Results tagged “Voni B. Grimes” from York Town Square

Voni B. Grimes graduated from York's William Penn Senior High School mid-year in 1942. This is his graduation photo. Background posts: New book gives insight into Voni B. Grimes, Who are York County's most influential people? and A short test of your black history knowledge.

Two images among many stand out after a recent walk with community leader Voni B. Grimes.

We walked from his boyhood home to the site of his segregated Smallwood school and back.

The first image came when we gazed across the College Avenue at the former all-white Noell school, now occupied by the Community Progress Council. This College Avenue-Susquehanna Avenue intersection was a dividing point between the best education York schools could offer white pupils and hand-me-down education for black students.

And then a second image... .

Voni Grimes greets a small crowd standing in a pouring rain at a diversity and peace rally in April 2006 in York. During the event, York Mayor John Brenner praised Grimes for his efforts to unite the community. Background posts: Two 'connectors' would make York County's list of most influential, A short test of your York black history knowledge and 10 tips to write a book-length project.

This photo did not make it into Voni B. Grimes just-published memoirs, but it typifies the man, who perhaps knows more York countians than any other person.

There's the Bamberg, S.C., born/World War II vet/retired Penn State administrator standing in the rain on a Saturday morning. Only a few turned out for this diversity rally.

A few here and a few there and pretty soon you change hearts. That's how Voni Grimes would see it.

So via his memoirs "Bridging Troubled Waters," this man, who knows so many people, can himself be known... .

Since 1925, The Yorktowne Hotel has anchored the corner of East Market and South Duke Street. This postcard shows the hotel before 1959, when the courthouse expansion took down the building separating the two.

New owners of the venerable Yorktowne say they will keep the landmark as an operating hotel. See anchor sold.

There can be no better news to York and efforts to revitalize the downtown.

For some, the Yorktowne represents a nostalgic site where famous people have stayed for decades. See Tiny Tim.

For others:

It is the night out of the decade in the Commonwealth Room. It's the wedding reception venue for an only child. It's an overnight part of First Night York festivities. It's the regular meeting place for Rotary or Lions clubs.

It, well, embodies everything that's good about York.

For Voni Grimes and others in the black community, it represented the pinnacle of success, as he expressed in my November 2006 column: