Residents of Old Wilmington meet to honor one another

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — After 40 years of contributing to downtown Wilmington, the Residents of Old Wilmington are still making improvements. Today members and previous ROW mayors came together to honor one another and celebrate the contributions that they have made to downtown Wilmington. "I think what it does is it makes downtown more appealing to both the residents, the visitors and the businesses. It’s a more inviting place, which draws people in from all over the country to come and visit the downtown," ROW Mayor Robert Erb said. Sunday the Residents of Old Wilmington came together to celebrate their 40th anniversary. For decades this organization has made many changes throughout Wilmington. One member says Wilmington did not always look the way it does today. "If you people want to see the downtown area come back, you’ve got to move down here and make it fashionable to live down here, and to do that you’re going to have to create some snob appeal," former ROW mayor Augustus Moore Jr. said. "So I think that’s what we finally have after 47 years." Moore says he has made many contributions to make Wilmington the beautiful city it is today. He has restored more than 15 houses downtown and plans to continue his work. But Moore is not the only one who continues to add life into downtown. "We have ongoing tree planting plans, and we have a number of things that we are following up on to improve downtown," Erb said. The Residents of Old Wilmington have a hand full of new projects to work on for 2013. The next one is planting live oaks on 5th Ave.