Aerials From An Era Gone By

[Metro Jacksonville]

Aerials From An Era Gone By



A collection of aerial photographs of Jacksonville from six decades ago.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/900

[Charles Hunter]

Interesting that in the aerial of Hemming Park that the block to the west was a surface parking lot.  It would later be the site of Woolworth's and Penney's stores, and the Robert Meyer Hotel - now the site of the new Federal Court House.


... and I remember the Normandy (Fox?) Drive-In!

[fsujax]

Charles, believe it or not I also remember the old Normandy drive-in....I was a small child, but i will never forget seeing the Exorcist there!! haha

[BridgeTroll]

Charles, believe it or not I also remember the old Normandy drive-in....I was a small child, but i will never forget seeing the Exorcist there!! haha

I am trying to figure out the perspective in the picture... I cannot figure out which street is which nor orientation to north.

[thelakelander]

From the bottom left side, its looking north.  The Theater's entrance appears to be Normandy Blvd. and the road to the north is Lenox Avenue.  This appears to be the site of Normandy Mall.

[BridgeTroll]

From the bottom left side, its looking north.  The Theater's entrance appears to be Normandy Blvd. and the road to the north is Lenox Avenue.  This appears to be the site of Normandy Mall.

Ah... Ok.  I was way off.  I was thinking of the former drive in just across 295 off Normandy.  Where the Normandy Village shopping center just went in...

[The Compound]

I think the arial of the Normandy Drive in is where XM got their logo from.

[BridgeTroll]

Clearly the Westside was way ahead of their time...

[Jason]

Great collection of photos.  There are a few there I haven't seen yet.

[Matt]

Yeah, how come the present train station is like, in the middle of nowhere?

[thelakelander]

^That's the million dollar question everyone wants to know.

[Jason]

McCoy's Creek looks more like a river in that last pic.

[JaxByDefault]

Nice photos.

One missed the JaxByDefault house by about a block.

[Matt]

^That's the million dollar question everyone wants to know.

yea it seems pretty stupid especially because of what stephen said

Yeah, how come the present train station is like, in the middle of nowhere?

Yeah, that blows, btw.

Whats bizarre is that Amtrak actually goes through the same yard that you see in the photo.

Ive been taking it to Boca fairly frequently and it slows down to a near crawl as it passes through the downtown trainyard.

i was looking to take a train to nyc, and i couldn't find the station for awhile on google (mostly because i dont know the station name) and i followed the tracks out to wherever you consider it in the nwside...very peculiar. i mean, it may not be a gold mine, but honestly, it would at least give some business/something to do for waiting if it was to be in dt...where all the tracks are...where it should be...idk. whatever

[Ocklawaha]

Last Kansas City - Florida Special heading home to Jacksonville

I find these comments very refreshing and most interesting. People without any railroad or transit background thinking and figuring out Amtrak's Jacksonville fumble. You all are RIGHT BTW, 100%.

The trains creep through the old station "throat" as they are in a multi-railroad yard and interchange area. This brings them under strict Jacksonville Terminal yard rules, for safety. This would happen no matter if it was New York, LA, St. Louis or Chicago, in fact it's more proof that by rail, we are the "Chicago of Florida".

The new station lovingly refered to as an "AM-SHACK", was a cookie cutter design that was to replace rail stations everywhere. Norfolk, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Poinciana, Jacksonville and perhaps a couple of others were built. Even with the early Amtrak map of Jacksonville and FLorida, nobody could figure out how we could serve that with just 2 tracks and one platform. Bottom line... We didn't, and today those trains - Miamian, Florida Special, Champion, Silver Palm, Palmetto, Floridian, Sunset... are all gone. AMTRAK TRAINS! gone! A popular joke around the railroads at the time was, Amtrak was staffed with non-railroaders at the start (TRUE) as railroaders didn't know how to run passenger serivce (FALSE). So the airline boys, put all the AMSHACKS out of town so the neighbors wouldn't hear the trains land. Uh Huh?

In any case most any decision of Amtrak circa 1974 has to be called into question. The amazine thing is that we still have any national bare bones at all, and that the corporation has managed to live through 35 years of hostile administrations in Washington. Guess that speaks volumes to Americas love afair with trains:

WHO WERE THESE GUYS?
Nixon, who oversaw the creation of Amtrak and whispered, "It's done, we've killed the passenger train".
Ford, who did nothing except assist a bit in Michigan while taking down money for other projects.
Carter, Talked the big enviromental game, then became the worst cutter of all in making a "deal" to save the system but elimination of Chicago-Seattle, Chicago-Jax-Miami, Chicago-Dallas-Houston, 1- New York -Jax - Miami train.
Regan, Inveneted the ZERO budget for Amtrak
Bush, Kept reinventing the ZERO budget for Amtrak
Clinton, Wore a conductor hat and gave a thumbs up to "National Rail" then did nothing to stop the ZERO budget reformers, hackers, and others that continued to cut down the system.
Bush, Re-Re-Reinvented the ZERO budget

McCain - Hates all Mass transit and Amtrak is a no discussion - "MUST GO" in his planned budget, favors no regulation of RR.
Obama - Says he'll help the midwest high speed rail, but wants to re-regulate (which will crash) the rail freight industry.


To the untrained eye, they hear the horror stories: "The Florida East Coast" will never allow passenger cars on their railroad again! Hum? What does this photo say to that? Oh yes it is, FEC Southside near Sunbeam Road... RECENTLY.

Every AMSHACK named above except for Jacksonville has already been boarded up or torn down. It's time we go out to Clifford Lane and do the same. Take it down, and move it home to Union Terminal.

OCKLAWAHA