divorced in 2019.


title: Sharon Horgan

text: Her younger brother Shane is a former international rugby union player who played wing or centre for Leinster and Ireland, and is now a rugby analyst for RTÉ Sports. Her other younger brother is Mark Horgan of Second Captains and creator of acclaimed podcast Where is George Gibney.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: The Catacombs of Paris (, ) are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris's ancient stone quarries. Extending south from the ("Gate of Hell") former city gate, this ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the city's overflowing cemeteries. Preparation work began shortly after a 1774 series of basement wall collapses around the Holy Innocents' Cemetery added a sense of urgency to the cemetery-eliminating measure, and from 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris's cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: The ossuary remained largely forgotten until it became a novelty-place for concerts and other private events in the early 19th century; after further renovations and the construction of accesses around , it was opened to public visitation from 1874. Since 2013, the Catacombs have numbered among the fourteen City of Paris Museums managed by . Although the ossuary comprises only a small section of the underground mines of Paris, Parisians currently often refer to the entire tunnel network as the catacombs.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: Paris's earliest burial grounds were to the southern outskirts of the Roman-era Left Bank city. In ruins after the Western Roman Empire's 5th-century end and the ensuing Frankish invasions, Parisians eventually abandoned this settlement for the marshy Right Bank: from the 4th century, the first known settlement there was on higher ground around a Saint-Etienne church and burial ground (behind the present Hôtel de Ville), and urban expansion on the Right Bank began in earnest after other ecclesiastical landowners filled in the marshlands from the late 10th century. Thus, instead of burying its dead away from inhabited areas as usual, the Paris Right Bank settlement began with cemeteries near its centre.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: The most central of these cemeteries, a burial ground around the 5th-century Notre-Dame-des-Bois church, became the property of the Saint-Opportune parish after the original church was demolished by the 9th-century Norman invasions. When it became its own parish associated with the church of the "Saints Innocents" from 1130, this burial ground, filling the land between the present rue Saint-Denis, rue de la Ferronnerie, rue de la Lingerie and the rue Berger, had become the city's principal cemetery.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: By the end of the same century "Saints Innocents" was neighbour to the principal Parisian marketplace Les Halles, and already filled to overflowing. To make room for more burials, the long-dead were exhumed and their bones packed into the roofs and walls of "charnier" galleries built inside the cemetery walls. By the end of the 18th century, the central burial ground was a two-metre-high () mound of earth filled with centuries of Parisian dead, plus the remains from the Hôtel-Dieu hospital and the Morgue; other Parisian parishes had their own burial grounds, but the conditions in Les Innocents cemetery were the worst.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: A series of ineffective decrees limiting the use of the cemetery did little to remedy the situation, and it was not until the late 18th century that it was decided to create three new large-scale suburban burial grounds on the outskirts of the city, and to condemn all existing parish cemeteries within city limits.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: Much of the Left Bank area rests upon rich Lutetian limestone deposits. This stone built much of the city, but it was extracted in suburban locations away from any habitation. Because of the post 12th-century haphazard mining technique of digging wells down to the deposit and extracting it horizontally until depletion, many of these (often illicit) mines were uncharted, and when depleted, often abandoned and forgotten. Paris had annexed its suburbs many times over the centuries, and by the 18th century many of its arrondissements (administrative districts) were or included previously mined territories.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: The undermined state of the Left Bank was known to architects as early 17th-century construction of the Val-de-Grâce hospital (most of its building expenses were due to its foundations), but a series of mine cave-ins beginning 1774 with the collapse of a house along the "rue d'Enfer" (near today's crossing of the Avenue Denfert-Rochereau and the boulevard Saint-Michel) caused King Louis XVI to name a commission to investigate the state of the Parisian underground. This resulted in the creation of the "inspection Générale des Carrières" (Inspection of Mines) service.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: The need to eliminate Les Innocents gained urgency from May 31, 1780, when a basement wall in a property adjoining the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the mass grave behind it. The cemetery was closed to the public and all "intra muros" (Latin: "within the [city] walls") burials were forbidden after 1780. The problem of what to do with the remains crowding "intra muros" cemeteries was still unresolved.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: Mine consolidations were still occurring and the underground around the site of the 1777 collapse that had initiated the project had already become a series of stone and masonry inspection passageways that reinforced the streets above. The mine renovation and cemetery closures were both issues within the jurisdiction of the Police Prefect Police Lieutenant-General Alexandre Lenoir, who had been directly involved in the creation of a mine inspection service. Lenoir endorsed the idea of moving Parisian dead to the subterranean passageways that were renovated during 1782. After deciding to further renovate the "Tombe-Issoire" passageways for their future role as an underground sepulchre, the idea became law during late 1785.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: A well within a walled property above one of the principal subterranean passageways was dug to receive Les Innocents' unearthed remains, and the property itself was transformed into a sort of museum for all the headstones, sculptures and other artifacts recuperated from the former cemetery. Beginning from an opening ceremony on 7 April the same year, the route between Les Innocents and the "clos de la Tombe-Issoire" became a nightly procession of black cloth-covered wagons carrying the millions of Parisian dead. It would take two years to empty the majority of Paris's cemeteries.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: Cemeteries whose remains were moved to the Catacombs include Saints-Innocents (the largest by far with about 2 million buried over 600 years of operation), Saint-Étienne-des-Grès (one of the oldest), Madeleine Cemetery, Errancis Cemetery (used for the victims of the French Revolution), and Notre-Dame-des-Blancs-Manteaux.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: Catacombs in their first years were a disorganized bone repository, but Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, director of the Paris Mine Inspection Service from 1810, had renovations done that would transform the caverns into a visitable mausoleum. In addition to directing the stacking of skulls and femurs into the patterns seen in the catacombs today he used the cemetery decorations he could find (formerly stored on the Tombe-Issoire property; many had disappeared after the 1789 Revolution) to complement the walls of bones. Also created was a room dedicated to the display of the various minerals found under Paris, and another showing various skeletal deformities found during the catacombs' creation and renovation. He also added monumental tablets and archways bearing ominous warning inscriptions, and also added stone tablets bearing descriptions or other comments about the nature of the ossuary, and to ensure the safety of eventual visitors, it was walled from the rest of Paris's Left Bank's already-extensive tunnel network.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: Bodies of the dead from the riots in the Place de Grève, the Hôtel de Brienne, and Rue Meslée were put in the catacombs on 28 and 29 August 1788. The tomb of the Val-de-Grâce hospital doorkeeper Philibert Aspairt, lost in the catacombs during 1793 and found 11 years later, is located in the catacombs on the spot where his body was found. During 1871, communards killed a group of monarchists there.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: During World War II, Parisian members of the French Resistance used the tunnel system and established the headquarters from where Colonel Rol-Tanguy led the insurrection for the liberation of Paris in June 1944. The Nazis established an underground bunker below Lycée Montaigne, a high school in the 6th arrondissement.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: During 2004, police discovered a fully equipped movie theater in an area of the catacombs underneath the Trocadéro. It was equipped with a giant cinema screen, seats for the audience, projection equipment, film reels of recent thrillers and film noir classics, a fully stocked bar, and a complete restaurant with tables and chairs. The group "les UX" took responsibility for the installation.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: The film "As Above, So Below", released in 2014, was the first production that secured permission from the French government to film in the catacombs. They aimed to use no alterations to the environment with the exception of a piano and a car which were hauled into the catacombs and set on fire.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: During 2015, Airbnb paid €350,000 as part of a publicity stunt offering customers the chance to stay overnight in the Catacombs.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: As one visits the catacombs, a sign above reads ("Stop! This is the empire of Death"). The Catacombs of Paris became a curiosity for more privileged Parisians from their creation, an early visitor being the Count of Artois (later Charles X of France) during 1787. Public visits began after its renovation into a proper ossuary and the 1814–1815 war. First allowed only a few times a year with the permission of an authorized mines inspector, but later more frequently and permitted by any mine overseer, a flow of visitors degraded the ossuary to a point where the permission-only rule was restored from 1830, and the catacombs were closed completely from 1833 because of church opposition to exposing human remains to public display. Open again for four visits a year from 1850, public demand caused the government to allow monthly visits from 1867, bi-weekly visits on the first and third Saturday of each month from 1874 (with an extra opening for the November 1 "toussaint" holiday), and weekly visits during the 1878, 1889 (the most visitors yet that year) and 1900 World's Fair Expositions. Later they opened for regular daily visits. After an incident of vandalism, the Catacombs were closed to the public during September 2009 and reopened on 19 December of the same year. The Catacombs were reopened to the public on June 16, 2020, with new rules and guidelines for visitors as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have also adopted strict practices to monitor crowd numbers and have made it obligatory to wear masks.


title: Catacombs of Paris

text: Because the catacombs are directly under the Paris streets, large foundations cannot be built above them and cave-ins have destroyed buildings. For this reason, there are few tall buildings in this area.


title: Matthew McConaughey filmography

text: Matthew McConaughey is an American actor who made his breakthrough by starring in the Richard Linklater-directed coming of age comedy "Dazed and Confused" in 1993. His first lead role was in the 1996 film adaptation of the John Grisham novel "A Time to Kill". The following year, McConaughey played the lawyer Roger Sherman Baldwin opposite Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins in the Steven Spielberg-directed historical drama "Amistad", and also starred opposite Jodie Foster in the Robert Zemeckis-directed science fiction drama "Contact". In 1998, he appeared in the Linklater-directed comedy-drama "The Newton Boys". During the 2000s, McConaughey was typecast as a romantic comedy lead in the films "The Wedding Planner" (2001), "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" (2003), "Failure to Launch" (2006), and "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (2009).


title: Matthew McConaughey filmography

text: In the early 2010s, McConaughey became better known for his dramatic roles. This reinvention was cited in the media as the "McConaissance" and started when he played Mickey Haller in the adaptation of the Michael Connelly novel of the same name "The Lincoln Lawyer", and reunited with Linklater on the black comedy "Bernie" (both 2011). In the same year he played the title role in the Southern Gothic crime film "Killer Joe", for which he received the Saturn Award for Best Actor. The following year he starred in the coming-of-age drama "Mud" (2012), and also played a supporting role in the Steven Soderbergh-directed comedy drama "Magic Mike" (2012).


title: Matthew McConaughey filmography

text: McConaughey's next role was as Ron Woodroof in the 2013 biographical drama "Dallas Buyers Club". His performance garnered him the Academy Award for Best Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor (Drama), and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role. He also appeared in the Martin Scorsese-directed "The Wolf of Wall Street" in 2013. In 2014, McConaughey played detective Rust Cohle in the television crime drama series "True Detective" and starred in the Christopher Nolan-directed science fiction film "Interstellar". The former earned McConaughey a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond () is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond Region. Richmond was incorporated in 1742 and has been an independent city since 1871. At the 2010 census, the city's population was 204,214; in 2020, the population had grown to 226,610, making Richmond the fourth-most populous city in Virginia. The Richmond Metropolitan Area has a population of 1,260,029, the third-most populous metro in the state.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond is at the fall line of the James River, west of Williamsburg, east of Charlottesville, east of Lynchburg and south of Washington, D.C. Surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties, the city is at the intersections of Interstate 95 and Interstate 64 and encircled by Interstate 295, Virginia State Route 150 and Virginia State Route 288. Major suburbs include Midlothian to the southwest, Chesterfield to the south, Varina to the southeast, Sandston to the east, Glen Allen to the north and west, Short Pump to the west and Mechanicsville to the northeast.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The site of Richmond had been an important village of the Powhatan Confederacy, and was briefly settled by English colonists from Jamestown from 1609 to 1611. The present city of Richmond was founded in 1737. It became the capital of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1780, replacing Williamsburg. During the Revolutionary War period, several notable events occurred in the city, including Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech in 1775 at St. John's Church, and the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom written by Thomas Jefferson. During the American Civil War, Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. It entered the 20th century with one of the world's first successful electric streetcar systems. The Jackson Ward neighborhood is a traditional hub of African-American commerce and culture.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond's economy is primarily driven by law, finance, and government, with federal, state, and local governmental agencies, as well as notable legal and banking firms in the downtown area. The city is home to both a U.S. Court of Appeals, one of 13 such courts, and a Federal Reserve Bank, one of 12 such banks. There are several "Fortune" 500 companies headquartered in the city including: Dominion Energy, WestRock, Performance Food Group, CarMax, ARKO, and Altria with others, such as Markel, in the metropolitan area.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The city continues to struggle with high rates of murder and violent crime, making it one of the most dangerous cities in the United States.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: After the first permanent English-speaking settlement was established in April 1607, at Jamestown, Virginia, Captain Christopher Newport led explorers northwest up the James River to an inhabited area within the Powhatan Nation.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The earliest European settlement in Central Virginia was in 1611 at Henricus, where the Falling Creek empties into the James River. In 1619 early Virginia Company settlers struggling to establish viable moneymaking industries established the Falling Creek Ironworks. After decades of conflicts between the Powhatan and the settlers, the Falls of the James saw more White settlement in the late 1600s and early 1700s.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The Battle of Bloody Run was fought near Richmond in 1656, after an influx of Manahoacs and Nahyssans from the North.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: In 1737 planter William Byrd II commissioned Major William Mayo to lay out the original town grid. Byrd named the city after the English town of Richmond near (and now part of) London, because the view of the bend in the James River at the fall line was similar to the view of the River Thames from Richmond Hill in England (which was in turn named after Henry VII's ancestral town of Richmond, North Yorkshire), where he had spent time during his youth. The settlement was laid out in April 1737 and incorporated as a town in 1742.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: In 1775 Patrick Henry delivered his famous "Give me liberty, or give me death" speech in St. John's Church in Richmond, crucial for deciding Virginia's participation in the First Continental Congress and setting the course for revolution and independence. On April 18, 1780, the state capital was moved from the colonial capital of Williamsburg to Richmond, to provide a more centralized location for Virginia's increasing westerly population, as well as to isolate the capital from British attack. The latter motive proved to be in vain, and in 1781, under the command of Benedict Arnold, Richmond was burned by British troops, causing Governor Thomas Jefferson to flee as the Virginia militia, led by Sampson Mathews, defended the city.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond recovered quickly from the war, and by 1782 was once again a thriving city. In 1786 the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (drafted by Thomas Jefferson, 1743–1826) was passed at the temporary capitol in Richmond, providing the basis for the separation of church and state, a key element in the development of freedom of religion in the United States. A permanent home for the new government, the Greek Revival style of the Virginia State Capitol building, was designed by Jefferson with the assistance of Charles-Louis Clérisseau and completed in 1788.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: After the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Richmond emerged as an important industrial center. To facilitate the transfer of cargo from the flat-bottomed James River bateaux above the fall line to the ocean-faring ships below, George Washington helped design the James River and Kanawha Canal from Westham east to Richmond, to bypass Richmond's rapids on the upper James River with the intent of providing a water route across the Appalachian Mountains to the Kanawha River flowing westward into the Ohio then eventually to the Mississippi River. The legacy of the canal boatmen is represented by the figure in the center of the city flag. As a result of this and ample access to hydropower due to the falls, Richmond became home to some of the country's largest manufacturing facilities, including iron works and flour mills, the largest of their kind in the South. The resistance to the slave trade was growing by the mid-19th century; in one famous 1849 case, Henry "Box" Brown made history by having himself nailed into a small box and shipped from Richmond through Baltimore's President Street Station northward on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (a well-used "Underground Railroad" route for escaping disguised slaves) to abolitionists in Philadelphia, in the free state of Pennsylvania, escaping slavery. By 1850 Richmond was connected by the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad to Port Walthall, where ships carrying over 200 tons of cargo could connect to Baltimore or Philadelphia and passenger liners could reach Norfolk, Virginia, through the Hampton Roads harbor. In the 19th century Richmond was connected to the North by the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad, which was later replaced by CSXT.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: On April 17, 1861, five days after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, the state legislature voted to secede from the United States and join the newly created Confederate States of America. Official action came in May, after the Confederacy promised to move its national capital to Richmond from its temporary home in Montgomery, Alabama. However, the new capital was at the end of a long supply line, which made it difficult to defend. For four years its defense required the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederacy's best troops and commanders. It became the main target of Union armies, especially in the campaigns of 1862 and 1864–65.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond held local, state and national government offices. hospitals, a railroad hub, and one of the largest slave markets. It also had the largest arms factory during the war, the Tredegar Iron Works. It produced artillery and other munitions, including the 723 tons of armor plating that covered the CSS "Virginia" the world's first ironclad warship used in war, as well as much of the Confederates' heavy ordnance machinery. The Confederate States Congress shared quarters with the Virginia General Assembly in Jefferson's designed Virginia State Capitol, with the Confederacy's executive mansion, known as the "White House of the Confederacy", two blocks away on Clay Street. The Seven Days Battles followed in late June and early July 1862, during which commanding Union General-in-Chief George B. McClellan threatened to take Richmond in the Peninsula campaign but failed.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Three years later, in March 1865, Richmond became indefensible after nearby Petersburg and several remaining rail supply lines to the south and southwest were broken. On March 25 Confederate General John B. Gordon's desperate attack on Fort Stedman east of Petersburg failed. On April 1 Federal Cavalry General Philip Sheridan, assigned to interdict the Southside Railroad, met brigades commanded by Southern General George Pickett at the Five Forks junction, smashing them, taking thousands of prisoners, and encouraging Union General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant to order a general advance. When the Union Sixth Corps broke through Confederate lines on the Boydton Plank Road south of Petersburg, Confederate casualties exceeded 5,000, about a tenth of Lee's defending army. Lee then informed President Jefferson Davis that he was about to evacuate Richmond.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The Confederate Army began the evacuation of Richmond on April 2, 1865. Davis and his cabinet, along with the government archives and Treasury gold, left the city by train that night, as government officials burned documents and departing Confederate troops burned tobacco and other warehouses to deny their contents to the victors. In the early a.m. of the following day, Confederate troops exploded the gunpowder magazine, resulting in the death of several paupers residing in the temporary Almshouse. It was on April 3, 1865, General Godfrey Weitzel, commander of the 25th Corps of the United States Colored Troops, accepted the city's surrender from the mayor and a group of leading citizens who remained. The Union troops eventually stopped the raging fires but about 25% of the city's buildings were destroyed.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: President Abraham Lincoln visited Grant at Petersburg on April 3, and took a launch to Richmond up the James River the next day, while Davis attempted to organize his remaining Confederate government further southwest at Danville. Lincoln met Confederate assistant secretary of War John A. Campbell, and handed him a note inviting Virginia's state legislature to end their rebellion. After Campbell spun the note to Confederate legislators as a possible end to the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln rescinded his offer and ordered Weitzel to prevent the former Confederate state legislature from meeting. Union forces killed, wounded or captured 8,000 Confederate troops at Sayler's Creek southwest of Petersburg on April 6, as the Southerners continued a general retreat southwestward. Lee continued to reject Grant's surrender suggestions until Sheridan's infantry and cavalry moved around the shrinking Army of Northern Virginia and appeared in front of his withdrawing forces on April 8, cutting off the line of further retreat southwest. He surrendered his remaining approximately 10,000 troops at Appomattox Court House, meeting Grant the following morning at the McLean Home. Davis was captured on May 10 near Irwinville, Georgia, and taken back to Virginia, where he was imprisoned for two years at Fort Monroe until freed on bail.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond emerged a decade after the smoldering rubble of the Civil War to resume its position as an economic powerhouse, with iron front buildings and massive brick factories. Canal traffic peaked in the 1860s and slowly gave way to railroads, allowing Richmond to become a major railroad crossroads, eventually including the site of the world's first triple railroad crossing. Tobacco warehousing and processing continued to play a role, boosted by the world's first cigarette-rolling machine, invented by James Albert Bonsack of Roanoke in 1880/81. Contributing to Richmond's resurgence was the country's first successful electrically powered trolley system, the Richmond Union Passenger Railway. Designed by electric power pioneer Frank J. Sprague, the system opened its first line in 1888, and electric streetcar lines rapidly spread to other cities. Sprague's system used an overhead wire and trolley pole to collect current, with electric motors on the car's trucks. Transition from streetcars to buses began in May 1947 and was completed on November 25, 1949.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: By the beginning of the 20th century the city's population had reached 85,050 in , making it the most densely populated city in the Southern United States. In 1900 the Census Bureau reported Richmond's population as 62.1% white and 37.9% black. Freed slaves and their descendants created a thriving African-American business community, and the city's historic Jackson Ward became known as the "Wall Street of Black America". In 1903 African-American businesswoman and financier Maggie L. Walker chartered St. Luke Penny Savings Bank and served as its first president. Charles Thaddeus Russell was Richmond's first black architect and he designed the building for Walker. Walker was the first female bank president in the United States. Today the bank is called the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company and is the country's oldest surviving African-American bank. Other figures from this time included John Mitchell Jr. In 1910 the former city of Manchester consolidated with Richmond, and in 1914 the city annexed Barton Heights, Ginter Park, and Highland Park in Henrico County. In May 1914 Richmond became the headquarters of the Fifth District of the Federal Reserve Bank.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Several major performing arts venues were constructed during the 1920s, including what are now the Landmark Theatre, Byrd Theatre, and Carpenter Theatre. The city's first radio station, WRVA, began broadcasting in 1925. WTVR-TV (CBS 6), Richmond's first television station, was the first TV station south of Washington, D.C.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Between 1963 and 1965 there was a "downtown boom" that led to the construction of more than 700 buildings. In 1968 Virginia Commonwealth University was created by the merger of the Medical College of Virginia with the Richmond Professional Institute. In 1970 Richmond's borders expanded by an additional on the southside. After several years of court cases in which Chesterfield County fought annexation, more than 47,000 former Chesterfield County residents found themselves within the city's perimeters on January 1, 1970. In 1996 still-sore tensions arose amid controversy involved in adding a statue of African American Richmond native and tennis star Arthur Ashe to the series of statues of Confederate generals on Monument Avenue. After several months of controversy Ashe's bronze statue was finally completed, facing the opposite direction from the Confederate generals, on July 10, 1996.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: A multimillion-dollar flood wall was completed in 1995 to protect low-lying areas of city from the oft-rising James River. As a result, the River District businesses grew rapidly, and today the area is home to much of Richmond's entertainment, dining and nightlife activity, bolstered by the creation of a Canal Walk along the city's former industrial canals.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond is located at (37.538, −77.462). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and of it (4.3%) is water. The city is in the Piedmont region of Virginia, at the James River's highest navigable point. The Piedmont region is characterized by relatively low, rolling hills, and lies between the low, flat Tidewater region and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Significant bodies of water in the region include the James River, the Appomattox River, and the Chickahominy River.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The Richmond-Petersburg Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), the 44th largest in the United States, includes the independent cities of Richmond, Colonial Heights, Hopewell, and Petersburg, as well as the counties of Charles City, Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, New Kent, Powhatan, and Prince George. On July 1, 2009, the Richmond—Petersburg MSA's population was 1,258,251.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond is located 21.69 miles north of Petersburg, Virginia, 66.10 miles southeast of Charlottesville, Virginia, 79.24 miles northwest of Norfolk, Virginia, 96.87 miles south of Washington, D.C., and 138.72 miles northeast of Raleigh, North Carolina.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond's original street grid, laid out in 1737, included the area between what are now Broad, 17th, and 25th Streets and the James River. Modern Downtown Richmond is slightly farther west, on the slopes of Shockoe Hill. Nearby neighborhoods include Shockoe Bottom, the historically significant and low-lying area between Shockoe Hill and Church Hill, and Monroe Ward, which contains the Jefferson Hotel. Richmond's East End includes neighborhoods like rapidly gentrifying Church Hill, home to St. John's Church, as well as poorer areas like Fulton, Union Hill, and Fairmont, and public housing projects like Mosby Court, Whitcomb Court, Fairfield Court, and Creighton Court closer to Interstate 64.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The area between Belvidere Street, Interstate 195, Interstate 95, and the river, which includes Virginia Commonwealth University, is socioeconomically and architecturally diverse. North of Broad Street, the Carver and Newtowne West neighborhoods are demographically similar to neighboring Jackson Ward, with Carver experiencing some gentrification due to its proximity to VCU. The affluent area between the Boulevard, Main Street, Broad Street, and VCU, known as the Fan, is home to Monument Avenue, an outstanding collection of Victorian architecture, and many students. West of the Boulevard is the Museum District, which contains the Virginia Historical Society and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. South of the Downtown Expressway are Byrd Park, Maymont, Hollywood Cemetery, the predominantly black working-class Randolph neighborhood, and white working-class Oregon Hill. Cary Street between Interstate 195 and the Boulevard is a popular commercial area called Carytown.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond's Northside is home to numerous listed historic districts. Neighborhoods such as Chestnut Hill-Plateau and Barton Heights began to develop at the end of the 19th century when the new streetcar system made it possible for people to live on the outskirts of town and still commute to jobs downtown. Other prominent Northside neighborhoods include Azalea, Barton Heights, Bellevue, Chamberlayne, Ginter Park, Highland Park, and Rosedale.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Farther west is the affluent, suburban West End. Windsor Farms is among its best-known sections. The West End also includes middle- to low-income neighborhoods such as Laurel, Farmington and the areas surrounding the Regency Mall. More affluent areas include Glen Allen, Short Pump, and the areas of Tuckahoe away from Regency Mall, all north and northwest of the city. The University of Richmond and the Country Club of Virginia are located on this side of town near the Richmond-Henrico border.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The portion of the city south of the James River is known as the Southside. Southside neighborhoods range from the affluent and middle-class suburban Westover Hills, Forest Hill, Southampton, Stratford Hills, Oxford, Huguenot Hills, Hobby Hill, and Woodland Heights to the impoverished Manchester and Blackwell areas, the Hillside Court housing projects, and the ailing Jefferson Davis Highway commercial corridor. Other Southside neighborhoods include Fawnbrook, Broad Rock, Cherry Gardens, Cullenwood, and Beaufont Hills. Much of Southside developed a suburban character as part of Chesterfield County before being annexed by Richmond, most notably in 1970.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: According to the Köppen climate classification, Richmond has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: "Cfa"), with very hot, humid summers and moderately cold winters. The Trewartha classification defines Richmond as Temperate Oceanic Climate due to winter chill. The mountains to the west act as a partial barrier to outbreaks of cold, continental air in winter; Arctic air is delayed long enough to be modified, then further warmed as it subsides in its approach to Richmond. The open waters of the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean contribute to the humid summers and cool winters. The coldest weather normally occurs from late December to early February, and the January daily mean temperature is , with an average of 6.0 days with highs at or below the freezing mark. Richmond's Downtown and areas south and east of downtown are in USDA Hardiness zones 7b. Surrounding suburbs and areas to the north and west of Downtown are in Hardiness Zone 7a. Temperatures seldom fall below , with the most recent subzero reading on January 7, 2018, when the temperature reached . The July daily mean temperature is , and high temperatures reach or exceed approximately 43 days a year; temperatures are not uncommon but do not occur every year. Extremes in temperature have ranged from on January 19, 1940, up to on August 6, 1918. The record cold maximum is , set on February 11 and 12, 1899. The record warm minimum is , set on July 12, 2011.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Precipitation is rather uniformly distributed throughout the year. Dry periods lasting several weeks sometimes occur, especially in autumn, when long periods of pleasant, mild weather are most common. There is considerable variability in total monthly amounts from year to year so that no one month can be depended upon to be normal. Snow has been recorded during seven of the 12 months. Falls of or more within 24 hours occur once a year on average. Annual snowfall is usually moderate, averaging per season. Snow typically remains on the ground for only one or two days, but remained for 16 days in 2010 (January 30 to February 14). Ice storms (freezing rain or glaze) are not uncommon, but are seldom severe enough to do considerable damage.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The James River reaches tidewater at Richmond, where flooding may occur in any month of the year, most frequently in March and least in July. Hurricanes and tropical storms have been responsible for most of the flooding during the summer and early fall months. Hurricanes passing near Richmond have produced record rainfalls. In 1955, three hurricanes brought record rainfall to Richmond within a six-week period. The most noteworthy were Hurricane Connie and Hurricane Diane, which brought heavy rains five days apart. In 2004, the downtown area suffered extensive flood damage after the remnants of Hurricane Gaston dumped up to of rain.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Damaging storms occur mainly from snow and freezing rain in winter, and from hurricanes, tornadoes, and severe thunderstorms in other seasons. Damage may be from wind, flooding, rain, or any combination of these. Tornadoes are infrequent but some notable ones have been observed in the Richmond area.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Downtown Richmond averages 84 days of nighttime frost annually. Nighttime frost is more common in areas north and west of Downtown and less common south and east of downtown. From 1981 to 2010 the average first temperature at or below freezing was on October 30 and the average last one on April 10.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The population of Richmond City, currently 226,000, may be misleading as Richmond is a continuous metropolitan area in the Greater Richmond region that has an estimated population of about 1.3 million. Richmond City is surrounded by Henrico County which has a population of about 334,000.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race."


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 204,214 people living in the city. 50.6% were Black or African American, 40.8% White, 2.3% Asian, 0.3% Native American, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 3.6% of some other race and 2.3% of two or more races. 6.3% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race).


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 197,790 people, 84,549 households, and 43,627 families living in the city. The population density was . There were 92,282 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 57.2% African American, 38.3% White, 0.2% Native American, 1.3% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 1.5% from other races, and 1.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.6% of the population.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: There were 84,549 households, out of which 23.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 27.1% were married couples living together, 20.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.4% were non-families. 37.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.21 and the average family size was 2.95.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: In the city, the age distribution of the population shows 21.8% under the age of 18, 13.1% from 18 to 24, 31.7% from 25 to 44, 20.1% from 45 to 64, and 13.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83.5 males.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The median income for a household in the city was $31,121, and the median income for a family was $38,348. Males had a median income of $30,874 versus $25,880 for females. The per capita income for the city was $20,337. About 17.1% of families and 21.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 32.9% of those under age 18 and 15.8% of those age 65 or over.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond experienced a spike in overall crime, in particular the city's murder rate, during the 1980s, 1990s, and the early 2000s. It was consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States during that time.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: From the late 2000s to present, various forms of crime have significantly decreased in the city. Its major crime rate, including violent and property crimes, decreased 47 percent between 2004 and 2009 to its lowest level in more than a quarter of a century. In 2008, Richmond had fallen to 49th on a Morgan Quitno Press ranking of the most dangerous cities in the United States and the city had recorded the lowest homicide rate since 1971. By 2012, Richmond was no longer in the 'top' 200.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: In recent years, as in many other American cities, Richmond has witnessed a slight rise in homicides though violent crime and other forms of crime remain below the national average.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: In 1786, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, penned in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson, was adopted by the Virginia General Assembly in Richmond. The site is now commemorated by the First Freedom Center.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond has several historic churches. Because of its early English colonial history from the early 17th century to 1776, Richmond has a number of prominent Anglican/Episcopal churches including Monumental Church, St. Paul's Episcopal Church and St. John's Episcopal Church. Methodists and Baptists made up another section of early churches, and First Baptist Church of Richmond was the first of these, established in 1780. In the Reformed church tradition, the first Presbyterian Church in the City of Richmond was First Presbyterian Church, organized on June 18, 1812. On February 5, 1845, Second Presbyterian Church of Richmond was founded, which was a historic church where Stonewall Jackson attended and was the first Gothic building and the first gas-lit church to be built in Richmond. St. Peter's Church was dedicated and became the first Catholic church in Richmond on May 25, 1834. The city is also home to the historic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart which is the mother church for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The first Jewish congregation in Richmond was Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalom. Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalom was the sixth congregation in the United States. By 1822 K.K. Beth Shalom members worshipped in the first synagogue building in Virginia. They eventually merged with Congregation Beth Ahabah, an offshoot of Beth Shalom. There are two Orthodox Synagogues, Keneseth Beth Israel and Chabad of Virginia. There is an Orthodox Yeshivah K–12 school system known as Rudlin Torah academy, which also includes a post high-school program. There are two Conservative synagogues, Beth El and Or Atid. There are two Reform synagogues, Beth Ahabah and Or Ami. Along with such religious congregations, there are a variety of other Jewish charitable, educational and social service institutions, each serving the Jewish and general communities. These include the Weinstein Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family Services, Jewish Community Federation of Richmond and Richmond Jewish Foundation.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Due to the influx of German immigrants in the 1840s, St. John's German Evangelical church was formed in 1843. Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral held its first worship service in a rented room at 309 North 7th Street in 1917. The cathedral relocated to 30 Malvern Avenue in 1960 and is noted as one of two Eastern Orthodox churches in Richmond and home to the annual Richmond Greek Festival.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: There are seven current masjids in the Greater Richmond area, with three more currently in construction, accommodating the growing Muslim population, the first one being Masjid Bilal. In the 1950s, Muslims from the East End got organized under Nation of Islam (NOI). They used to meet in Temple #24 located on North Avenue. After the NOI split in 1975, the Muslims who joined mainstream Islam, start meeting at Shabaaz Restaurant on Nine Mile Road. By 1976, the Muslims used to meet in a rented church. They tried to buy this church, but due to financial difficulties the Muslims instead bought an old grocery store at Chimbarazoo Boulevard, the present location of Masjid Bilal. Initially, the place was called "Masjid Muhammad #24". Only by 1990 did the Muslims renamed it to "Masjid Bilal". Masjid Bilal was followed by the Islamic Center of Virginia, ICVA masjid. The ICVA was established in 1973 as a non profit tax exempt organization. With aggressive fundraising, ICVA was able to buy land on Buford road. Construction of the new masjid began in the early 1980s. The rest of the five current masjids in the Richmond area are Islamic Center of Richmond (ICR) in the west end, Masjid Umm Barakah on 2nd street downtown, Islamic Society of Greater Richmond (ISGR) in the west end, Masjidullah in the north side, and Masjid Ar-Rahman in the east end.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Hinduism is actively practiced, particularly in suburban areas of Henrico and Chesterfield. Some 6,000 families of Indian descent resided in the Richmond Region as of 2011. Hindus are served by several temples and cultural centers. The two most familiar are the Cultural Center of India (CCI) located off of Iron Bridge Road in Chesterfield County and the Hindu Center of Virginia in Henrico County which has garnered national fame and awards for being the first LEED certified religious facility in the commonwealth.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Seminaries in Richmond include: the school of theology at Virginia Union University; a Presbyterian seminary, Union Presbyterian Seminary, and the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. The McCollough Theological Seminary of the United House of Prayer For All People is located in the Church Hill neighborhood of the city.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Bishops that sit in Richmond include those of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia (the denomination's largest); the Richmond Area of the United Methodist Church (Virginia Annual Conference), the nation's second-largest and one of the oldest. The Presbytery of the James—Presbyterian Church (USA) – also is based in the Richmond area.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond was canonically erected by Pope Pius VII on July 11, 1820. Today there are 235,816 Catholics at 146 parishes in the Diocese of Richmond. The city of Richmond is home to 19 Catholic parishes. Cathedral of the Sacred Heart is home to the current bishop, Most Reverend Barry C. Knestout, who was appointed by Pope Francis on December 15, 2017.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has three stakes in the greater Richmond area (a stake is an organizational unit that is made up of multiple congregations. As of December 31, 2017, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported 95,379 members in 200 congregations within 22 stakes across the state of Virginia). In April 2018, church president Russell M. Nelson announced a new temple to be built in Virginia. The first temple of the church to be built in the state, the temple is located in Glen Allen, Virginia, a northwest suburb of Richmond.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond's strategic location on the James River, built on undulating hills at the rocky fall line separating the Piedmont and Tidewater regions of Virginia, provided a natural nexus for the development of commerce. Throughout these three centuries and three modes of transportation, the downtown has always been a hub, with the Great Turning Basin for boats, the world's only triple crossing of rail lines, and the intersection of two major interstates.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Law and finance have long been driving forces in the economy. Richmond is particularly known for its bankruptcy court. The city is home to both the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, one of 13 United States courts of appeals, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, one of 12 Federal Reserve Banks, as well as offices for international companies such as Genworth Financial, Capital One, Philip Morris USA, and numerous other banks and brokerages. Richmond is also home to three of the largest law firms in the United States: Hunton & Williams, McGuireWoods, and Williams Mullen. Another law firm with a major Richmond presence is Troutman Sanders, which merged with Richmond-based Mays & Valentine LLP in 2001.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Since the 1960s Richmond has been a prominent hub for advertising agencies and advertising related businesses. One of the most notable Richmond-based agencies is The Martin Agency, founded in 1965 and currently employing 500 people. As a result of local advertising agency support, VCU's graduate advertising school (VCU Brandcenter) is consistently ranked the No. 1 advertising graduate program in the country.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond is home to the rapidly developing Virginia BioTechnology Research Park, which opened in 1995 as an incubator facility for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Located adjacent to the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) Campus of Virginia Commonwealth University, the park currently has more than of research, laboratory and office space for a diverse tenant mix of companies, research institutes, government laboratories and non-profit organizations. The United Network for Organ Sharing, which maintains the nation's organ transplant waiting list, occupies one building in the park. Philip Morris USA opened a $350 million research and development facility in the park in 2007. Once fully developed, park officials expect the site to employ roughly 3,000 scientists, technicians and engineers.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond's revitalized downtown includes the Canal Walk, a new Greater Richmond Convention Center, and expansion on both VCU campuses. A new performing arts center, Richmond CenterStage, opened on September 12, 2009. The complex included a renovation of the Carpenter Center and construction of a new multipurpose hall, community playhouse, and arts education center in parts of the old Thalhimers department store.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Craft beer, cider and liquor production is also growing in the River City, with twelve micro-breweries in city proper; the oldest is Legend Brewery, founded in 1994. Two cideries, Buskey Cider and Blue Bee Cider, are located in the popular beverage neighborhood of Scott's Addition, and are joined by nine breweries, one meadery, and one distillery. Three distilleries, Reservoir Distillery, Belle Isle Craft Spirits and James River Distillery, were established in 2010, 2013 and 2014, respectively.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Additionally, Richmond is gaining attention from the film and television industry, with several high-profile films shot in the metro region in the past few years, including the major motion picture "Lincoln" which led to Daniel Day-Lewis's third Oscar, "Killing Kennedy" with Rob Lowe, airing on the National Geographic Channel and "", starring Jamie Bell and airing on AMC. Richmond was the main filming location for the PBS drama series "Mercy Street", which premiered in Winter 2016. Several organizations, including the Virginia Film Office and the Virginia Production Alliance, along with events like the Richmond International Film Festival and French Film Festival, continue to draw supporters of film and media to the region.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The Greater Richmond area was named the third-best city for business by MarketWatch in September 2007, ranking behind only the Minneapolis and Denver areas and just above Boston. The area is home to six Fortune 500 companies: electric utility Dominion Resources; CarMax; Owens & Minor; Genworth Financial, MeadWestvaco/ WestRock, and Altria Group. However, only Dominion Resources is headquartered within the city of Richmond; the others are located in the neighboring counties of Henrico and Hanover. In 2008, Altria moved its corporate HQ from New York City to Henrico County, adding another Fortune 500 corporation to Richmond's list. In February 2006, MeadWestvaco announced that they would move from Stamford, Connecticut, to Richmond in 2008 with the help of the Greater Richmond Partnership, a regional economic development organization that also helped locate Aditya Birla Minacs, Amazon.com, and Honeywell International, to the region. In July 2015, MeadWestvaco merged with Georgia-based Rock-Tenn Company creating WestRock Company.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Other Fortune 500 companies, while not headquartered in the area, do have a major presence. These include SunTrust Banks (based in Atlanta), Capital One (officially based in McLean, Virginia, but founded in Richmond with its operations center and most employees in the Richmond area), and medical and pharmaceutical giant McKesson Corporation (based in Las Colinas, Texas). Capital One and Philip Morris USA are two of the largest private Richmond-area employers. DuPont maintains a production facility in South Richmond known as the Spruance Plant. UPS Freight, the less-than-truckload division of United Parcel Service has its corporate headquarters in Richmond.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Other companies based in Richmond include engineering specialists CTI Consultants, chemical company NewMarket; Brink's, a security and armored car company; Estes Express Lines, a freight carrier, Universal Corporation, a tobacco merchant; Cavalier Telephone, now Windstream, a telephone, internet, and digital television provider formed in Richmond in 1998; Cherry Bekaert & Holland, a top 30 accounting firm serving the Southeast; the law firm of McGuireWoods; Elephant Insurance, an insurance company subsidiary of Admiral Group and Media General, a company specializing in broadcast media.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: As of 2016, 24.8% of Richmond residents live below the federal poverty line, the second-highest among the 30 largest cities and counties in Virginia. An Annie E. Casey Foundation report issued in 2016 also determined that Richmond had a child poverty rate of 39%, more than double the rate for Virginia as a whole. As of 2016, Richmond had the second-highest rate of eviction filings and judgments of any American city with a population of 100,000 or more (in states where complete data was available). Some Richmond neighborhoods, such as the Creighton Court public-housing complex, are particularly well known for concentrations of poverty.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Several of the city's large general museums are located near the Boulevard. On Boulevard proper are the Virginia Historical Society and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, lending their name to what is sometimes called the Museum District. Nearby on Broad Street is the Science Museum of Virginia, housed in the neoclassical former 1919 Broad Street Union Station. Immediately adjacent is the Children's Museum of Richmond, and two blocks away, the Virginia Center for Architecture. Within the downtown are the Library of Virginia and the Valentine Richmond History Center. Elsewhere are the Virginia Holocaust Museum and the Old Dominion Railway Museum.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond is home to museums and battlefields of the American Civil War. Near the riverfront is the Richmond National Battlefield Park Visitors Center and the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, both housed in the former buildings of the Tredegar Iron Works, where much of the ordnance for the war was produced. In Court End, near the Virginia State Capitol, is the Museum of the Confederacy, along with the Davis Mansion, also known as the White House of the Confederacy; both feature a wide variety of objects and material from the era. The temporary home of General Robert E. Lee still stands on Franklin Street in downtown Richmond. The history of slavery and emancipation are also increasingly represented: there is a former slave trail along the river that leads to Ancarrow's Boat Ramp and Historic Site which has been developed with interpretive signage, and in 2007, the Reconciliation Statue was placed in Shockoe Bottom, with parallel statues placed in Liverpool and Benin representing points of the Triangle Trade.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Other historical points of interest include St. John's Church, the site of Patrick Henry's famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech, and the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, features many of his writings and other artifacts of his life, particularly when he lived in the city as a child, a student, and a successful writer. The John Marshall House, the home of the former Chief Justice of the United States, is also located downtown and features many of his writings and objects from his life. Hollywood Cemetery is the burial grounds of two U.S. Presidents as well as many Civil War officers and soldiers. Beth Ahabah Museum and Archives collects, preserves and exhibits materials that focus on Jewish history and culture specifically connected to Richmond, VA.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The city was home to many monuments and memorials, most notably those along Monument Avenue. Many of the monuments on Monument Avenue were removed after the Floyd (George) riots of 2020. On June 9, 2020, protesters tore down the Columbus monument and threw it in Fountain Lake. Located near Byrd Park is the famous World War I Memorial Carillon, a 56-bell carillon tower. Dedicated in 1956, the Virginia War Memorial is located on Belvedere overlooking the river, and is a monument to Virginians who died in battle in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. One other very important monument which was left standing is the Bill "Bojangles" Robinson monument in Jackson Ward.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Agecroft Hall is a Tudor manor house and estate located on the James River in the Windsor Farms neighborhood of Richmond. The manor house was built in the late 15th century, and was originally located in the Agecroft area of Pendlebury, in the historic county of Lancashire in England.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Musicians of note associated with Richmond include Jason Mraz, Jimmy Dean, Agents of Good Roots, Aimee Mann, Alabama Thunderpussy, Avail, Broadside, Carbon Leaf, Cracker, D'Angelo, Denali, Down to Nothing, Engine Down, Four Walls Falling, Iron Reagan, Lamb of God, Lil Ugly Mane, Lucy Dacus, Municipal Waste, Nickelus F, River City High, Sparklehorse, Strike Anywhere, Chris Brown, Eric Stanley, and Fighting Gravity. Richmond is also home of GWAR, a heavy metal art collective based in a Scott's Addition warehouse.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: With the advent of the Richmond Mural Project (RMP) by RVA Mag and Art Whino; as well as the RVA Street Art Festival in 2013, the city quickly gained more than 100 murals from international mural artists such as Aryz, Roa, Ron English, and Natalia Rak. While the RMP focused on international talent, the RVA Street Art festival helmed by long-time local mural artist Ed Trask focused largely on regional artists (although it also brought in PoseMSK, Jeff Soto, and Mark Jenkins.) After some criticism the RMP included its first local artist, Nils Westergard, who was already on the international circuit; following the next year with Jacob Eveland. The two festivals are unrelated, with the RMP being defunct, and the RVA Street Art festival happening sporadically due to funding issues. With the advent of the Summer of Floyd riots across America, local artist Hamilton Glass spearheaded the Mending Walls Project featuring walls by pairs of local artists. Many of the murals are unrelated to any project, and are done under the impetus of the artists alone.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: From earliest days, Virginia, and Richmond in particular, have welcomed live theatrical performances. From Lewis Hallam's early productions of Shakespeare in Williamsburg, the focus shifted to Richmond's antebellum prominence as a main colonial and early 19th century performance venue for such celebrated American and English actors as William Macready, Edwin Forrest, and the Booth family. In the 20th century, Richmonders' love of theater continued with many amateur troupes and regular touring professional productions. In the 1960s a small renaissance or golden age accompanied the growth of professional dinner theaters and the fostering of theater by the Virginia Museum, reaching a peak in the 1970s with the establishment of a resident Equity company at the Virginia Museum Theater (now the Leslie Cheek) and the birth of Theatre IV, a company that continues to this day under the name Virginia Repertory Theatre.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Commercial art galleries include Metro Space Gallery and Gallery 5 in a newly designated arts district.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: In addition, in 2008, a new Gay Community Center opened on the city's north side, which hosts meetings of many kinds, and includes a large art gallery space.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond has long been a hub for literature and writers. Edgar Allan Poe was a child in the city, and the town's oldest stone house is now a museum to his life and works. "The Southern Literary Messenger", which included his writing, is just one of many notable publications that began in Richmond. Other noteworthy authors who have called Richmond home include Pulitzer-winning Ellen Glasgow, controversial figure James Branch Cabell, Meg Medina, Dean King, David L. Robbins, and MacArthur Fellow Paule Marshall. Tom Wolfe was born in Richmond, as was "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan. David Baldacci graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, where the creative writing faculty has included Marshall, Claudia Emerson, Kathleen Graber, T. R. Hummer, Dave Smith, David Wojahn, and Susann Cokal. Notable graduates include Sheri Reynolds, Jon Pineda, Anna Journey and Joshua Poteat. A community-based organization, James River Writers, serves the Greater Richmond Region, It sponsors many programs for writers at all stages of their careers and puts on an annual writers' conference that draws attendees from miles away.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond is home to many significant structures, including some designed by notable architects. The city contains diverse styles, including significant examples of Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Neoclassical, Egyptian Revival, Romanesque Revival, Gothic Revival, Tudor Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Art Deco, Modernist, International, and Postmodern buildings.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Much of Richmond's early architecture was destroyed by the Evacuation Fire in 1865. It is estimated that 25% of all buildings in Richmond were destroyed during this fire. Even fewer now remain due to construction and demolition that has taken place since Reconstruction. In spite of this, Richmond contains many historically significant buildings and districts. Buildings remain from Richmond's colonial period, such as the Patteson-Schutte House and the Edgar Allan Poe Museum (Richmond, Virginia), both built before 1750.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Architectural classicism is heavily represented in all districts of the city, particularly in Downtown, the Fan, and the Museum District. Several notable classical architects have designed buildings in Richmond. The Virginia State Capitol was designed by Thomas Jefferson and Charles-Louis Clérisseau in 1785. It is the second-oldest US statehouse in continuous use (after Maryland's) and was the first US government building built in the neo-classical style of architecture, setting the trend for other state houses and the federal government buildings (including the White House and The Capitol) in Washington, D.C. Robert Mills designed Monumental Church on Broad Street. Adjoining it is the 1845 Egyptian Building, one of the few Egyptian Revival buildings in the United States.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The firm of John Russell Pope designed Broad Street Station as well as Branch House on Monument Avenue, designed as a private residence in the Tudor style, now serving as the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design. Broad Street Station (or Union Station), designed in the Beaux-Arts style, is no longer a functioning station but is now home to the Science Museum of Virginia. Main Street Station, designed by Wilson, Harris, and Richards, has been returned to use in its original purpose. The Jefferson Hotel and the Commonwealth Club were both designed by the classically trained Beaux-Arts architects Carrère and Hastings. Many buildings on the University of Richmond campus, including Jeter Hall and Ryland Hall, were designed by Ralph Adams Cram, most famous for his Princeton University Chapel and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond's urban residential neighborhoods also hold particular significance to the city's fabric. The Fan, the Museum District, Jackson Ward, Carver, Carytown, Oregon Hill and Church Hill (among others) are largely single use town homes and mixed use or full retail/dining establishments. These districts are anchored by large streets such as Franklin Street, Cary Street, the Boulevard, and Monument Avenue. The city's growth in population over the last decade has been concentrated in these areas.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Among Richmond's most interesting architectural features is its cast-iron architecture. Second only to New Orleans in its concentration of cast-iron work, the city is home to a unique collection of cast iron porches, balconies, fences, and finials. Richmond's position as a center of iron production helped to fuel its popularity within the city. At the height of production in the 1890, 25 foundries operated in the city employing nearly 3,500 metal workers. This number is seven times the number of general construction workers being employed in Richmond at the time which illustrates the importance of its iron exports. Porches and fences in urban neighborhoods such as Jackson Ward, Church Hill, and Monroe Ward are particularly elaborate, often featuring ornate iron casts never replicated outside of Richmond. In some cases cast were made for a single residential or commercial application.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond is home to several notable instances of various styles of modernism. Minoru Yamasaki designed the Federal Reserve Building which dominates the downtown skyline. The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has designed two buildings: the Library of Virginia and the General Assembly Offices at the Eighth and Main Building. Philip Johnson designed the WRVA Building. The Richard Neutra-designed Rice House, a residence on a private island on the James River, remains Richmond's only true International Style home. The W.G. Harris residence in Richmond was designed by famed early modern architect and member of the Harvard Five, Landis Gores. The VCU Institute for Contemporary Art, designed by Steven Holl, opened in 2018. Other notable architects to have worked in the city include Rick Mather, I.M. Pei, and Gordon Bunshaft.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Many of Richmond's historic properties were documented in books and 1970s era black and white photographs by John G. Zehmer, an architectural historian and preservationist.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond's City Code provides for the creation of old and historic districts so as to "recognize and protect the historic, architectural, cultural, and artistic heritage of the City". Pursuant to that authority, the city has designated 45 districts throughout the city. The majority of these districts are also listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register ("VLR") and the National Register of Historic Places ("NRHP").


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: The remaining thirty districts are limited to an individual building or group of buildings throughout the city:


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond has been recognized in recent years for being a "foodie city", particularly for its modern renditions of traditional Southern cuisine. The city also claims the invention of the sailor sandwich, which includes pastrami, knockwurst, Swiss cheese and mustard on rye bread. Richmond is also where, in 1935, canned beer was made commercially available for the first time.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: Richmond is not home to any major league professional sports teams, but since 2013, the Washington Commanders of the National Football League have held their summer training camp in the city. There are also several minor league sports in the city, including the Richmond Kickers of USL League One and the Richmond Flying Squirrels of the Class AA Double-A Northeast of Minor League Baseball (an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants). The Kickers began playing in Richmond in 1993, and currently play at City Stadium. In 2018 the Richmond Kickers left the USL to become founders in Division 3 Soccer. The Squirrels opened their first season at The Diamond on April 15, 2010. From 1966 through 2008, the city was home to the Richmond Braves, a AAA affiliate of the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball, until the franchise relocated to Georgia.


title: Richmond, Virginia

text: It is also the home to the Richmond Black Widows, the city's first women's football team, founded in 2015 by Sarah Schkeeper. They are a part of the Women's Football Alliance. Their game season begins in April, with preseason beginning in January.