Downtown Frankenstein! Rewind to Blight

[Metro Jacksonville]

Downtown Frankenstein! Rewind to Blight



Last Episode? Cars.  This one?  Blight.  Negroes.  Civil Rights Violence.  Racist Swine.  Clever Engineers.In the sad and sadly predictable saga of how Jacksonville built a great swinging city by the river only to dynamite it back into the stone age and salt the earth to prevent any business community from ever growing back in its center, we have discussed how important it is to understand the mindset of the people that led to the outright decimation of the city center.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/387

[downtownparks]

Some of your better work guys. Its easy to vilify Haydon Burns, but I can easily see as how he might have been regarded as being visionary at the time. As they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions...

Perhaps I am wrong in this sentiment, but I wish our current administration had the same level of tenacity and push for downtown revitalization.

[Jason]

^ assuming that tenacity and push uses methods already tried and proven.  Burns was a visionary, but was pushing ideas that hadn't been tried yet.  Our current administration has a cornocopia of "go-bys" to base city development.  Why reinvent the wheel when we can simply make it better?

[Jason]

Great work on the article.  Reading this series and seeing all of the pictures of what Jacksonville was really pierces my heart while at the same time uplifts my hopes for what this city can and will likely become in the future.

[Mark5]

I still can't believe that first picture is jacksonville!!! all the more reason to move forward i suppose.

[Richard Bowers]

The Burns Library was built during the period that Lou Ritter was the Mayor and Burns the Governor.
The Courthouse, Jail, and City Hall(old city hall now) were built as a form of urban renewal to help in cleaning up Bay Street. The new Police Dept was not built until the Tanzler Administration and was one third of a three part bond issue for downtown redevelopment, recreation and a police station, only the police station passed. The cleaning up of the substandard housing running from Main all the way to old Blodgett homes  and the placing of Florida Community College on the site was done during the Tanzler administstration as was  the clearing of the lower east side which allowed for the building of Channel 7, and later the construction of the fair grounds. Lower Springield was also cleared allowing for the building of the Singleton center and Centennial Towers senior citizen public housing.

[Tyler]

The creepy old man holding the ladder seems to be enjoying the view....

[Richard Bowers]

In 1971, Lex Hester first stated the need for a new city hall. At that time, JEA was in City Hall, and the school board and the sheriffs office, planning and agriculture were in the courthouse! He wanted a city hall where all the agencies could be located.

Look forward to reading about the 71 plan. Do you remember the 7up brass markers that were in the streets in downtown Jacksonville. Collectors items now.

[Houseboat Mike]

Another article showing how downtown used to be. If you cant tell I really like the history pieces. 

[acme54321]

I think this is the first time I've ever said this...  Thanks for digging up these old articles!  I think the destruction of the old city hall was a crime, but the more I look at the Haydon Burns Library I think is a cool structure in it's own right (the recent renovations didn't hurt!).  I think future generations will respect it.