As a native of Jacksonville that actually greeted family and left on trains from Union Terminal in my formative years, this was a great effort to save the building. I still recall the musty smells of the tunnels and the feeling, and sound, of air releases from the trains.
I also recall picking up Sears Catalogue shipments with my parents at the REA Freight Terminal and mail from the West Bay Post Office Annex. Sad that all those buildings and/or remnants did not survive in some form.
A few minor tweaks/comments:
- It's Charlie Towers (add the "s"), a founder of the Rogers Towers law firm and whose family owned an area chain of hardware stores, Towers Hardware.
- As I recall, there was a competing bid to locate the convention center on the old Sears site where the Omni/Marriott/Enterprise Center buildings now sit. It was fun watching the City's normally aligned powers-that-be that controlled each site split into two competing groups, each trying to politically position themselves to win out.
-I attended the Ramses II exhibit in 1986 and have the exhibit catalogue sitting on my bookshelf to this day
. This was indeed a big coupe for Jacksonville, following the King Tut exhibition (which I also saw in Washington, DC, and have the catalogue for) 10 years earlier.
-I also was present as a citizen observer for the ribbon cutting of the Osborn Center in 1986.
