Historic Streetscenes: Part II

[bobliocatt]

Before sprawl took over the city, everything was basically located downtown, including hotels. Like everything else, from the early 20th century, most of downtown's hotels have be demolished and replace with more modern buildings (like The Seminole Hotel) or are now just empty surface parking lots (The George Washington). Today, the Carlington, is the last remaining large scale hotel building in downtown. Enjoy the pics and have a happy Thanksgiving.

Henry Klutho's Seminole Hotel (right) and the Heard Bank. This is the present day site of the BOA Tower

Seminole Hotel (SE corner of Forsyth and Hogan Streets)

Hotel Mason in 1950 (NW corner of Julia & Bay Streets). Present day BellSouth Tower.

George Washington Hotel (NW corner of Adams and Hogan Streets).

Hotel Aragon

Flager Hotel in 1941

Hotel Windle (Haydon Burns Library site on Forsyth Street)

Hotel Everett (NE corner of Bay and Julia Streets (present day old Suntrust Tower)

Robert Meyer Hotel (parking lot is now the Edward Ball Building)

One more of the Mayflower (or Mason Hotel)

[Urban_Legend]

The George Washington Hotel is by far my favorite! I love that arcade thing it had facing the street. The only hotel I'm glad to see gone is the Robert Meyer. It just wasn't that attractive, and that parking lot didn't help, lol.

Great post, Lakelander, and have a Happy Thanksgiving as well!

[wolfdawg54]

I agree with you. The George Washington Hotel was awesome. It is a shame how much we lost to fire and demolition. That would have been awesome in downtown.

[crazy cuban]

I agree that these are some wonderful examples of architecture of the early part of the 20th century, oh, and by the way>>>> so is the Robert Mayer. it just seems that anything modern in jacksonville find itself the same way of Rodney Dangerfiled... "no respect". the Robert Mayer was probably one of Jacksonville's finest example of the International Style. It was Jacksonville's "Fountainbleau"... we seem to have an itchy trigger finger when i comes to modernity in this city, while other cities embrace the future, we are terrified of anything new and challenging? Don't get me wrong, i am for 'historic preservation'. that is when it is worhty of it... let's not risk the future to preserve something simply because it is OLD!

The Carlington, (the former Roosevelt hotel) had a parking garage that was demolished for being structurally unsound, but the top floor of that garage was a swimming pool and cabana much in the vain of a 1950's Miami beach hotel... the 50's curves and colors (just needed James Bond)... a swimming pool 5 stroies above Monroe Street... Imagine that>>>> Vestcor was proposing at a time to place a pool at the top of the garage for the Carlington, but last word is fell to the budget ax ( was a med. style with arches and the like!) these sort of juxtopositions are what Downtown life exciting....

Let's remember the past and learn our history as a means of not repeating it....

Thanks,

[wolfdawg54]

That is true but what happens when there are no buildings left of our historical past. I feel that Jacksonville should preserve the best buildins and the rest should be redone and changed to become more modern. Jacksonville has so many empty lots that can be used to embrace modernism without destroying buildings that mean so much to our past.

[crazy cuban]

That is true but what happens when there are no buildings left of our historical past. I feel that Jacksonville should preserve the best buildins and the rest should be redone and changed to become more modern. Jacksonville has so many empty lots that can be used to embrace modernism without destroying buildings that mean so much to our past.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If a building means a great deal then yes, we should strive to preserve it, and there are many wonderful buildings that embrace this concept... look at the St. James Building, I definitely think that we should work to preserve the Marble Bank, Bisbee and Florida National buildings. But i have issues when the gang of "hysterical preservationists" who want to save the shack becuase it was built in the 1800's??? wasn't built by a founding father, or an architect like Klutho or the like... they fight tooth and nail to save something because it is just plain OLD. It is the same dilemma, we all want more prisons, but we don't want them built near us!! I worked on a Fire Station here and there were people protesting a FIRE STATION being built in their neighborhood??.. you ask me, i want it real close just in case something happens....

yes, there are many empty lots in downtown jacksonville (soon to be home to many a parking garage) and i agree that could hold wonderful opportunities for a new architecture here, will that happen?... only time will tell>>> and we all have our fingers crossed>>> but i am not holding my breath!!

[merlin]

yes, there are many empty lots in downtown jacksonville (soon to be home to many a parking garage) and i agree that could hold wonderful opportunities for a new architecture here, will that happen?...  only time will tell>>>  and we all have our fingers crossed>>>  but i am not holding my breath!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

you definitely shouldn't hold your breath crazy cuabn, especially not in this city. Time is an enemy to the breath around here. I agree that we need to save and preserve some out history's tidbits, however the last thing this city needs is to become an antique show. Old is not always good and on the same token, new is not always bad. We definitely need to infuse our downtown and surrounding with ne architecture. Architecture that builds on it's past and pushes the future. Jacksonville has such a wonderful resource - the river, however most of the building fronting it aren't worth looking at. Also, take the CSX new curtainwall for example, that building was a great period building and a nice peice of architecture. But by adding the curtainwall too it, it really lost a lot of its charm. The least they could have donw was use some green curtainwall or something in a similar vain to the original. I am off of the topic now, but I agree need more new and need to be decisive and a little more discriminate about what gets saved/preserved.

"seinfeld.... 4..?..."