Farewell to the Jacksonville Jewish Center

[Timkin]

Plenty of people care and would see it spared.. The BOZOS within the city are ones that do not care.... If we do not clean house within the functions of the city government, this trend will ,sadly, continue

[iloveionia]

And did the "neighborhood" organization, SPAR, champion for salvage?

[Timkin]

anyone want to place some bets on this? I am betting not

[peestandingup]

I think this is the fastest the city has ever acted on anything.  They tore it down less than 10 days after it burned??  Who owns the property now, the city?  If so, they need to clean up their mess and get the site ready for an RFP for development.  That's a great location with a lot of potential.

The city does not own this property. It is owned by a private company. With a huge lien on the property now..

It was also insured....

Typical city mentality.. I mean, I sort of get that it was very suddenly structurally unstable ,but I do not see any good reason some parts of it were not salvaged. Just makes zero sense.  

It is almost as if it is a deliberate motive in this city to mow down anything that is historic or important and replace it with a dirt lot or a strip mall .

My mom told me once about her aunt, who was born in the early 1900s. They lived on a huge piece of property in Georgia and had a 100+ year old home, in good shape. When mom was in her 20s, her aunts were so excited - they were finally tearing down "that old place" and building a state-of-the-art 1970s era ranch style home!

That's the mentality I think of when I think about Jacksonville. Get rid of this "old stuff" and get it out of here. Although I know this building was seriously unsound after the fire, it's still a shame that every piece of it seems to be headed for the dump. The bigger shame is that nobody in town cares, for the most part.

The city of Jacksonville has zero, and I mean zero, respect for their history. It's so obvious looking back & up to this point. They probably couldn't wait to knock this building down & were likely just looking for an excuse. Same as every other "old" structure. They've still got the 60s & 70s mentality of "new is better".

It's a poisonous way to look at things these days & is the reason why Jax is so behind the times. The city planners are completely out of touch. Completely. They're probably all old men who still dream of that suburban home with the white picket fence & the wife at home letting an apple pie cool on the windowsill.

And did the "neighborhood" organization, SPAR, champion for salvage?

Do they ever?? Boy, to be a "preservation" group, you never hear a peep from them regarding these things. But hey, if you wanna know about a block party or what some national publication said about urban living (that has nothing to do with Jax), then they're all over it.

They're useless.

[Timkin]

+1

[stjr]

It's pretty clear from the photos that there were some worthwhile and salvageable architectural details on this building.  If nothing else, I would think members of the congregation would have liked to have had a chance to pick through some of these "pieces" to save some mementos of their past.  I see parts of old buildings incorporated into new structures or locations all the time.  Just look at the Heard National Bank/Florida Title Building columns saved and used at the Times Union Center.

Once again, a total lack of vision and creativity.  Typical Jax.

[lucinda]

Is there an organization other than SPAR that can be contacted about saving some of the material from the building?  It seems that at the very least some of the brick could be salvaged for neighborhood projects.  I know that its been done a bit already on the down low, but it would be nice if something could be organized so that the material could be stored someplace to be used for upcoming projects. 

[Timkin]

Seems like the Library downtown had some pieces incorporated into its decor?

If the whole building is just going to a landfill, why can't anyone just help themselves?

[Bativac]

Seems like the Library downtown had some pieces incorporated into its decor?

If the whole building is just going to a landfill, why can't anyone just help themselves?

I had the same question. Can't we just go load up the pickup with a couple cool pieces of an old building?

[Timkin]

Guess as long as you did not get caught don't see why not.. assuming there is anything left

[Miss Fixit]

The facade of this building should (and could) have been saved.

Typically, when the City of Jacksonville hires a demolition contractor that contractor has the right to any materials resulting from the demolition.  The City could always revise their contract to require that the demolition contractor salvage certain elements of a building but obviously that was not done in this case - I have seen reports published (by SPAR) that Burkhalter Wrecking (the demolition contractor in this case) will be offering materials from the Jewish Center for sale.

[Lunican]

As you can see from the photos, the architectural details have been painstakingly inventoried and preserved so I'm sure anything that goes missing will be noticed immediately...

[Timkin]

Duly noted

[danno]

Just drove past and the designs above the doors are now gone.

[Timkin]

Danno are there any of the cool pieces displayed in Dan's Pictures , laying around?  just curious.