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The Old Union Terminal's shell still remains after a 1979 fire gutted the rest of the building.
The Crane Company Building featured some of Jacksonville's finest decorative brickwork from the 1930s. However, that wasn't enough to keep it from being a victim of the LaVilla demolition derby.
At the corner of Adams and Broad Street, the Newsome's Furniture Building lasted until a few years ago and came down without a fight from local preservationists. Today, the site is a grass parking lot for courthouse construction workers.
The corner of Forysth and Main was once dominated by pedestrians. Today, the pedestrians are gone along with the buildings and retailers that once attracted them.
Across from the Lynch Building (11 East), this old Lane Drugs building was replaced by a metal parking deck.
At the corner of Bay and Main, the parking garage also took out a building once home to JCPenney.
The Arcade Theatre was the largest and best equipped movie house in the South when it opened on Adams Street in 1915. If preserved, it would have given more life to the Adams/Laura corridor. Nevertheless, after years of decay it was finally unable to structurally support itself and it came crashing to the ground.
At one time, Forsyth Street was a place to be seen. Today, this collection of retail shops have been replaced with a block long asphalt parking lot.
The corner of Adam's and Laura is one of the most vibrant in all of downtown, yet it is still home to four large abandoned buildings, including Florida Life, and several empty grass lots.
At one time, nearly every square inch of land in the Northbank had a building on it. Due to rampant demolition, this is no longer the case today.
Graphics by Daniel Herbin and Ennis Davis
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Keith-N-Jax
October 02, 2009, 05:23:51 AMI like the contrast.
heights unknown
October 02, 2009, 07:58:30 AMWasn't the Arcade Theatre the Center Theater at the End? Great contrast and tells a sad, chiding story of how our leaders allowed downtown Jacksonville, and the City proper to be reduced to a ghostly shell of its former self.
Heights Unknown
Jaxson
October 02, 2009, 08:30:48 AMI think that you are right, heights. I recall seeing the old Center Theater sign back when I wandered Adams Street on nights out at the old Milk Bar...
These are some great pictures, by the way. It helps us to remember that these long-demolished places actually stood somewhere in Jacksonville. It's also depressing to imagine how much we did neglect over the years.
stephendare
October 02, 2009, 08:34:44 AMGreat Work Dan and Ennis!
These came out fantastico!
And yes, it was the Center Theater, heights!
JeffreyS
October 02, 2009, 08:38:05 AMAnd the 2009 winners of the best Jacksonville historical presentation MJ award are Daniel Herbin and Ennis Davis. Congratulations!
Wacca Pilatka
October 02, 2009, 08:46:58 AMThis is beautifully done but very sad.
JoeMerchant
October 02, 2009, 08:59:33 AMGreat idea, great execution, horribly depressing.
Jennifer Browning
October 02, 2009, 09:07:13 AMThis is wonderfully done... although.... I'm sad that we've lost so much of our history in Jacksonville.
copperfiend
October 02, 2009, 09:20:37 AMThis really was a gorgeous presentation. It is sad to think of the ignorance that has been in power in Jacksonville for so long. They have allowed the core of the city to be destroyed.
BridgeTroll
October 02, 2009, 09:22:23 AMGreat effort exposing our sad past...
mtraininjax
October 02, 2009, 09:34:43 AMBut decaying buildings with pieces falling down from above (laura trio) should be the norm? Sure they are/were great buildings, but no one uses them. Find a use, pay the rent, and use them. Allowing a building to sit empty just because it "looks cool", is a sad reason to keep a building, and a dangerous one. When you walk along the street at night, if you are one of the few, with a parking lot, you can see people coming, as opposed to the people hiding in the corridors of delapadated buildings that should have been levelled a long time ago.
I love what the Seminole Club used to be, but it has sat empty for a very long time, and while it is sad, if the City inspectors had to condemn it and demolish it, I would not mind. Same goes for the old JEA building on Julia. You can't save every building downtown, instead enjoy what is left and make do with what you have.
Living in the past is like visiting and re-visiting history hoping that the past can alter the present.
copperfiend
October 02, 2009, 10:38:08 AMI choose to not live my life in fear.
CDG
October 02, 2009, 11:11:31 AMLove, love, love, this presentation. The more people that see this the better. Maybe the community will start to understand what has happened to our city and why good design and planning is so important as we move forward. It would be nice to really be the "Bold New City of the South" instead of the "It's better than it was before, Mediocre City of the South". Thanks for the great images......
avonjax
October 02, 2009, 12:38:01 PMmtraininjax
I agree lets just raze any old building in downtown that sits empty.
vicupstate
October 02, 2009, 01:13:41 PMAccording to this line of thinking (if it can be called that), the current city hall (St. James building) should have been demolished years ago. Instead, it was beautifully restored and a new use was found. It was also completed at a BARGAIN price versus what a new building of similiar size would have cost.
The same thing would have occurred to the Klutho building on Springfield's Main street, 11 E., The Carling, and numerous other buildings.
avonjax
October 02, 2009, 01:17:49 PMOr we could come to your neighborhood and raze every 2nd or 3rd house, leave the foundation and let the weeds grow and see how desirable that would be.....
Just a thought.....
Raysfan16
October 02, 2009, 06:57:35 PMWow. Very nicely done. I like to photoshop too, haha. But this ain't really a laughing matter. This portrays the real sadness of the city.
If you couldn't infer from my username, I'm from Tampa, born and raised, and I didn't know much of anything about Jax before here. Articles like these are very informative.
David
October 02, 2009, 07:10:19 PMSomeone please invent a time machine.
stjr
October 02, 2009, 10:26:25 PMCongratulations on a great presentation. It speaks volumes with pictures. Having watched the Ken Burns series on the National Parks, it...
(1) shows how preservation efforts, seldom appreciated in the present, are almost always gratefully lauded by future generations and those whose short sightedness denied them the vision to fully appreciate the value of what we already have, and
(2) shows the power of pictures as many parks were saved and/or created by magnificent pictorials being sent to the desk of every Congressman, as few actually understood, having never visited, the value of the lands whose fate was in their hands. Likewise, our local politicians seem to have little understanding and appreciation for that which they have failed to protect and maybe these pictures on their desks would raise their consciousness regarding such matters. Please see that they are all so informed. Thanks very much.
deathstar
October 02, 2009, 11:20:46 PMSuch a wonderful presentation, and for myself, much easier to see what Jacksonville was. If a time machine existed, I'd absolutely go back to 1901 just to see with my own eyes what it used to be
choosing2disappear
October 02, 2009, 11:22:07 PMbeautiful work (must have been difficult to find the same vantage point as in the old photographs). The Newsoms's building didn't look anything like that at the time of it's demo. It had been redone in a mid-century style, with no windows abve the ground floor. Even though the text on the photo isn't inverted, I remember it on the south east corner. Did it have two entrances?
ac
October 02, 2009, 11:33:19 PMbuckethead
October 03, 2009, 07:56:34 AMMtrain makes valdi points. The reason for the decay is plain and simple. I can even be brutally honest about it if i wanted. (e.g. white flight)
If no one is willing to use a structure, the structure will go unused. Amazing insight, I know. When a structure remains unused for a length of time it becomes a liability as opposed to an asset. At some point, it becomes wiser to divest ones liabilities. We often have lofty ideals, and find fault with people who do what they feel is in their own best interest.
To revitalize downtown Jax will take leadership, but more than that it will take money. Even beyond that it will require patronage. We do not have the luxury of an all or nothing mentality as it relates to historic preservation.
I believe we are about to turn the corner in that regard. Not long from now, the new structures our generation builds will become the old classic and hstorical structures being considered for demolition or preservation.
thelakelander
October 03, 2009, 08:07:49 AMAny idea of why cities like Boston, San Francisco, St. Augustine, Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah, Washington, Philadelphia, (insert city here), etc. have been able to preserve buildings on a large scale and Jacksonville can't? They have several structures that have been abandoned for years but they aren't seen as liabilities and don't come own the way they do here. Do you think the quality of construction in those cities was superior to projects built in Jacksonville during similar eras?
zoo
October 03, 2009, 10:25:16 AMI miss the vibrancy that signage can bring (in addition to people, of course). JaxPride and the anti-sign lobby have mis-applied their suburban-style signage ideas to Jacksonville's urban areas for far too long.
buckethead
October 03, 2009, 02:12:56 PMSavanah and Charleston are similar, and closer to what could have been here.
Please don't misunderstand, because I am completely on board with preserving the few gems we have left standing downtown. The photo essay was indeed beautiful and saddening. I would love to see revitalization built around the historic buildings still standing.
If it is to be sustained long term; businesses, residents, and consumers are going to need to be in the picture.
stjr
October 03, 2009, 03:44:10 PMI can tell you that in Philly, the Society Hill restoration, dating to the late 1700's, early 1800's, was a near abandoned slum before it was restored. South Beach in Miami was a dive in the 1960's. Lots of historic areas were run down and abandoned before creative visionaries came along and saved them.
Jax's problem is we lack vision and visionaries - not to mention an appreciation for the finer things in life like history and great architecture. We come across as the good ol' boy simpletons that maybe we really are.
deathstar
October 04, 2009, 02:42:17 AMRon Mexico
October 05, 2009, 01:38:59 PMwhat a great presentation! such a shame...
shanshan1218
October 05, 2009, 02:58:36 PMwow...i'm speechless at the moment....amazing work.
JaxNative68
October 05, 2009, 06:09:45 PMthanks for once more sending me into a deep descending spiral of depression.
stephendare
October 05, 2009, 06:15:15 PMI think the greater point (and mission) is that its time to replace and renew all this. We have it within our power. We can STOP the things which destroy and we can push the things which make things better.
We have the Power to Preserve within our collection of metrojacksonvillians.
I think we should look at these things and realize that they are worth restoring, and that once they are restored, they are merely a starting point to a city worth living in.
These projects don't make me depressed.
I get a little mad sometimes, but most of all, they make me resolute.
Together we can build a better place.
stephendare
October 05, 2009, 06:30:11 PMJaxNative68
October 05, 2009, 06:38:28 PMdefinately more inspiring than listening to Tom Waits music!
downtownjaxgurl
May 01, 2010, 09:01:39 AMIn my research about the Laura Trio, I came upon your website and this truly wonderful display of the city's past blended with it's sab yet tragic present. I currently live in The Carling and love it's history and how it has been restored to it's former glory. Since moving downtown I have been intrigued with the city's history and the history of buildings that still remain. I read an article from jaxdailyrecord mentioning potential buyers for the Laura Trio. It's seems to be hard to get buyers to close on a contract. Each day I look out my 5th floor window at the Laura Trio and wonder how long will they remain standing or when will the day come when the city decides to tear them down? Have you heard anything about restoring the Trio recently? It would truly be sad to lose these historical and yet beautiful buildings.
Timkin
May 01, 2010, 01:50:57 PMIn a sense , I think I realize the message you are trying to convey, M-train..though your direct comments to me have been unfair...not this particular thread ,but others.. When I am one of the people out there making an effort to put these buildings back into use... ( I seriously doubt YOU can say that you are one of these people) I find it pretty insulting and nervy of you to have an opinion .. Why dont you just stick to what you know.... You obviously have no appreciation for historic buildings and certainly no patience for those that sit empty. You would have us turn what remains of our urban core into an even more vast void than it is now. You want a building to tear down
By the way... Nice presentation on the thread.
As I have stated in other threads and agree wholeheartedly with Stephen... I hope we will incorporate in some of our future structures some architectural features of our past.... There is no good reason we can not revitilize our urban core and have a variety of destinations that would bring back the masses to our downtown.. at present there is so little, when you compare us to Atlanta or DC or South Beach
DavidWilliams
May 01, 2010, 10:01:08 PMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNWQDnoHbdA&feature=related
Timkin
May 01, 2010, 11:47:36 PMnot sure that i understand the relevance of the video to the thread but it was cool.
Bill Ectric
May 05, 2010, 09:47:21 AMAwesome! Very nice, indeed.
mtraininjax
May 05, 2010, 08:05:11 PMWhy is this depressing? Without progress, we would not have newer buildings that house more people. Would it have been better to have the Jaguars come here with the tallest building capped at 12 stories? What NFL team has its tallest building at 12 stories? None.
What's done is done, we all have buildings we wish were still here. I am no different, but I'd rather tear down a building for the sake of keeping it alive for just one more idea, than to have someone tear it down and build something more ingenious and modern.
Perhaps one reason why downtown is failing is that too many people want to hold onto the past instead of letting it go and moving on to a bright new future with new buildings?
Timkin
May 05, 2010, 11:41:05 PMAgree with you to this point M-train.. what is done is done. but I do not agree that we should demolish the relatively few remaining Historic Landmarks that remain. OF THOSE .. Only a handful of those are in use.. So you propose to build pretty new modern buildings... FINE.. but what good are they if no one uses them? It boils down to economics. If we have no one coming forth to revitilize some of what exists now, where is the money coming from for these pretty new modern buildings?
PERHAPS one reason why downtown isnt falling ,, IT FELL ALREADY is because of the Moron Leaders of the past who allowed everything in frigging sight to be demolished to create "surface parking or parking garages" Every energetic urban core you will visit has indeed , modern buildings,, but they also have a good balance of Historic buildings.
To an extent I agree that we cannot hold on to all of the past, and in Jacksonville, Florida that has already taken place... alot of our past has been demolished for us already.. We do not have the say so ...it has already been done. But for myself, personally, I feel the need to hold on to a few..the very few pieces we have remaining. I know you do not agree.. you have made it abundantly clear you dont like vacant buildings... It also seems you do not like old buildings.. thats also fine.. Some of us DO. Some of us think it is smarter to refurbish some of these relics and bring them back to life , versus Imploding and filling our landfills with these buildings , and creating shotty , new-build structures that are not intended to last through the ages. IMO we live in a "VERY" throw-away world, and I personally do not like it.
mtraininjax
May 06, 2010, 12:13:12 AMTimken - You have great passion, but I know, you can't save everything. You need to realize that it is impossible to save it all, so concentrate on the items that will have the most impact, are closest to a core of growth. The Laura Trio is in the core, along Laura, they probably will never be torn down, but FS5 has nothing around it that is historical, everything around it is NEW, the new buildings of Fidelity, the new Harden Building, new ST. Joe, let FS5 go if it cannot find a new home. You can't make lemonade with the lemon that is FS5.
Case in point, do you know where peterson's 5 and 10 stores are located? There used to be one in San Marco where the Loop is now, and one in 5points where Fuel used to be located. Instead of tearing down 2-story department stores, people worked them into the fabric of existing retail. The loop thrives, Fuel will come back, and both neighborhoods thrive. But there was a neighborhood there and retail to bring them in. There is 1 snack shop across from FS5, open 8-5, is that the retail that FS5 can contribute? There is no retail in the bottom of Harden's building. Let FS5 go. Save those that you can that are in a retail core.
stephendare
May 06, 2010, 12:14:12 AMNah. TImkin is awesome, and will probably end up being the reason that that building is still standing long into the future.
JaxNative68
May 06, 2010, 01:38:53 PMthe redskins. downtown dc has a height limitation based on the capital dome height. most buidlings in the downtown area usually end up around 12 stories.
stjr
May 06, 2010, 10:37:48 PMAnd, LA has tall buildings but no team.
One has nothing to do with the other.
By the way, there are plenty of NFL cities with huge historic preservation efforts. NY, Philly, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, etc. all have done much to preserve our past. Maybe its our failure to do so that is hurting our chances to keep a team. (That's sarcasm for those who want to pounce on it.)
Timkin
May 06, 2010, 11:00:39 PMI wholeheartedly agree with you on the first two sentences of you post stjr. The second part , I do not necessarily think our keeping our team hinges on our lack of vision for historic preservation efforts, but I think that lack has immensely helped to reduce our destinations in the downtown area, not to mention the various outlying areas... Its nothing short of amazing that the Silent Film Norman Studio in Arlington ,was refurbished....although it was nearly on the ground before it was renovated. Im sure most of what is there is a new building. The same was true for the Ritz Theatre in LaVilla. I think they saved the sign, and rebuilt everything else around it pretty much.. It was allowed to crumble far too long before something was done.
I am not wanting to "pounce" particularly on any particular topic..but when it comes to our Historic buildings , I defy anyone to argue , that compared to what was here in 1930.....most of it is gone.. and it seems there is little support to save what remains. I am only one man, and I will put everything I have into my fight for these buildings... but that is sort of like being an Army of one against an entire Military. I can only do so much.. its pretty discouraging, that more folks do not feel as I do.
LTTurner
January 18, 2011, 05:54:01 PMThe building in the fourth photo from the top, showing the corner of Forsyth and Main, is still there, although it has been somewhat remodeled. The company I work for now occupies the bottom floor. We moved from Baymeadows in Nov 2009. Our space is mostly open plan, exposed ductwork, brick wall, etc. Since our business is selling office furniture, we use the space as our showroom. Most every group or client that comes in likes the unique feel that we have in this 1916 building.
Jaxson
January 18, 2011, 07:03:48 PMmtraininjax --- you support progress in our city. that is a good thing. after all, the empire state building replaced the historic waldorf-astoria in new york. what disappoints me is how we tear down so many buildings and do not replace them with anything of either value or beauty. this, i believe, is downtown jacksonville's failing. our downtown scene is a gap-toothed grin of grass-choked parking lots and crumbling buildings that could be preserved if we cared as much about downtown as much as we cared about catering to the suburbs' every need...
mtraininjax
January 18, 2011, 09:06:50 PMUntil you find a mass of people to live downtown, forget trying to save it. 2,000 residents downtown are not enough to swell the suburbs to give a darn!