William Daniels Jr. stoops to pick up a piece of paper trash on a cobblestone street. He tucks it into the garbage truck as it pulls away.

This, after all, is his territory. He is the unofficial mayor of Shockoe Slip, an eight-block section in downtown Richmond.

Boats once docked at the canal here and oxen pulled wagons loaded with tobacco. The draft animals drank from a fountain at 13th and Cary streets.

The area, from 12th to 15th streets from the south side of Main Street to the James River, has come to signify what sections of old Richmond can be - if people care enough to make it happen.
   

It's clean, quaint and historic.

Daniels has been the point man for the past 15 years, checking in nearly daily with shopkeepers, restaurants and businesses. He makes sure the sidewalks are swept, the lights in the street lanterns are working and the area in general is in tiptop shape.

"Hey darlin'," Daniels calls out to a passing shop tender. This Virginia Military Institute graduate is liberal with greetings and handshakes.

Daniels will receive one of the top honors Wednesday at the Golden Hammer Awards celebration by ACORN, the Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods. The event recognizes excellence in preservation in Richmond.

"He keeps the place running," said Jennie Dotts, executive director of ACORN. "Everyone knows him."

Other award winners are Jay Ipson, president and executive director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum; J. Maurice Duke, a photographer, author and retired professor; Leigh S. Hulcher, a Realtor and former history and government teacher; and Citizens Organized for Responsible Development, a grass-roots organization opposed to the building of a baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom.

Daniels took on the mission to preserve the historic ambience of Shockoe Slip after his business partner and "second daddy" Andrew Asch died in 1991.

Asch was the visionary for Shockoe Slip. He and volunteers used hammers to chip the blacktop off the cobblestones in the 1970s.

"Andy said the defining point of Shockoe Slip would be the cobblestones," Daniels said. "I didn't pay attention to it."

Daniels, a developer, was too busy building apartments to bother with cobblestones.

"Shockoe Slip was forgotten and abandoned. Nobody came down here. Pigeons flew through the buildings. There were maybe five businesses here and they were all wholesale."

Still, Daniels recalls meeting Asch at the fountain in this little slip of a place "freezing to death" one day in late fall in 1972. "It took a Yankee who came to Richmond to see the potential."

Asch wanted to buy and renovate buildings. "I voted against it," Daniels said. "You had to pay cash. You couldn't get a loan. You couldn't get insurance."

Asch was the financier, so Daniels didn't have much of a vote. Besides, he needed storage space for copper plumbing materials for his contracting business. (Copper was valuable, and people stole it.)

Daniels put windows into a building at 13th and Cary streets. Sam Miller's opened. The restaurant still operates, though it has long since moved a block from its original site.

The area is home now to 39 businesses, retail stores and restaurants. A total of $81 million in private investments has been sunk into the Slip.

Curb stones came from a quarry operated by the city in the late 1800s. Stone slabs, pitted to prevent slippage, make up part of the sidewalk on Cary Street. Rocks for the cobblestones were first used as ballast in ships.

Daniels would come to appreciate the cobblestones. Still, over 25 years or so, the stones had shifted and become dislodged. Cobblestone streets were meant for horses and wagons, not heavy trucks with rubber tires.

Daniels led efforts about four years ago to dig up every stone "on hands and knees" between 12th and 14th streets and relay them into fan patterns. A rubbery filler allows the stones to move and spring back into place.

Daniels is the founder of the Historic Shockoe Partnership, a neighborhood association of tenants and property owners that redid the stones and sees that the Slip is maintained.

"This isn't just a piece of property; it's a piece of history, a time capsule," said Mike Byrne, owner of Richbrau Brew Co. and the Tap House Grill next door.

"To get everything done requires a great deal of organization," Byrne said. "Bill is the glue for a lot of folks. He's responsible for keeping the vision."

Byrne acknowledges that the pennant sign for the Tap House Grill needs to go. It's not in keeping with the character of the Slip, according to the partnership.

The partnership works for the greater good, he said. "It serves no purpose not to work together."

Daniels said he is filling a promise he made to Asch. "Shockoe Slip is a wonderful example of how a neighborhood can take and preserve its history."

The city alone could never do it, he said. Such efforts require private groups to take the lead and collaborate with the city.

Daniels claims this year is his last as unofficial mayor. He plans to leave the Slip in the hands of Asch's youngest son, Thomas Asch.

Carol Hazard is a staff writer with the Richmond Times Dispatch.