The Bold New City of God.
What is to become of it?
Yes, yes, the editor of Dare already knows. The Bold New City sucks and living here is strictly for the birds. He has been told. As a matter of fact, he hears it all the time. Every day of the week, practically every hour, on the hour. The common consensus is that there is no future, much less vision in Jacksonville. Only fools and Baptists (inseparable in many minds) would stay here if presented with a choice......
Our staid little town is a big trip to nowhere, run by stiff necked Baptists....a city filled and brimming over with rednecks racists, goofy fundamentalist types and obnoxious philistines whose lives are so pointless that they manage to equate progressive kids with devil worship and Art with communist/homosexual plots to convert the rest of decent godfearing humanity to perversion and evil....a community so culturally dead and prospectless as to become a departure point for talented, happening and with-it people who want to pursue that big shiny better deal in other bigger shinier cities with real city cultures.
The editor is certain that the gentle reader is as well acquainted with the litany as he is. The constant, and in certain fundamental aspects, justifiable complaint might be fine for the cattle like herds of suburbanites in Mandarin, First Baptists of Downtown, rednecks of Northside/Westside and the ruling classes of Ortega/Avondale and Baymeadows, but that for anyone else, it is a boring hellhole and a stifling bag pulled tightly around the neck of whatever culture, enlightenment or genuine liberalism might dare to rear its ugly head. Well the editor of DARE, for one, is tired of hearing it. ANd not just tired either, but sick and tired.
Oh to be sure, he can see how, the skeptical pessimism is so commonplace, (and after researching this article, he thinks he can guess why as well) But this humble servant is here to tell the gentle reader that Jacksonville is not the backwards tidewater town that popular perception would make of it. Changes are on the way, and further, these changes have been in the making for some time. As a matter of fact, our city is changing so rapidly and so incredibly that when (in little bursts of excitement) we've shared our findings with innocent bystanders, they have treated us as harmless, but still demented mental cases.
Again it is easy to see why.
One cannot help but wonder if the Bold New City's older residents feel like crying when they see the boarded up storefronts and buildings of downtown. To our present age, and the recent arrivals to the city the dingy empty structures are testaments to an unfathomable malaise. The evident blight and abandon are visual proof of a cultural stagnation, spiritual decay, and ramshackle opportunity. They are silent but eloquent symbols at the very heart of our community that its center is as dead and vacuous as the broken windows that stare out along Davis Street.
It is no wonder that there aren't many oldtimers that like to go Downtown anymore. But they didn't used to feel that way.
Jacksonville has not always been a collage of doubleknit polyester, dirty grey asphalt, collapsing buildings, artless graffiti, tedious Deerwood people, Baptists in would be Laura Ashley dresses, strip malls, grotesque street signs and substandard shops.
Once it centered around a vibrant thriving downtown whose vitality was the lifeblood of the entire city. It was the focal point of local culture and the channel through which the ambitions of its citizens coursed.
Charlie Dixon, who is not only the spokesman for the JTA, but also one of the most cultured southern gentlemen in this city remembers when going downtown was something one dressed for. Women wore gloves and men wore hats. It was a distinct experience that one looked forward to.
This writers grandmother also remembers that time. A time in which Jacksonville boasted six major performance theatres downtown (out of which, the Florida Theatre, the Arcade Theater, and the Ritz are the only ones left standing, and the Florida is the only one open.) , and restaurants in all the beautiful hotels around which social life radiated. In those days, the Jacksonville families would buzz through the streets after performances of the entertainment greats, or dinners in semi opulent ballrooms, and then stroll through Hemming Park and listen to the street musicians who played Jazz, or fiddle music, or youth groups singing the Gospel. The grandmothers also remember when Gone With The Wind opened and the streets, shops, and diners were crowded with people chattering about it.
Henry Klutho, our most famous architect had designed most of our public buildings, including the former city hall, the former library, and his masterwork, the St. James Building, which became May Cohens, the center of shopping for the entire region. At that time, Hemming Park was surrounded by shops and fashionable people still took walks down Adams Street.
Business was almost audibly booming, Jacksonville was the busiest, richest city in Florida, the St. Johns was bustling with activity, city life was glamorous, gossipy and exciting, and when performers stopped into town, they performed to full houses before swilling down illegal liquor connected by escape tunnels to the River in Empire Point. Faye Wood, the beloved queen of Regency was in her prime and raising hell.
What happened to it all? If there could have been a terminator like vision of the future in those days, it would have been very close to what downtown has become. If the editor were in his 70s no doubt he would burst into tears every time he was forced to view the grisly remains.
Today, no sane grandmother would be caught dead downtown after dark, exactly for fear of being caught dead the following morning. Hemming Park is a filthy, all but abandoned square whose bricks are crumbling beneath the weight of buses, which circle around what has become a roman forum for the homeless, the criminal, and the crazed. Klutho's St. James Building is closed. The city hall he designed was razed to make way for the truly green eyesore which imprisons the downtown library. Shopping is a fiasco, except for Barton Sligh's (providing of course, one is white), otherwise the only products easily purchased are office supplies and the more illicit offerings of street vendors peddling crack and tainted flesh. The Landing has become the most expensive video arcade in history and the once vital theatre/hotel districts are decayed ruins squatting on streets like beaten vagrants too mean to die.
It is very frankly an outrage that Downtown has been allowed to descend into its presently hellish condition, and it is more than high time something be done about its cultural calcutta and the pessimism it has bred amongst some of our younger citizens.
We decided to check out what was up. After all, this magazine and its editor have always been true believers in Downtown revitalization and have therefore followed with great enthusiasm the various plans submitted by the DDA, the JTA and the Chamber of Commerce. We cheered the prospect of the Landing, we supported the development of the Riverwalk, we were ecstatic about the Barnett Tower and the new American Heritage Life Buildings, and very nearly delirious when the JTA announced their intentions to construct a citywide lightrail rapid transit system.
Things must be moving right along, we thought to ourselves and let it go at that. Soon enough, we mused internally, all of our patience will be rewarded, all of our secret hopes will come true, and finally all of the grousing grumblers who seem to hate living in Jacksonville professionally, will be silenced with sheer wonder.
So we have watched massive and strangely unheralded projects proceed along in uniquely bold new City fashion; protested but ultimately unimpeded in their inexorable progress towards realization. But still, the dismaying refrain from the masses clamors at our doorsteps and in our ears.: "Nothing is going on in Jacksonville!......This Town SUCKS!"
And so this article was originally intended to map out mostly startling course of Jacksonville's development over the next 10 to 20 years as it is planned out by our various institutions. We had expected a pretty cut and dried little task of merely transferring a wealth of information, provided by touchingly eager press agents from the Downtown Development Authority, into a comprehendable print overview right here in the pages of Dare.
Ah. How Naive we were....how innocent. Little did we know what was in store for us.
Far from finding scores of presswhoring press agents, we were confronted with a creature whose megalomania and grotesque obesity approached the proportions of a comic book character. In the end, the singular uncooperation of this bizarre, grunting, furry entity turned out well. It caused us to do footworking field research which allowed us to view the development issues without the suave spin controlling which the DDA practices with spectacular regularity, and also revealed how fragile is the thread upon which the entire course of this community's future hangs. At this printing, we are at a turning point, a fork in the path of our future. Our leaders and planners may either sow the seeds of this city's future stagnation and collapse, or build the framework for a thriving metropolis.
In addition to the cultural deficiencies which weve already painted in lurid detail, Jacksonville is facing several issues which will greatly effect our future. They are:
A decentralized infrastructure due to urban sprawl.
A segmented community with no common city culture and rising racial tensions due to segregated neighborhoods with very little in common.
An increasingly service based economy with an unqualified work force which does not meet its needs.
The environmental havoc being wreaked by increasing population and the inadequacies of the present mass transit, garbage disposal, and growth regulation systems.
Population growth due to the general migrations from larger northern cities who did not address the above problems and are now themselves collapsing.
If each of these problems is not overcome, then we will face grave crises in the future, at a time when we will have developed to the point that correcting them will be exponentially more expensive. No doubt, the reader of DARE is wondering exactly what the hell all of this has to do with revitalizing the Downtown District of our conservative old Southern City, but these are exactly the problems which the timely but speedy redevelopment of Downtown will immediately address.
Urban Sprawl.
Perhaps the largest unseen cause of the things that people just loathe about living here. As a result of it, we are endlessly segmented in every way.
Arlington people do not mix with Riverside people, Riverside people don't normally cross over to San Marco. San Jose people generally feel out of place at Ortega parties. Southside families would rather drink poison than go to the Northside. Westside people aren't exactly welcome in Baymeadows, Deerwood people are constantly ridiculed in The Square and Five Points. People from the Beaches balk at driving over the intracoastal waterway, and EVERYONE avoids the inhabitants of Orange Park and Middleburg.
The fact is, we are more like an area with several small towns within driving distance of each other than the huge sprawling city that we actually are. When people complain of a small town mentality, their bitching is valid. There is little of the cross culturing that occurs within a huge population base, because our neighborhoods are distinct and separated with their own set of strip malls, hairdos and fast food districts.
Urban sprawl has caused the development of a decentralized infrastructure with five or six radiating point that all depend upon a central form of revenue and administration. Mandarin/Baymeadows, Riverside/Avondale, San Marco/San Jose/St. Nicholas, The Northside, The Westside, and The Beaches are beginning to form their own separately operating systems of infrastructure. Beaches roads, drainage and water treatment are self contained and don't cross service other areas. Arlington's infrastructure is beginning to take on the characteristics of a separate city altogether (and the Arlington Expressway, we might add, has all the earmarks of an alien intelligence). Mandarin's burgeoning growth is unpredictable, and unconnected to what is happening in the rest of the city:....the story repeats itself ad nauseum.
Its as though we were funding the roads, drainage, piping, and public services for the separate staffs and facilities of sevesn different small cities rather than the integrated system of a large one.
We are having to do this because of the way that growth is happening. As new people come to Jacksonville they are not moving to the areas near our downtown where the whole infrastructure of roads and drainage is already in place. They are swelling the undeveloped regions, forcing the city to build NEW roads and drainage (while the existing systems go unused) and also attracting malls, strip shops, grocery stores, and other developments with makes further demands on the central infrastructure and attracts even more new residents, locking development into a vicious cycle.
Because the city cannot afford to simultaneously build streets and drainage for seven small expanding towns as quickly as the new residents may like, and maintain the existing systems as well as they should, roads and drainage start taking on unheard of priority as political issues. Council members who have irate, flooded constituents on the phone every day start begrudging every penny to any other cause except road improvements and drainage projects. As a result, cultural programs and other public works start to suffer. Because there are only so many teenagers and bored housewives that the strip malls, convenience stores and fast food joints can reasonably employ, finding a job necessitates traveling on the roads and highways.
Every day there are more and more cars on the road, and every single vehicle costs the taxpayer money.
The gentle reader is invited to consider the cracks which recently closed the 95 Bridge recently. Those cracks were due to the increased traffic while the Main Street Bridge was closed for repairs. If the temporary closing of one bridge caused enough wear and tear to crack the Fuller Warren, then what effect will the population growth have?
Urban sprawl has left our centers of shopping population and etc so spread out that frequent car travel is an absolute must for anyone who wants to be more culturally and socially alive than say, the average cockroach. So far, the only people that we've heard who can are Tom and Gunnell, the owners of Edge City, and not everyone can be Tom and Gunnell.
What this means, (besides the wear and tear on roads, which must eventually be repaired and wasted hours on diabolical traps like the Arlington Expressway) is that those belching little machines are spewing enough exhaust fumes to force Bold New City motorists to undergo emissions testing. Furthermore, as the roads become more crowded, and people move further away from the central infrastructure more money is diverted to road improvement and less to everything else. The public transportation bus system finds itself with more area to cover and less money to cover it. Because bus drivers must fight the same traffic problems as everyone else, they are undependable. Because the buses are undependable, more people drive to work which creates more traffic thereby making the buses even less reliable. It is on in a rather expensive series of vicious circles.
The gentle reader is free to imagine what a few solid years of growth will bring. They may also imagine how different things would be if we weren't so spread out.
Therein lies the logic of Downtown Redevelopment, a logic that the various agencies involved in planning the future have integrated into their present roster of projects. Whether they have done so consciously, we can't guess, but we must say that the direction in which they are apparently going is the most sensible.
This city, if it ever has any hopes or pretensions to greatness, has got to get the product of its bowels together. We have got to redirect the way we are developing. Stop urban sprawl and build a system that will enhance our culture, financial milieu and general welfare. The problem as far as we can see it, lies in finding a way to switch tracks from the disastrous urban sprawl development pattern to centralized growth that radiates from downtown, and allows us to develop outward from a central infrastructure and culture instead of simultaneously developing several small town minded neighborhoods separately. Provided that our haplessly elected leadership can be convinced of the necessity, this editor can only hope it will happen. For the sake of our city, it must. At any rate, the following are the plans already in motion for the future.
Mass Transit:
The JTA's SkyWay.
In few places is this vision of a Downtown centralized future quite so apparent or ingeniously planned for than in the Rapid Transit plans of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. The Masterplan of the Skyway Express is exactly that.
Many people still do not know that the Skyway Express has never been intended to stand by itself as a downtown oddity. In reality it is supposed to be the first leg of a citywide mass transit system which will drastically reduce the amount of pollution generated by traffic, eliminate the present inefficiency of our public transit by removing it from traffic and automating the system and connect each of the far flung areas of town with cheap, efficient rapid transit. A few years ago, when the equipment was bought and purchased for the little rail downtown, not much attention was given to the fact that the computer bought to run it was actually the massive brain used for a citywide system. And if the editor's french serves him correctly, (and it does) enough cars to run through the entire city have also already been purchased and lying around in french warehouses. As this magazine goes to press, despite the asinine density of John Draper and his loud mouthed toady, Ed O Neill, the second leg of the Skyway is already beginning construction. It will start at the end of the present structure, go up to Hogan Street and end in a multi modal station across from FCCJ campus. This new line will remove bus traffic from Hemming Plaza, and hopefully discourage its ongoing conversion into a John Waters-esque Mortville, perhaps allowing it to prosper once more. The Multimodal station will be located where the Trophy Building presently stands and serves as a transfer point for passengers of bus, car and riders of the light rail system which will transport riders to the beaches and Northside in the JTA's completed plans.
Pre-construction for the fourth segment has also been completed. This work began the segment of the Skyway which will cross the St. Johns River with the Acosta Bridge. Seven of its foundations on the Prudential side of the river had to be completed simultaneously with the Acosta to save time and money later, since it will run through the middle of the completed span. It will run down Prudential Drive to the School Board building, where it will presumably connect with another multimodal station servicing the Southside. If the casual motorist cares to look, there is a guideway deck for the Skyway's imminent crossing on the west side of the new span.
One of the pleasant little side effects which the DDA hopes a centralized rapid transit system that is magically convenient to every conceivable downtown location will make possible is the virtual removal of Downtown Parking Lots. Now the editor can already hear the violent exclamations of the reading masses as they stare in utter disbelief, but he begs them to consider it for a moment. An Aerial view of downtown shows that a huge amount of pricey land is taken up by sorry little one level parking lots. Because they are only one level deals, they spread out the area of land needed to park for Downtown workers. This enormous spread should be developed and taxed rather than beautifying the landscape as piles of cracking asphalt
With the Skyway, both the JTA and the DDA intend for multi level parking garages to be built adjacent to stations on the outskirts of downtown (areas like the Southbank of the River, Springfield and both the Northside and Westside approaches to town.) where people can park then ride the Skyway to town. This will decrease traffic congestion and free up valuable taxable landspace for development without undue inconvenience for the commuter. n any case it would be a definite plus over fighting downtown traffic in the vastly more populated Jacksonville of 20 years hence.
Truly rapid transit will allow people to work in areas of town besides their own and depend on public transportation to get them there. As the lightrail system is built, it will connect population areas to each other through downtown by a method of travel much faster than automobile. Not only will the trains not have to contend with traffic, but they will also go faster than 35-45 miles per hour. Anyone who has been fired after waiting for late buses can testify that reliable mass transit will properly expand their job horizons. This is also the only effective way to combat the shocking levels of air pollution caused by Jacksonville motorists each year.
People will ride the cheapest fastest way to work and by doing so, they will help clean up the air and decrease the wear and tear on the highways. By providing a quick corridor of travel that connects trained students who do not as yet have reliable transportation most easily to downtown businesses, the JTA Skyway/lightrail system in an incredibly clever, focused plan.
The system does have certain lunkheaded opposition. There are people in this town that the editor of Dare would go so far as to say wouldn't know their rectum from a hole in the ground except that they wouldn't let anyone sodomize a hole in the ground. But of course, the editor would never go that far.
Exactly why arch idiot Ed O'neill feels that he can ride like a rocket jockey to political if not intellectual prominence is beyond the editor's comprehension. And exactly why his City Council sugardaddy, John Draper felt called upon to throw pettly little conniption fits until his obtuse, fair headed boy was reinstated on the Mayor's Insight Council is also beyond him. Of course, the same editor also cannot fathom why the dowdy little republican would send the odious little imp to the Insight Council in the first place unless it was for the most asinine of reasons.....namely to sabotage light rail, which he and the rest of his jiffy lube buddies oppose.
If the reader of Dare feels strongly about this issue, we suggest that they call Council Members Harry Reagan, CB Griffin, Tillie Fowler, Max Leggett, Ginny Myrick or Terry Wood: All supporters of the Skyway/Lightrail system.
Part 3
Hemming Park
Hemming Park is where the most profound changes will take place, one way or another. When the Skyway Multimodal Stations are built, there will be zero bus traffic there. Instead there will be a Skyway station that will drop off passengers into the Park. This will eliminate the wear and tear on the brick paving, remove waiting bus passengers who make sitting ducks for the panhandlers and criminal element and lessen the exhaust which has stunted the trees and foliage.
There is some controversy over the ultimate fate of the most important structure in the square: The St. James Building. Library director Judy Williams wants this building as her new domain so badly she can just taste it. Towards this goal, she is backed by Tillie Fowler. Both of them think it would make a showpiece library, and in this thinking they are correct. Versailles would make an even better one.
But there is another group of people that includes Ginny Myrick and the editorial staff of this magazine who feel that City Hall should pack its bags and get the hell off of the riverfront. Henry Klutho designed the previous city hall, but it was torn down to make way for the Library that Prudy Judy is so hellbent on vacating, and since he is our most prominent architect, historically, it is only fitting that his masterpiece should be the seat of our consolidated government.
On the more practical side, there is the difference in traffic and exposure between the two uses. If Hemming Park is to be revived, it needs traffic and business. Libraries are passive activities, without regular built in crowds. Converting the St. James into a library would mean that the area's largest space would be a quiet building whose traffic consisted of people who had the intestinal fortitude to visit downtown in the first place... ie the crowd that is already there: Bums crazies and crack addicts. On the other hand, City Hall has a built in traffic (although the difference in quality may not always be readily apparent) Draws thousands every day, requires high security standards and would expose more people to Kluthos masterwork.
It is the hope of this tabloid that the latter plan prevails. The library has already considered moving to the old Penneys building adjacent to Woolworths, and despite the simplicity of the design, this would be a cosily complimentary arrangement. With both City Hall and The Library in Hemming Park---and a Skyway connection built into it, the entire area would be transformed. Barton Sligh's wouldn't suffer, and maybe the Old Seminole Club, which was one of the city's most elegant social settings would find use again. Thes is something philosophically symmetrical in having city government so physically grounded in the city's history, making decisions which concern where we are going from the viewpoint of where we have come.
Interested parties should forget calling the Library, as they are in a sour mood concerning the subject.. Instead, they could telephone Ginny Myrick's office to encourage a drafted proposal. Letting the other media hear something about this would be helpful. This could be a beautiful center, but the opposition is jaded and tough. Public interest could be the ace.
Part 4
The Villages
In addition to the downtown activity, several different areas are currently revitalizing through the impetus of private investment along classic village style lines. Most prominently are Five Points and The Devils Triangle in Atlantic Beach. Billy Cowan is opening the Big Shiny Shoe Store which will carry Na Na, Fluevog, Doc Martin and every possible cool shoe one can imagine. Repeat Performances is moving across the street from Edge City in the space occupied by JD Howell, and Linda Adcock is moving Adcock Costumes into Five Points as well. Meanwhile, Elaine Wheeler who owns Heartworks is working on opening the space next door to her gallery as a coffeehouse/Art Bar.
With any luck, Foam City will now get the hell out of Dodge and the cheap old misers at Peterson's 5 and Dime will shell out some money to replace their disgraceful awnings.
Atlantic Beach, driven by the phenomenal success of Ragtime and Sundog Diner is yanking up the sidewalk and replacing everything with brick. North SHore Grill will soon become a Fat Tuesdays, the old Silver's Pharmacy is turning into a two story nightclub called Ruby Beach Cafe, and supposedly the Adeeb's are going to renovate the Sea Turtle Inn complete with bar and deck onto the beach.
It may turn out that this concept of simultaneous openings of related businesses in a dense village area has some legs to it. Stay tuned for updates on these villages.
Stephen Dare
Dare Tabloid
1990
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stephendare
June 23, 2009, 02:01:48 PM20 years ago.
Tomorrow we will be looking at the expectations of 40 years ago.
What has changed in the city since this article 20 years ago?
How closely did we anticipate what would happen back then?
How successful were we in addressing the problems we were aware of in 1990?
What did we not anticipate?
What didnt work? Why?
What did work? Why?
What was completely ridiculous and ended up being pointless to plan for or worry about?
How does this 20 year old peice hold up now?
BridgeTroll
June 23, 2009, 02:22:17 PMThanks for the old article Stephen!
stephendare
June 23, 2009, 02:35:06 PMNo problem BT! Wait till you read Eve Heaney's work from the 60s.
Curious as to how you would answer the questions above!
stephendare
June 23, 2009, 02:48:02 PMbtw, BT. Getting the information out of the City was just as difficult then as it is now.
Here is a meta story about writing the above feature that was printed in the same magazine:
The 'press relations' officer for the DDA during the Frank Nero administration was a guy named Dana Fernetti. The DDA was the Downtown Development Authority.
A Supersecrecy caper that confounds the best minds at HQ.
A Dare Mystery Adventure, file #76
Daretabloid has seen a lot of strange capers in our time, but never have any been quite so baffling as the truly alien behavior or Dana Fernetti of the Downtown Development Authority.
As staunch supporters of Downtown Development and Restoration, the editorial board was under the mistaken impression that everyone on the same side was......well....on the same side. So when we started to do our research for this article, we also believed that we could count on the DDA to help provide us with the powerfacts we needed to make our points.
So we called.
Even though all we wanted was information, we were told that we'd have to talk to Dana. Fine, we said, we'll be waiting right here for him to return our call.
Three weeks of no progress later, we were in the downtown area visiting the Arts Assembly, and since they are both in the Florida Theatre, we dropped in hoping at least to get a newsletter or some literature. The secretary told us that we really needed to talk to Dana and that he would be in some time later that afternoon. We decided to wait it out.
Eventually, we were told that we could proceed back to his office.
We found a fat bearded man with beady black eyes and a blue suit. He eyed the editor shiftily. We sat down to what was our most confrontational conversation that week (which for us, is saying something) All we wanted was information and suddenly we had a sassy, shockingly rude fat man in our face telling us we need to check out facts about such and so. Since we had come to the interview stating that we had few facts and desire to obtain more from him, actually, the brunt of his assault upon us when we asked him to explain things was lost on our inferior intellects.
Maybe these guys have some call to feel defensive due to some of the attacks and criticism that our fellow brethren in the media have heaped on their heads, but that does not give them an excuse to stonewall, insult, and outright lie to us because of their own thick skins.
This editor is not noted for being totally clueless about what is going on downtown, and so when after half an hour of evading every direct question that was posed to him, we caught Dana lying outright about hany plans the library might have about moving, we decided to try another tact. We took our leave of him, and in the further pursuit of insight on the Downtown question, we trotted over to City Hall, where we met with Frank Nero, the head of the DDA, who set up an interview with us to discuss the matter further. It was set for a week after that day.
Imagine our chagrin, when we got a message that our interview with Nero had been cancelled. The return number was none other than Dana Fernetti's direct line. We returned the phone call, during which Dana informed us we would be dealing with him and we werent going to be talking to M. Nero. We called Chris in Nero's office--a woman who had been quite friendly a few days before, and she told us in stiff carefully phrased tones that we would have to talk to Dana.
Since there was nothing else left for us to do, we called Dana's office, and informed his secretary that we would rather talk with Satan than Mr. Fernetti as we would have a better chance of getting the truth and cancelled the appointment he's made for us in lieu of the one we'd made with Nero. Then we set about getting information in our own way, and so after Fernetti had informed us that there were no projects going on to stimulate art and culture in the Downtown, we walked over to the Arts Assembly only to find out that the DDA was working with the Jacksonville Coalition for the Visual Arts to establish an Art Warehose downtown. We toured the building with them. As it turned out, it was one of many such projects which had escaped his memory.
Eventually we dropped back over to the DDA to have a peep at some charts, and chat with our little furry woodsland pal. During that conversation, while discussing downtown growth plans, we referred to the very malleable zoning regulations Downtown as 'plastic'.
Now, the literate reader of Dare, no doubt knows that 'plastic' has several different connotations. The first definition in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary is: formative, creative. 2. a. Capable of being molded or modelled. b. capable of adapting to varying conditions.
So when we meant to say that the zoning designation for downtown properties enable business to use the space for almost any purpose, that is exactly the word which we meant to use. However, upon utterance, Dana informed us that if we were going to talk to him, we had better use words that we knew what they meant. We looked blankly at him and asked him what he meant.
He asked us to define the word 'plastic'.
We did, stunned at his attempted consescension. He then informed us that he didnt think plastic meant what we said it did, and that he had a problem with our usage of the word.
Of course, since we had not come for a lesson in semantics, but rather to talk about Downtown Development, we let it pass. In the middle of two 'plastic' free sentences later, he got up, strode over to his book case, took down a dictionary with a significant air and returned to his desk to flip through the pages with a smug 'i told you so' expression on his face.
He found the word 'plastic', presumably read the same definition that we had included and the smugness was replaced by vinegar. He stopped us in our question, and bellowed out that he could make sure that NO ONE talked to us at the DDA. He glowered. He cast aspersions on the editors parentage. He breathed very heavily.
We cooly informed him that we were glad that Florida's Sunshine Law didn't give him that luxury and then bid him adieu.
He was true to his word. He made sure no one at the agency talked to our magazine.
But true to my word, I then refused to meet with Nero about the article without a permission to speak note from his press secretary.....
Dana got me later though. While I was in Muncie Indiana, one of the local press people there called the Downtown Development Authority to get some background about me.
On hearing my name he told them I was perhaps one of the most dangerous people alive, and to run---not walk away!
Lol. Chump.
The Authoritative Frank Nero Interview
That Never Was.
Dare Magazine, 1990
The following is an interview which DARE would have conducted with Frank Nero, the director of the Downtown Development Authority, if Dana Fernetti, the resident mau mauing fat boy and champion story teller had not decided that he wasn't going to stand for mere media people, especially media people unimpressed with his fat assed pomposity, talking to his superiors because they were unable to get truthful answers from him in the first place.
So here, for our reading public (a public which the rotund Mr. Fernetti informed us he personally wasn't interested in enlightening about the apparently secret DDA plans with will effect their future.), are the questions we had planned on asking before Dana found out about our scheduled meeting.
If Mr. Nero feels that in fact, they should be answered, he will have to bring the editor written permission from his blubbery toadie, letting him know that it is OK for him to talk to us.
Question:
Mr. Nero, what specific plans which it DDA is presently edorsing, do you personally feel will have the greatest long term impact on our city and its future development?
Nero: No Answer
Question:
Now we all know it is impossible to please everybody at any given time, but why is opposition to the different projects which the DDA has endorsed so vehement and dedicated? Why is it unanswered by your agency?
Nero: No Answer
Question:
During the Eighties, four major programs were undertaken which the city was led to believe would begin a renaissance Downtown:
The Landing, the refurbishing of Hemming Park, the Bulls Football Franchise, and the Southbank Riverwalk.
Today the Landing has lost ia large portion of its original retailers by attracting a sizeable crime element and scaring off affluent downtown shoppers.
The Riverwalk is usuially lifeless, one of its anchor restaurants had to be bailed out by the city at an extraordinary sum, and most of its businesses have failed.
The (Jacksonville) Bulls (A football franchise effort prior to the Jaguars) fell through and
Reconstruction of Hemming Park drove many of its original shops out of business by taking so long to finish. Today it is a frightening mish mash of criminals, bums and the homeless. Its most important structure, The Saint James Building is empty, bus traffic has significantly worn away the bricking and most of the major retailers have packed up and left.
There are some critics who claim that DDA plans are the leading cause of Downtown Blight.
How do you answer that and what precautions will you take to insure that what happens in the 90s will not repeat what happened in the 80s?
Nero: No Answer
Question:
If Jacksonville's growth had followed more downtown centralized patterns, and correlating planning had been in place, many of the staggering infrastructure problems we are now facing, like road repair and drainage would be comparatively minimal in scale and much easier to maintain. Restructuring and centralizing our city is still in our best fiscal, management and cultural interest. What is the DDA doing that will achieve that growth?
Nero: No Answer
Question:
Did the DDA cut a backroom deal with First Baptist to let them have a working monopoly on downtown parking in exchange for letting the skyway shave a corner off of their property?
Nero: No Answer
Question:
We experienced great difficulty through your own office in finding out not only what this city needs, but what the DDA is doing to answer those needs, If we had this problem, what should we tell our readers who are true believers in a Downtown Renaissance that might want to contribute to making it happen?
Nero: No Answer
Only after reading his exhaustive notes later did I realize how barricaded and ignored Nero was.
BridgeTroll
June 24, 2009, 06:53:46 AMjbroadglide
June 24, 2009, 08:10:17 AMMetroJax
Having been friends with Dana Fernety, not Fernetti, for more than 20 years, I found your definition of him to be totally without merit and basically offensive. In all my dealings with Dana, as a former member of the media, I never found him to be obstructive, abusive or rude. Quite the contrary, he often went out of his way to be accomodating. Perhaps, I suspect maybe it was your attack style method of reporting that he found offensive.
I am really disappointed that you decided to post your "interview" more than 20 years later to mark an aniversary. Maybe you could have found something a little more positive to write about.
BridgeTroll
June 24, 2009, 10:35:55 AM^Please remember that this was NOT an article by MetroJax but a totally separate entity long before MetroJax. Twenty years ago is a long time. People and attitudes change. That is basically the nature of this thread. It is looking at past attitudes, decisions, and articles to show progress or lack of progress.
jbroadglide
June 24, 2009, 11:00:59 AMMy apologies to MetroJax. I should have read more carefully. I just got a little hot under the collar at some accusations thrown at a personal friend. Please accept my apologies.
JaxNative68
June 24, 2009, 12:11:44 PMthis city has a way of doing that to people. sometimes the truth hurts a little.
BridgeTroll
June 24, 2009, 12:35:56 PMThere is no need to apolologize JB. Your observations and interactions with Mr Fernety are completely valid. Clearly others may have had a different perception. Times change and so do people...
stephendare
June 25, 2009, 09:43:46 AMLol. True enough JT.
Our mutual friend Charlie Dixon also had great affection for Dana (and his apparently very lovely wife) and dined with them both publicly and in their homes fairly often.
I think the basic problem was that I was in my early 20s at the time, and Dana felt unobliged to speak with such a young reporter.
Obviously I didn't share Charlie's enthusiasm for the press guy for the DDA. (lol)
I have to say that the process is a whole lot more open now than it was then. The internet has made things hella more easy.
Imagine an era where you couldnt look something up on google or perform a 'search' on a subject that you didnt know what the hell you were talking about on.
In those days people werent even obliged to give you a business card, much less any printed information at all. Without the internet you seriously had to know people and have access just to be able to speak intelligently on a subject.
Where were you a media guy broadglide? Bet you can attest to how good you had to be just to get basic information.
Thanks for weighing in!
Wacca Pilatka
July 06, 2009, 03:33:58 PMStephen, could you answer a question for me?
In this article and some other writings you have done in the past, you've mentioned that Hemming Plaza was extensively reconstructed during the mid-1980s, coinciding with the closure of lots of downtown retail space, with the closure of May Cohen's following soon after in '87. In other sources I had read that it was converted from a park to a plaza in 1978. I was just curious as to what type of reconstruction/conversion work was done in 1978 and what type of (different?) work was done several years later.
Thanks for the historical insight!
stephendare
July 06, 2009, 04:11:48 PMThanks Wacca.
The Park itself was renamed to "Plaza" before the renovations.
The reconstruction work involved all of the streets surrounding the park.
All of Hogan, Laura, Monroe and Duval were torn up pretty much simultaneously around the park itself. This closed the entrances of Cohens, Penneys, the Drugstore, and the that ringed the plaza.
I actually made a practice of skipping school every Wednesday during this era and riding the bus downtown from the Beaches. You simply cannot imagine the mess the area was in.
You had to walk through mud to get across the park and there were huge trenches as they fooled around with the infrastructure.
Michael Jackson was setting the world on fire at that time, and the downtown stores were the only place you could buy patent leather wingtips and breaker baggies, much less the red silk bowties and zipper jackets that made the ensembles.
It was the death knell to the area.
And glad you like the history!
Wacca Pilatka
July 06, 2009, 04:41:10 PMThanks Stephen. I have been a devoted fan of Jacksonville since I was 8 years old but have probably learned more from this website than from any book.
Dog Walker
July 07, 2009, 04:55:22 PMStephen: After reading the article I have to comment that your writing style has matured.
stephendare
July 07, 2009, 04:57:27 PMWell it has been 20 years after all.