These days, the foot of Market Street — as the intersection of Water and Market streets next to the Cape Fear River in downtown Wilmington has long been known — is ground zero for tourist activity.
During nice weather visitors mill around holding ice cream cones from Kilwins or take selfies in front of “Southern Hospitality,” the towering Venus’ flytrap sculpture. Rewind the clock back to the early 1980s, however, and some folks were focused on the foot of Market for a very different reason: to save a dilapidated old structure overhanging the river called the JoWaHa building.
According to Beverly Tetterton’s 2005 book “Wilmington: Lost But Not Forgotten,” the building with red tin siding became “an unlikely preservation cause in 1982.”…