Lost Jacksonville: Wharves, Merchant Marines and Port

[Metro Jacksonville]

Lost Jacksonville:  Wharves, Merchant Marines and Port



Today, the majority of Jacksonville's water based industry is located north of the Hart Bridge.  During the mid 20th century, the downtown riverfront resembled cities like San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego and New York City.  A bustling district filled with wharfs, seafood markets, shipyards, and wholesale water-based industry.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-sep-lost-jacksonville-wharves-merchant-marines-and-port

[billy]

I can remember shipyards on both sides of the river.

[simms3]

One of my favorite articles ever, thanks!

[spalmer7]

Great photos, and a nice history lesson. BTW - it's Merchant Marine or Merchant Mariners, not "Merchant Marines"

[Dapperdan]

My grandmother used to go to Bay St  every Friday and buy fresh fish, since they were Catholic. She used to tell me how busy the street was. She was young then so she would always wonder around or watch people before getting the fish. She said it seemed to be so active back then.
  She then tells me she road home on the bus with the fish wrapped in newspapers. I am sure her bus companions loved her for this. Especially on summer days.

[duvaldude08]

Wow. Looks like CSX USED to be creative. That American flag thing is really neat. Now they have a sign you can barely read, and not mention it is not lit at night. But I dont believe they are finish. I just looked out the window and now they are putting the CSX up there. CSX is big, but the other words are way too small.

[Jumpinjack]

Love seeing those old photos. When I was a kid, my dad worked in a small office part of the Weisenfeld Warehouses which were where the CSX building is now. I used to go frequently with him to his office through a maze of salty, fishy smelling wharves and warehouses. The places were always bustling, lots of people, shipments of exotic fruits or more common ones like bananas piled on the loading docks. All kinds of people working there. Manatees in the water, dolphins swimming down the river, tarred pilings and noisy boat horns. It was wonderful and something I miss today.

[stjr]

Jax may have not been as "refined" in the past, but it sure looked a lot more vibrant.

I remember the CSX/ACL building with the American Flag light set up.  They used to do this as a backdrop for the Fourth of July fireworks.

Somewhere along the way, it looks like Baptist acquired some of Prudential's (now Aetna) riverfront property.

Now:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=jacksonville&sll=30.32527,-81.642152&sspn=0.014391,0.033023&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Jacksonville,+Duval,+Florida&ll=30.316979,-81.657815&spn=0.007196,0.016512&t=h&z=17 

Then:

[Timkin]

As always, Awesome pictorial of days gone by.  I really hate that so much was allowed to be destroyed , so that today we suffer with a nearly , by comparison to then , Urban core struggling to survive.


All in the name of progress

[iloveionia]

The port of Long Beach-Los Angeles looks similar to this (the old school pictures.)
http://www.polb.com/about/default.asp

[Ocklawaha]

DO THE MATH YOURSELF JACKSONVILLE!

TAKE THIS



INTRODUCE THIS

THE NATIONAL STEEL INTERSTATE RAIL PROGRAM
...The Gulf and Southwestern Line


The next line to roll out ... and under the system proposed below, each line begin rolling out the year after the previous one ... runs from Miami to Los Angeles via Jacksonville, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Tuscon, and Phoenix.

One thing this line focuses on is port traffic, which is why it starts at Miami, runs to Los Angeles, and runs through Mobile, New Orleans, and Houston (with junctions to Galveston).
SOURCE: http://www.steelinterstate.org/benefit/economic-dividends
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/7/843914/-Sunday-Train:-A-Nationwide-Freight-and-Passenger-Regional-HSR-System

AND PRODUCE THIS!



Not really mentioned in the article was that the place was a sea of railroad track, box cars, refers and switch engines. Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air line, Southern, Florida East Coast, Jacksonville Terminal, Municipal Docks and Terminal, Atlantic and East Coast Terminal, and Railway Express Agency all helped to create that roar.

Building the bulk of the Port out on Blount Island captive to CSX and NOTHING ELSE has every potential to shoot ourselves directly in our collective nether regions. BIG MISTAKE, BIG, HUGE! Part of the commercial attraction to the former downtown marine terminals was the ability of any shipper to control when, where, how and WITH WHOM their cargo would leave the terminal for it's ultimate destination.

When the Port reviews say that Jacksonville is WEAK in railroad transportation many scratch their heads and wonder WTF? CHOICE, THAT is WTF! This is what the Oriental Mega Corporation's are talking about when they say we "need a railroad yard." Actually if one looks at these photos, you will see we didn't need a "railroad yard" in the classic sense, just sidings for the customers and a couple of run-around or make-up tracks to build transfers or one customer "unit trains" (usually all one customer, one commodity, one destination, one type of rail car in a large enough quantity to make up a sold train).

The solution for today's maritime Jacksonville is to own all of the railroad trackage from Jacksonville Terminal northward to Springfield Yard (city already owns right-of-way but must rebuild track) and all of the CSX and NS trackage from Grand Crossing Eastward and from Commodore Point Northward to Yulee. Leased back to a new or current terminal company with reciprocal switching of all industries would blow the door off of our port. Every SS line in the world would love a warm water port, with easy access in three directions, by several railroad carriers and Interstates, without shippers needing to pay for redundant miles. GEE MARTHA? NOW WHERE MIGHT THAT BE?

DUH!



OCKLAWAHA

[Timkin]

Agree Ock!!

[ChriswUfGator]

So it seems that we managed to systemically dismantle the engines of commerce that fueled economic growth here, and now we're all wondering why the place is stagnant? The only thing keeping this place going since the 1990s was the Florida real estate boom, as it takes a lot of construction guys, roofers, contractors, mortgage people, office people, etc., to build all those McMansions. Now that that's dried up, it's hardly surprising we have the highest or second highest unemployment in the state. Looking at all this destruction of industry, we got rid of most of the actual jobs beginning in the 60s and 70s. And the city has been on the decline since then. Even the suburbs have suffered, look at Arlington and parts of Orange Park. Those areas aren't old enough to have suffered such a steep decline. Without the 2 military bases propping up our local economy, it would be even worse.

[redglittercoffin]

Some of you folks confuse me. 

I have a hard time believing that if these pictures were taken today, many of you would be decrying the destruction of one of our greatest natural resources here in Jax.  All I see in these pictures is buildings and a river with a nice oil sheen.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[ChriswUfGator]

Some of you folks confuse me. 

I have a hard time believing that if these pictures were taken today, many of you would be decrying the destruction of one of our greatest natural resources here in Jax.  All I see in these pictures is buildings and a river with a nice oil sheen.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

That "sheen" is just texture created by wind moving over the water and the sun refracting off of it.

And in any event, you should contact Riverkeeper and get some actual information on this subject. Our river is more polluted now that it has ever been, I have 3 dead fish and 6" worth of white chemical foam floating outside my living room window as we speak. The river is terrible now, but the tradeoff is we have a downtown comprised of nothing but parking lots, and no jobs to show for it. I'd take the original waterfront back in a heartbeat.

Had they just left it the hell alone, these things generally develop into commercial/tourist areas, look at Seattle.