Walkable Districts: Edison Avenue

[Metro Jacksonville]

Walkable Districts: Edison Avenue



While much of the focus in our city is on downtown revitalization, Jacksonville's urban core and inner-ring suburbs are home to a number of long-overlooked, historic, walkable commercial districts. In our effort to promote better use of existing assets in our communities - which will facilitate sustainable growth and subsequently increase the city's tax base - Metro Jacksonville highlight's North Riverside's Edison Avenue.


Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-nov-walkable-districts-edison-avenue

[Adam W]

One of my good friends in high school lived in Lackawanna. His dad was a veterinarian and ran his practice over there, too. I also briefly had a job in the area in college, working at Pure Ice of the South, Inc.

I love the area. Sure, it needs a bit of work and would benefit from an influx of new residents, but it definitely has the bare bones for being an up and coming neighborhood.

Jacksonville has so many of the great little "lost" neighborhoods that you'd never really know about - that's one thing I love about this website. And that's one of the things I love about mandatory busing and going to school on the Northside. I got to see places I never would've known existed.

[Noone]

Thanks again for the history of Jacksonville. Is this area inside or outside the new DIA zone?

[thelakelander]

It's outside of the DIA boundaries.

[mbwright]

If you ever need an electric motor rebuilt, or serviced, or need a used one, the Jacksonville Electric Motor Exchange in the first picture is a good place to go.  They have been there forever.

[jaxlore]

I bike home that way once or twice a week. In the morning there are too many big trucks. Cool to see this article there are some neat buildings back there.

[cline]

I had no idea that the Gateway Community Services used to be a Holiday Inn.  Just checked it out on Google maps and the current structures very much resemble the rendering in this article.  Very interesting.

[fieldafm]

I had no idea that the Gateway Community Services used to be a Holiday Inn.  Just checked it out on Google maps and the current structures very much resemble the rendering in this article.  Very interesting.

Not only was that a Holiday Inn for a long time, the current FDOT building next door used to house an insurance company.

[urbanlibertarian]

The residential development of the area north of Riverside and south of McCoy’s Creek began during this period with the platting of several new subdivisions.  B.H. Gandy filed the first recorded new subdivision in the area following the Great Fire of 1901 in 1905.  Brinkley H. Gandy had resided on a large parcel fronting the Highway (Edison Avenue) which was an important thoroughfare connecting Downtown Jacksonville with rural southwest Duval County and Clay County via the Black Creek Road (Lennox Avenue).

This is the first time I've heard of the Highway (Edison Ave.) and the Black Creek Road (Lennox Ave.).  I believe Park St. and Roosevelt Blvd. are what was originally the Orange Park Road.  Do we know if the southern end of the Black Creek Road became Blanding Blvd?  Just curious.

[Nightman_Cometh]

A lot of neat little houses back in there as well.  And yeah, sure its walkable, but who really wants to walk back there??

[Ocklawaha]

Edison was originally known as "Electric Avenue," which was a take from the Jacksonville Traction Company's streetcar line. The streetcars ran as the "Electric Avenue, Seaboard Lackawanna Shops" line. From the car barn (located where the Skyway maintenance facility is today) the route ran down Riverside to Electric and followed Electric to Mc Duff. Running north on McDuff the cars turned onto Warrington and went about one block west to the entrance of the railroad shops.

Driving Edison is cool not only because of the building stock, it's curving footprint, and a lack of traffic signals date back to the streetcar era.

You've just got to wonder how much insurance money the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad demanded for the streetcars to cross their tracks.

[thelakelander]

A lot of neat little houses back in there as well.  And yeah, sure its walkable, but who really wants to walk back there??

Less than 10 years ago, not many would want to walk down King Street either.  The point of the article would be exposing this area as something that exists and that could be salvageable.

[BackinJax05]

Edison, like Phoenix (featured in another article), both have so much potential to be great neighborhoods again. They both also had streetcar lines. Both are very close to downtown, and both were once self sufficient, blue collar communities.

If only there was a way to bring them back. Investing in these areas to retain existing and attract new industry wouldnt hurt. Putting the streetcars back or adding light rail wouldnt hurt, either.

If only...

[thelakelander]

They can be brought back to vibrant life.  However, judging from some of the comments on 220 Riverside, it will mean overcoming a mindset in this city where investing in neighborhoods like this are a waste of time.  For some reason, we rather avoid these places and spend a billion on building a new highway for new growth 20 miles outside of downtown.

[BackinJax05]

^Which makes no sense, because in these older areas the infrastructure is already in place - even if the neighborhood doesnt look so good on the surface.