What if Jacksonville suddenly woke up?

[stephendare]

I believe the Laura Street Trio buildings are from an earlier decade and era.  The Rhodes Building may have been the last highrise built before the Great Depression and while the Barnett, Carling and others are from the same time period, the Rhodes was probably Jacksonville's best example of Chicago School highrise architecture.

Nevertheless, as far as the new library goes, the bad part of the design is that every elevation of the building, other than the front, was evidently an afterthought.  The design has rendered the retail spaces across the Monroe and Duval Street as dead zones.  A good traditional or contemporary design would have found a way to work with those streets as well. 

My dream scenerio would have been a project that keep the old buildings on that block and placed the library on surface parking lot block, like the one the pocket park and Salvation Army occupy.

exactly lake.

it was also the last Florida Land Boom Building
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/072501/met_history.html

[stephendare]

We would be more like Boston than Birmingham.
We would have culture out the wazoo and still be a great working seaport.
We would have a massive convention center on the river,
a clean river.
You don't need an aquarium when you  protect your river and ocean.
You could send your kid to the neighborhood school,
and know that the most ambitious students will go to the Ivy League if they want,
or to a Florida university for free, but any graduate will be able to earn a living wage and raise a family, and stay.
We would produce and attract the same caliber music and performers as Nashville, Atlanta, Athens or Seattle.
 Heartbreak Hotel , Lift Every Voice and Sing, and Gimme Three Steps
were written in Jacksonville, or by people from here.
The train terminal would be a beautiful multimodal station.
You could kayak up Hogan's Creek.
Your children could walk to Sunday school downtown from Springfield without fear,
you could impress  your friends visiting from Barcelona or Brooklyn,and  you could
go hunting or throw a cast net if you wanted.
It would not matter if you were materially rich or poor, there is no other place you would want to live.

 

These are such awesome additions

[thelakelander]

We would be more like Boston than Birmingham.

We could be more like Birmingham too.  They're getting ready to spend $33 million to construct a starter streetcar line that will connect all of their inner city attractions and downtown neighborhoods together.

[stephendare]

Then by all means lets get started doing the same thing.

What does it take?  Petitions?

Referendums?

[Ocklawaha]

will connect all of their inner city attractions and downtown neighborhoods together.

I'm afraid unless someone bellys up to to the bar, the above statement answers it for Jacksonville... "inner city attractions". Okay, NAME 10 that would make you pull off the freeway. We simply have to put the boot to the hind quarters of certain people in City Hall. The AIA plans for Randolph sound fantastic, but I didn't see a soul there willing to ante-up. I bet the TOD thing is all Socialism Crap that somehow got mixed up with TOD ONLY IN THE PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF JACKSONVILLE! The Transit Authority doesn't buy and build TOD's, that is the private sectors job, thus DEVELOPMENT as in tax money, income, jobs, returns. All this BRT hype about tearing down old shopping centers for a bus station with a laundry mat and news stand is pure BULL. Real transit will bring about real TOD. Likewise, something very cool would get folks out of their cars and downtown. A few we've mentioned...

Negro League HOME Phillip Randolph-Pullman Porter-Red Cap Museum
Heritage Streetcar Line WITH museum (see I put it number 3)
New Landing
Bay Street Station
Southern Fried Rock Hall of fame
giant fish tank
maritime museum
Seminole game center

Which of the above are active?

OCKLAWAHA

[stephendare]

Well now Ock, we do have some really cool things in our inner city.

1.  The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra.
2.  Jennifer Johnson and Preston Haskell's awesome private collections on loan to the Museum of Contemporary Art.
3.  One of the six repositories of the finest document collection in the world, The Karpeles Museum.
4. The Friday Musicale Music Hall in Riverside.
5.  The Veteran's Arena
6.  The Stadium which is also the home playing field of and NFL franchise team, the Jaguars.
7.  The Five Points Bohemian District.
8.  The Riverwalk, especially during fireworks displays.
9.  The Pavillion at Metropolitan Park, especially during performances and festivals.
10.  The Florida Theatre and its programming of vintage films and Concerts.

[Charleston native]

Stephen, thank you for posting some positive things about the city. At times, it can be discouraging for me to read some of these posts as I hope to live down there.

[Ocklawaha]

THanks Stephen, you've just named 10 great reasons to build my streetcar line as the neck-piece on this string of pearls. I hope JTA is watching, and Mr. Peyton? How about you? With the Skyway and the Streetcar we would be the only city in the world where Buck Rogers Transit, meets Mr. Hardy and Mr. Tom Mix.


Ocklawaha

[jrtmom]

And we have a number of great parks too!  In my neck of the woods we have Confederate - with the beautiful Women of the South sculpture and the rose arbor...not to mention the Springfield Dog Park!  And Klutho, with the bandstand, the ball field, the fountain....and those two are just a small part of the near-downtown parks.  What about the Treaty Oak??  Lots of cool stuff all walkable. 

[downtownparks]

Your right JRT. Another great park that is vastly underused is A Phillip Randolph Park. It was done well, but spends much of its time locked up, or being used as a social services handout point.

With the nice little performing area, how about free-form jazz fridays, or big brother big sister weekly gatherings to use the playgorunds.

Sadly Oakland park and Liberty Park have been pretty well destroyed at this point, but if we could get some positivity back in the parks, it would be huge. In fact, if you were to focus much of the at risk youth efforts in the parks, you would probably reach a far greater number of kids earlier.

[stephendare]

I'm afraid unless someone bellys up to to the bar, the above statement answers it for Jacksonville... "inner city attractions". Okay, NAME 10 that would make you pull off the freeway.

[stephendare]

Some say, "Jacksonville is a diamond that wants to remain coal". What would it be like if Jacksonville were a city that didn’t hate itself... led by people who acknowledged its achievements?
Here are a few things that possibly would have happened in New York, Rome, London Paris, Seattle, or San Francisco if the leaders that made them into Great Cities had been given our city and history.

The George Washington Hotel on Adams Street, would be the premier boutique hotel in downtown, instead of the surface parking lot it is today.

The Southern Music Hall of Fame would be open and full to capacity somewhere in downtown. Molly Hatchet, Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers would have exhibits there and all the music aficionados would know a history of the Southern music and the Jacksonville music scene.

A statue of Ray Charles would stand in the perfectly preserved and popular bar where he first played soul piano and blues in the South.

There would be another museum of Black Film commemorating the achievements of black filmmakers here in Jacksonville.

Peterbrookes, The Loop Pizza and the Chicken Coop would all have gigantic headquarters in the center of town that rivaled the marooned Cruise Ship of a Building that Preston Haskell's company erected to itself on Riverside Avenue. There would be standing lines for tours of Sally Industry.

Blaire Woolverton would have her own cable show and Jake Godbold would have a cookbook.

Ray Mason would have an Institute where international finance and Arabic trade principles were taught, studied and debated. People would know who Raymond Mason was, and have no fucking clue who Craig Van Horn was.

When the Jacksonville Film Festival opened every year, Josh Skierski and Chad Hendricks would be the Emcees and Rita Manyette would be the Gala Hostess.

Mandarin would have a trolley tour of the famous writers who lived there over the past century. And even white people would know that Zora Neal Hurston lived here.

People would know who Zora Neal Hurston was.

There would be tours of the Confederate monuments and rubbings over the gravestones at the Confederate Graveyard in the Old City Cemetery.

People would be patriotic about Maxwell House. It would have a string of successful cafes all over town.

Jacksonville Tars and the Negro League’s Jacksonville Redcap’s throwback jerseys, would be available at any given local sporting goods store.

Matt Carlucci would have been Mayor and John Peyton would be president of the Chamber of Commerce.

There would be a Maritime Museum on the riverfront celebrating the many nautical elements of Jacksonville's History.

Old Stanton would be a Music Conservatory which offered a scholarship in the name of the writer of "Lift every Voice and Sing" The River City Band would be housed there.

The Jewish Center and graveyard would have signs on the bridges and highways to point out the gigantic and culturing effect that Jewish people had on Jacksonville, an unexpectedly tolerant and welcoming home in a time and country that met them everywhere else with fear and loathing.

 



Brochures would direct people to the bohemian district in Five Points, the Gay Mecca at Park and King and the real cracker cooking in the nationally rated southern restaurants of the Northside.


Noel Freidline would be a rich man with a big Jazz Club that he owned somewhere on the Riverwalk.

Marabanong would be a famously discussed historical feature on the Jacksonville tour.

Someone would have said "Thanks" to John Currington for resurrecting San Marco.

Or Lex Hester.

There would be a monument and perhaps a college marking the Landing of Protestant French Huguenots, and you could buy well-researched books about their history here.

There would be reenactments of pirate clipper attacks on the Ortega River, and the locals would brag about which French or English pirate they were descended from.

The Great Black Way would have curio shops and little plastic bubbles with glitter in them swirling round Duke Ellington and Billy Holiday performing at the Ritz, and Klutho's Balustrade would be lit at night so that lovers could walk past the moonlit canal along Hogan's Creek.

There would be bronze statues of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Bill Pickett (the famous black cowboy from Norman Studios in Arlington), Tom Mix and Oliver Hardy (of Laurel and Hardy) on the Riverwalk instead of the goofy jogger?

There would be a big Barbeque festival on Main Street every year and people would come from miles around to check out a hundred million recipes for ribs and collard greens.

It would create an interesting and colorful course that teaches our history and the cities issues and require that it be taught to all 7th graders.

The architecture wouldn’t have to be studied from old postcards and books with crossed out black and white photos with the word "demolished" stamped across them.

The urban population would have increased faster adding to the corporate scrapers due to the less restrictive city policy and would make Jacksonville the premier city in Florida if not the southeast.

The sports venues would have been built into the urban fabric allowing neighboring establishments to feed off of the activity.

We would have an iconic courthouse and a bustling government district.

We would have a multi-use convention center producing activity 24-7.

The surrounding neighborhoods would all be connected to the core via a comprehensive network of commuter, light rail or skyway lines.

Visitors to the city would have a multitude of way finding signs leading to attractions, parking, and districts.

Tourist visiting the area wouldn't leave town without making a trip over to the energetic and cultural diverse Jacksonville Farmer's Market District, which connects downtown with historic Durkeeville.



There would be a permanent exhibit of Joe La Rose's shoes at the City hall or perhaps the LaVilla School of the Arts and students would host John Fluevog competitions for shoe design every year.

Downtown would be full of Paparazzi following the exploits of Jacksonville's unbelievably accomplished Spoken Word Royalty.

Al Letson, Liz Straight, David Pugh Allan Justiss, Jon Reich, Valerie Anthony, Christina Wagner, Lee Harvey, and Iain Mairs would be household names. The Mayor would know them all, and they would be able to make a living with speaking engagements.

But we don't have those things.

They are too 'low class', too 'black' and too 'southern'.

Instead we have consultants telling us how to appear more like Indianapolis or Louisville.

If we wanted to be Indianapolis or some other place...

But we don't have a "Jacksonville".

[stephendare]

There would also be a tribute to A Phillip Randolph and a connection to the Pullman company.

[Ocklawaha]

There would also be a tribute to A Phillip Randolph and a connection to the Pullman company.

Correction if I may friend Stephendare.

There would also be a Civil Rights Museum, a tribute to A. Phillip Randolph, tied to a Pullman themed railroad museum which leads to the Porters and the RED CAPS, which directs our visitors on to watch our new RED CAPS play ball in the Baseball Gounds of Jacksonville, "BIRTHPLACE OF THE NEGRO LEAGUES".

Oh and our Huguenot arch would span a freeway and not unlike Welthauptstadt Germania, it would be an arch more than twice the size of the Arc de Triomphe

OCKLAWAHA

[stephendare]

thanks ock!