Another widely accepted story claims that in the 1830s a Norfolk resident, Commodore Richard Drummond, purchased the farmland south of the city from Mr. Moran, however, it was not yet named.

He worked for the Norfolk Company, partially owned by Adolphe Boissevain, a visionary and investor in American railroads and real estate.

Mottu and Boissevain, attracted by the waterfront, envisioned the area modeled after their home in The Netherlands, and so renamed Smith's Creek after The Hague in South Holland, as for the neighborhood, the name Ghent would stick.

Mottu and Boissevain's plan for Ghent successfully exploited the area's strategic waterfront location, providing views over the creek to the grass banks on the opposite shore.

During this time, much of the neighborhood fell into disrepair; blight became so severe that portions of Ghent were referred to as slums by then Mayor of Norfolk, Pretlow Darden.

As of today only a few of the areas' original public buildings remain with the notable exceptions of Maury High School and the Van Wyck branch of the Norfolk Public Library due to extensive urban renewal programs that followed a raze and rebuild tactic as a part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's broader New Deal ideology.

The Naro Theater is also the stage for a recurring Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast, purportedly one of the longest-running in the country, at over 30 years of consistent monthly productions.

The first open-heart surgery in Virginia was performed at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in 1967,[6] and the first baby in the United States conceived by in vitro fertilization, was born there in 1981.

[7] Due to its low elevation and vulnerability to coastal storms, the Norfolk area is at risk of rising sea levels.