Downtown Frankenstein: The Thunderlizard Years

[Metro Jacksonville]

Downtown Frankenstein:  The Thunderlizard Years

  The Thunderlizard Years.   In previous articles we have discussed the rise of Jacksonville as a  bustling metropolis whose heart and soul, like those of every city before the  20th Century, was located in its hot glowing center.   Downtown.   Big Shopping Conglomerates, glass enshrined temples of corporate industry,  thousands of shops and merchants, tens of thousands of people in the streets day  and night.  Bars restaurants, theaters, dance and lecture halls, parks, sundry  shops and soda bars packed and lively with the concentrated energy, artistic  expression, intellectual life, and sexual congress of a city of hundreds of  thousands.

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http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/370

[Jason]

Alright, I'm hooked.  On with the dynamite!

[vicupstate]

I drove through Jax around 1985 on the way to Disney.  First exposure to the city.  Toll Bridge didn't leave a good impresssion.  Be glad they are gone.  Gas taxes or sales taxes just make more sense IMO.  They cost nothing additional to collect  (ie toll Workers)and they don't cause inconvenience and traffic jams, and the needless pollution from the traffic jams.  It is a solid accomplishment of his administration.

An even BIGGER accomplishment is that Hazouri got rid of the Paper Mill smell.  Without which,  Jax wouldn't have the Jags, the Super Bowl and god only knows what else.   Austin and Delaney built upon the necessary but not always popular accomplishments of Hazouri.  

I'm still waiting on Peyton to add his own contribution.      

[vicupstate]

If Hazouri had won a second term, instead of losing to Austin, we might still HAVE LaVilla intact.  No way to know for sure of course, but we do know we lost LaVilla under Austin's River City Renaissance program.   That said, many GOOD things came from Renaissance as well.    

[Lunican]

Vic... I'm not sure I understand the title of your comment "Hazouri comment untrue and unwarranted". Isn't the article speaking highly of the toll booth demolition?

[lindab]

I guess it shows my age(no smart remarks please)  but I well remember downtown in those years. My dad worked in one of the warehouses on the waterfront. It was a vibrant and bustling place then. Goods shipped in and trucked out were exchanged in those waterfront buildings. This maze of buildings close to rail lines employed many people as laborers, clerks, truckers and buyers. I worked there myself for several year before leaving Jax to go to college. The current CSX building, then Seaboard Coastline,  demolished most of the old wooden warehouse where I worked. The waterfront changed quickly after that. I can't say it is better or worse now, but more people worked there then, jobs employed many kinds of people. Uptown, away from the waterfront, the restaurants, shops, department stores were in full swing. People walked or rode a bus to those places. Gosh summers were hot but there was always a lemonade stand to get a cool drink. Does this sound corny? Sorry for the long post but your photos took me back -nostalgia time is hitting hard.

[vicupstate]

Most people today cannot name another single accomplishment of the Hazouri administration,

This is what I was referring to.  Both removing the tolls and the Odor were MAJOR in my mind.  This seemed to concede one relatively minor accomplishment.

[downtownparks]

It really is amazing... WHY was so much of Main St torn down? For Nothing no less. I mean, the river front properties, to some degree you can expect people to want to build newer, bigger, better, more, but Main St, and then do NOTHING with it? Very odd in my mind.