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Established as a small bicycle shop by John A. Cunningham in 1889, the Cunningham Furniture Company eventually grew to become Florida's oldest furniture company and one of the Southeast's largest home furnishing businesses.
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From a very small store on Forsyth in 1889, handling bicycles, etc., we have steadily grown in size, volume of business and standing in the community and state, as the Furniture Store that can be depended upon when furniture is needed for a simple bungalow, a pretentionus mansion, an apartment house or hotel.Florida Times Union - 5/25/51
For $2.00 per day, downtown visitors have the priviledge of parking their cars on the same foundation that held up the original Cunningham Furniture Building (shown above) at the northeast corner of Forsyth and Broad Streets.
"A move which will result in a $3 million expansion of Florida's oldest furniture company was announced yesterday"
In 1956, the Sears, Roebuck & Company announced plans to build downtown's largest department store on Bay Street, between Pearl and Hogan Streets (current site of the Omni Hotel). This announcement opened up the opportunity for Cunningham Furniture to purchase the old block long Sears store that sat across the street from the furniture company, on the southside of Forsyth Street between Broad and Clay Streets. Completed in 1957, this move made the Cunningham Furniture Company one of the largest furniture stores in the South.
The old Sears store was located on the southeast corner of Broad & Forsyth, stretching an entire block to the intersection of Forsyth & Clay.
Becoming a part of Jacksonville's parking empire
Cunningham Furniture Company (old Sears location) site today
The Cunningham Furniture Company would prosper in downtown and anchor this gateway block to LaVilla for nearly three decades. However, the 1980s would bring an end to Cunningham's era as Jacksonville's oldest furniture company. Like Sears (closed 1981), Rosenblums (closed 1981), Furchgotts (closed 1984), Levy-Wolf (closed 1984), Ivey's (closed 1985), JCPenney (closed 1985) and May-Cohens (closed 1987), Jacksonville's largest furniture store would also cease operations during this dark period of downtown retail.
After 95 years of operation, the Cunningham Furniture Company closed for good in 1984. However, the vacant historic building that housed this company would not remain vacant for long. This entire block would soon be leveled to make way for the multistory parking garage, completed in 1988, which stands there today.
Article by Ennis Davis
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peestandingup
January 24, 2011, 04:52:02 AMThe Destruction Of American Cities - Brought to you by the Automobile, Big Oil & Scared White People
dougskiles
January 24, 2011, 06:38:51 AMWhat is the story on the building next to where the Cunningham building was (in the picture)? The one still standing?
Captain Zissou
January 24, 2011, 08:22:58 AMDepressing. It's going to take a century to undo the damage we did in that 4 year span.
thelakelander
January 24, 2011, 08:31:40 AMOld city directories indicate that it was Cunningham's shipping department at one time. It was also another furniture store for a couple of decades. In fact, that entire area was pretty much a furniture and home furnishing district before the days of the wrecking ball took over.
stephendare
January 24, 2011, 08:34:38 AMDon't get your hopes up. Check out this quote from one of the guys responsible for downtown: They are all still addicted to dynamite and unicorn dust.
Captain Zissou
January 24, 2011, 09:43:29 AMStephen, that's absurd. The area he is describing is more like 2 blocks. 2 blocks that will be prime real estate once the courthouse is up and running. There are millions of reasons why this idea is moronic, but lets just pick out 4 for simplicity's sake.
1) The last thing downtown needs is more 'greenspace'. The Main Street homeless bathroom/pocket park is a glaring example of why this is a bad idea.
2) The courthouse is poorly designed, why do we need to celebrate it by knocking down two historic buildings??
3) How many people will actually be driving the routes he describes and will really even appreciate the added 'presence' of the courthouse? Most people on broad will be going 40 mph+ and won't even look at the courthouse.
4) Why spend the money to decimate a 2 block area when you have 40 blocks of 'greenspace' to the west and northwest? If you want to add 'presence', just spruce up the urban prairie that is La Villa.
What he should be focusing on is adding infill that will compliment the 'design' of the courthouse and generate foot traffic on the surrounding blocks. Any money that could have been spent on his idea would be better spend on developing the plaza area in front of the courthouse. Busy sidewalks and a well used public plaza will do far more to add to the presence of the courthouse than even the world's best greenspace would do. This isn't Disney World, and it's not the southside. Sweeping vistas are out of place and inefficient for an urban environment. Save that self aggrandizement and irresponsibility for areas of lower density (read: the Acosta campus).
fsujax
January 24, 2011, 09:46:01 AMDo we know who that quote is from? I agree the last thing we need is more green space Downtown right now!
Gravity
January 24, 2011, 10:08:00 AMI am going to once again chime in and say the concept that is held as "downtown" is outdated. You can say this was "done in a matter of a few years" but businesses followed demand. If we cannot evolve our concepts of what should comprise a downtown and continue the attempts to revive dying models we are chasing our own tails.
Jacksonville's solutions need to be unique to meet the challenges we alone posses, not cobbled together from solutions to other cities and challenges that may look and seem similar at a glance. It is time to Jacksonville to rise with an identity of its own.
A public transportation system needs to transport people to places where people actually need to go. While this should be basic and obvious, the bus/monorail system is designed around hubs that do not serve this fundamental.
A downtown-centric view is, while honorable in ideal, outdated. We need to look to the future, not the past. Downtown will only thrive if it is viably connected with the thriving parts of the city. Right now it is not. Art walk and other events show the potential and demand for culture in the city, but will remain isolated incidents if solutions for parking and/or transportation are not met.
stephendare
January 24, 2011, 10:16:33 AMThis sounds like a series of chestnuts. Very modern, Im sure.
Do tell what you think is 'outdated' about a centrally organized development pattern? Is it the billions of dollars less in public infrastructure that you don't like or is it the efficient use of resources and the greater diversity that it causes?
Gravity
January 24, 2011, 10:42:02 AMMy basic point is that focusing revival efforts to 60 or so square blocks of a huge city, maybe 10 - 20 that ever actually housed this romantic "walkable" ideal, and 2 or 3 adjoining neighborhoods is myopic at best.
This would maybe, after the billions in investment recommended by an organization that is basically an investment club, house a city that Jacksonville was at a time being painted idyllic which never truly existed. This would not and does not fit the needs of the current city.
This isnt centrally organized, this is disjointedly organized and focused around sections of town that have UNIQUE problems which are being ignored or cobbled over with solutions that other cities have devised. Larger cities, which we supposedly want to be, create larger problems with the diversity and shared resources you claim to represent. If we are ignoring the problems we have now, what does that bode for this "future central planning"?
Altruism and Efficiency should include everyone, not just fellow investors. There are already areas of town where businesses have developed these things that government have failed to do. So I guess what I am against is the forced nature of your fixation, not the ideals you claim to represent. Here is a tip going forward, automatically responding to anything that isn't lockstep with your recommendations reveal your bias.
Are we re-building Jacksonville as it was in some mythical bygone era, or looking to the future?
stephendare
January 24, 2011, 10:44:56 AMCare to back any of that up with real life data?
Im also interested in how creating all white 'nodes' like Deerwood and all black 'nodes' like Moncrief that are separated by 17 miles in the same city contributes to 'diversity'?
The only billions of dollars invested for a private investment firm, are the ones which the taxpayers are forced to spend on highways and transit corridors to connect these 'nodes'. I wonder if you wouldnt mind addressing the Modern way to make that billions of dollars seem less like money?
thelakelander
January 24, 2011, 10:49:14 AMI actually agree with this, although I do believe we stand to learn a lot of what to and what not to do, from peer cities, in implementing a variety of concepts and plans within our own unique environment.
An example would be mass transit. While the system should be set up to uniquely serve Jacksonville's environment, we can learn from other places like Little Rock or Nashville on how to design a cost effective system.
Another example would be Savannah. You don't have to copy their squares and architecture but we can apply the successful concepts of clustering complementing uses together to stimulate synergy and vibrancy within a compact setting.
stephendare
January 24, 2011, 10:51:26 AMI agree with some parts of it as well. Identity, proper planning for transit etc. But very interested in this whole 'downtown centric' is 'outdated' opinion.
awaiting the response eagerly.
thelakelander
January 24, 2011, 10:56:48 AMMy assumption is that many view downtown as an isolated environment instead of realizing its only a part of a much larger network of communities. What happens in a forgotten neighborhood like New Springfield, Eastside, Tallyrand or Durkeeville also has an impact on the ultimate potential of downtown in general. While many are only focused on the "walkable downtown core", there is a need to look at the entire preconsolidated city as a whole.
Ocklawaha
January 24, 2011, 11:01:02 AMNo matter if you tore down the ENTIRE building fabric of downtown and turned it into a suburban golf course, the geography and dynamics of the St. Johns River will still dictate that the cows cross at the ford DOWNTOWN. This part of the city was planned by GOD!
OCKLAWAHA
Captain Zissou
January 24, 2011, 11:12:24 AMWhere are these areas of town you speak of?
Gravity
January 24, 2011, 11:17:04 AMClearly the entire city's decision to live, work and play elsewhere is not enough data for you. Clearly the various walkable towncenters should not count as viable resource and centers around which to plan. Places with ample parking should be shunned.
Clearly the empty monorail cars and trolley lines, increasingly vacant buildings and green spaces are just screaming of people's ignorance to embrace something modern.
Once again, business have supplied solutions that government has not. Downtown is disintegrating because you are trying to fit downtown into the same footprint that existed 20 - 30 even 40 years ago, when the city was much smaller. This is the future you are trying to sell? Refusing to grow with the city will only continue to hamper any real progress.
Whatever you manage to revive out of downtown with artificial injection of resources and development ( roundabouts, anyone?) will only take away from what a viable connection to the city would provide. This requires an integrated plan that involves the entire city. Until that happens... well... what more data do you need?
stephendare
January 24, 2011, 11:21:33 AMhttp://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-apr-when-downtowns-policies-went-to-the-southside
ah. So you clearly think that someone waved the magic 'outdated' wand which caused everyone to strike out for the towncenters, and that it has nothing to do with very bad downtown specific policies?
Clearly such specific policies are not the cause of a singular kind of downtown failure, right?
But Im still interested in how you plan to pay for all this sprawl? And why you think its ok for everyone else to come up with billions of dollars to support your very modern 'node pattern' development.
Still interested in how you keep it from becoming a centrifuge for ethno/economic separation, but hey, I understand if you don't want to answer that.
Captain Zissou
January 24, 2011, 11:28:32 AMI find this humorous, so thanks for that.
I can't be sure, but I think you may be including SJTC in your list of 'Walkable Town Centers'. Please, explain to me how that place is in any way walkable?? You may also be including Tapestry Park. How would that be considered a walkable neighborhood when you consider that if you want anything other than Jimmy Johns, running shoes, or a steak dinner you have to drive in your car??
'downtown', as you perceive it, is not downtown at all. Downtown is the core and the 4 or 5 urban neighborhoods surrounding it. To isolate one from the other is impossible. The core would be nothing without those neighborhoods and they would be nothing without the core.
thelakelander
January 24, 2011, 11:32:03 AMI've always viewed the urban core as basically being the preconsolidated city of Jacksonville.
There is notable difference in the environment of this network of neighborhoods and the rest of the city/county.
Gravity
January 24, 2011, 11:37:10 AMThere is always going to be ethno/economic separations. Thinking that everyone is always going to live together in peace and harmony is kind of silly.
Why does crime and other undesirable elements always follow subsidized housing? This is a much greater debate than i was attempting to get involved in, but the answer also follows myopic centralized planning that does nothing to bring people together with real solutions.
Why do people with means flee from gunshots? Thats pretty basic. No amount of central planning is going to stop that kind of behavior, unless you put up tolls to keep people from moving away, which is equally absurd. But you never know, fines for suburban living might just be the solution
If you want downtown to thrive, connect it to what thrives. There has to be a lifeline. A simple suggestion for what I was seeing as a noble but unreal visualization of what this city can be. The cure is not more of the cause.
Gravity
January 24, 2011, 11:39:24 AMAnd if you want to get downtown from most of these neighborhoods you have to drive in your car.
Captain Zissou
January 24, 2011, 11:46:06 AMI lived in San Marco for 15 months and probably drove 'downtown' 5 times. I probably walked, biked, or rode the skyway 70+ times. I currently live in riverside and bike up the riverwalk to reach downtown...
If I may, what part of town do you live in and what do you frequent? What is your favorite restaurant or nightlife venue?
stephendare
January 24, 2011, 11:46:42 AMah, but your suggested cure is what killed the downtown in the first place.
all downtown needs is to have the anti business policies removed and to have zoning restored which allows people to live there easily. Trust me, your neighborhoods would not survive the special laws and policies in effect downtown.
In the final analysis, Downtown will always be the center because of things that actually matter in the greater scheme of things. Roads, River, Rail and Bridges all meet in Downtown. That can't be changed by a lifestyle option.
Downtown's problems are 100 percent artificially created. It will be billions of dollars less expensive to remove the artificially inhibiting policies than it would be to 'redevelop', on this we agree.
But abandoning sensible planning and the idea of a 'downtown' because a couple of suburbanites think 'downtowns are so...so....outdated, would be as catastrophically expensive as it has already proven to be for the past 30 years.
Its not that I disagree that there are and should be regional 'nodes'. That is part of the pattern of development that was the intended consequences of zoning theories that were instituted in the early part of the last century during the Progressive Movement. Which makes your 'outdated' comment a bit more ironic.
In fact I would say that the resurgence of urbanism under the moniker of 'new urbanism' is proof more and more that the decentralized, low density, node based model of the Victorian Progressives is finally gasping out of breath on its way to outdatedness.
TheProfessor
January 24, 2011, 11:49:53 AMI don't see why the city allowed so many parking gargages to be built that lack any architectural intention?
Gravity
January 24, 2011, 12:11:58 PMOnce again, the size, scope and breadth of the "urban core" is what i was referring to as being outdated. Many zoning laws need to be revisited in the surrounding neighborhoods if something like an urban core reflecting the size of city we are becoming would be constructed. The river poses quite a barrier but creative solutions that are accessible to more people need to be thought out.
I used to live in riverside and walk/bike to work as much as I could despite the unfriendly walk/bike paths. It was always worth it to make my way to the river-walk. I tried doing this with my family as well, but there are issues which i refer to being ignored... these issues are not being solved. I loved the ideas of the trolleys, routes for people who live and work a vast improvement on the comical central node switchover. But momentum is still slow because the focus is to narrow.
My job has moved to the southside. Southpoint, which is a huge business hub and is no more friendly to pedestrians and bikes than downtown, perhaps less even. It could equally benefit from the same solutions for commuters, would easily fit inside a swath of land with downtown that larger cities would call their Urban Core and contribute to a more thriving business/living/entertainment environment which is said to be the goal. To bring these kind of modernizations to downtown is a great first step, but need to be part of a larger plan of modernizing the entire city.
Ocklawaha
January 24, 2011, 12:43:16 PMCrime Stats AT THE PRIME OSBOURNE and a 1/3 mile radius around the PO.
7/24/2010 - 1/24/2011
Description Count
Assault / Battery 3
Burglary
Burglary / Other 1
Burglary / Residential 0
Burglary / Vehicle 1
Murder 0
Robbery 0
Sex Offenses
Lewd/Lascivious/Exposure 0
Sexual Battery 0
Theft
Theft 9
Theft / Vehicle 2
Vandalism 2
103-Blanding Bl. West side suburban Jacksonville
7/24/2010 - 1/24/2011
Description Count
Assault / Battery 10
Burglary
Burglary / Other 2
Burglary / Residential 0
Burglary / Vehicle 2
Murder 1
Robbery 3
Sex Offenses
Lewd/Lascivious/Exposure 0
Sexual Battery 0
Theft
Theft 30
Theft / Vehicle 1
Vandalism 4
ANY QUESTIONS?
OCKLAWAHA
Gravity
January 24, 2011, 12:49:36 PMwhat is the radius of the lower statistic set?
thelakelander
January 24, 2011, 09:25:12 PMFound my old Sanborn/Jax City Directory notes. Here are a couple of businesses that were located at 523 West Forsyth over several decades.
1920 - Purity Milk Company
1940 - Cunningham Furniture Company Shipping Department
1950 - Crow Furniture Company
1960 - Crow Furniture Company
Looking at the building's openings, you can tell the second floor was connected to the main Cunningham Furniture building that once sat on the surface parking lot next door.
heights unknown
January 24, 2011, 09:29:19 PMha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and a big ole LOL! You guys need to stop cause you're killing me; scared white people.......but that was a part of it I believe.......too many blacks creeping up in the urban core so they ran to the suburbs. Didn't last long as blacks started moving out there too. Well, glad that part of America's history is over and we all pretty much live together and all of us are trying to just get along!
Ocklawaha
January 24, 2011, 10:21:11 PMBoth are 1/3 mile radius, sorry I didn't make that more clear y'all. Funny thing is about 8 months ago some national magazine listed LaVilla-Brooklyn as the most dangerous place in Florida, but your FAR SAFER walking alone there then you are almost anywhere else in the city. Perhaps this is the same "national authority," that told us "Fruit Cove Florida," had suffered more insurance and finance job losses then any other city... Well DUH, the ONE INSURANCE SALESMAN that lived in Fruit Cove has moved to WGV! Makes you wonder sometimes...
OCKLAWAHA
dougskiles
January 25, 2011, 06:52:41 AMGreat debate! Gravity, I am very happy to see you join this board, because even though it appears most don't agree with your opinions, it thrives because of the ability to express a dissenting opinion. Nothing strengthens a case more than being tested by opposing views.
In response to:
This is something I hear frequently and used to say myself before I started riding it. Now I take it from San Marco just about everytime I go downtown. Rarely am I alone. If I go during the morning and evening 'rush' hour it is often standing room only. Granted, it is grossly underutilized. But that is because the system was never finished. A simple extension further into San Marco (across the railroad tracks) would significantly increase ridership because people are always getting stuck by the train. Also, connecting it with a streetcar system downtown would make it just one more part of a functional transit system. Because of the river, it is about the only functional way for a fixed transit system to connect the north to the south. Connecting it with a commuter rail system would enhance it further.
I agree with your points that the existing suburban nodes need to be considered in the discussion. There need to be more local services in these areas so those who live there don’t need to drive as far to get them. Having mini-town centers in each is a great solution.
The issue is that we have spent billions on roads to make the suburban development possible and that perhaps we don’t need to spend any more contributing to it. We should instead focus on transportation alternatives that are less expensive to build, less expensive to operate, and less expensive for the user. This type of a system will promote a more urban development pattern in the future. But that doesn’t mean the suburbanites will have to move into the urban core. It just means that people will have a viable choice as to the lifestyle they want. Up until now, all the city and state agencies have done is promote suburban, automobile-centric living. We simply can’t afford to continue that.
stephendare
January 25, 2011, 07:41:59 AMAbsolutely! Welcome to the forums incidentally. Gravity your points are well articulated and logically presented, you make a great addition to our discourse.
peestandingup
January 25, 2011, 08:05:57 AMBut see, man thinks he was put here by God to be able to do whatever he wants & that we're masters of the universe.
And give it enough time, Ock. I'm sure the city planners will find a way to divert the river & run it out to the suburbs.
Overstreet
January 25, 2011, 08:26:34 AMI think the cows don't cross the river in downtown any more. They probably cross via truck on the Shands bridge.
Ocklawaha
January 25, 2011, 10:27:15 AMAll joking aside, if you park yourself along I-95 in south Duval, all the way out to I-10 in west Duval about April and just watch, the cattle trucks from Texas and Oklahoma will be hot and heavy moving the herds back to the tall grass prairie for the summer. Oh, and yes, they pass over the Fuller Warren, no kidding.
OCKLAWAHA
stjr
January 30, 2011, 09:37:56 PMUp to $75 for a bicycle in 1901 (per the Metropolis ad featured in the article). Adjusted for inflation, that's one heck of a bike!
I would say that every notable city in the world has an identifiable core with characteristics that stand for the identity of the metropolitan area surrounding it. Unfortunately, this is working all too well with our downtown. Ours reflects failures in planning, lack of vision, absence of creativity, conservatism, a disdain for history, worship of the automobile over mass transit, a desire for quick fixes that don't stand the test of time, superficiality over substance, a lack of regard for quality of life, little emphasis on the value of higher education, and an overall inability to execute successfully on a community wide basis.
If we want people to think the very best of Jacksonville, downtown will have to address all of the above and project a sense of vibrancy, energy, culture, enthusiasm, team work, forward-thinking, interconnectiveness, and great leadership. Until it does, we will remain more backwater than uptown. I think we all see the potential but no one has been able to stop the downward spiral of downtown since the end of WWII. There are lots of reasons but it's time to learn from lessons of the past and successes by others and move forward. Who will lead us to the "promised land"?