Category: Front page

If the walls could talk: Details vague about house swap deal

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
Early photo of 1880 Shadowlawn
Early photo of 1880 Shadowlawn
KAREN RIELEY
PUBLISHED IN june 2019 ISSUE OF THE RESIDENT NEWS –2019/06/10/if-the-walls-could-talk-details-vague-about-house-swap-deal/

If ever a house needed walls that could talk, it could well be the one at 1880 Shadowlawn Street in Avondale. The house is hiding a mystery that only the walls themselves might be able to solve for sure.

The house’s origin is clear enough. Built in 1924 for real estate and insurance salesman Addison Palmer, it is one of three Jacksonville buildings by Hentz, Reid & Adler Architects in Atlanta. Wayne Wood, Jacksonville’s architectural history expert, describes the house in “Jacksonville’s Architectural Heritage: Landmarks for the Future” as “not very fancy” and having a “subdued eclectic facade … [and] striking formality with Georgia overtones.”

Second owners of 1880 Shadowlawn, the Reinhold family: Paul and Klare, with daughters June and Anne.
Second owners of 1880 Shadowlawn, the Reinhold family: Paul and Klare, with daughters June and Anne.

Palmer sold the house to Paul Reinhold, a dairy-business executive who was president of Foremost Dairies, which became the Reinhold Corporation. Both gentlemen are listed in a 1934 event program for Ye Mystic Revellers. Reinhold and his wife, Klare, raised two girls – June, who graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in 1937 and married Jack Myers, and Anne, who married Paul “Cotton” Wellington.

At this point in the house’s history of ownership a mystery comes in. It all has to do with a friendly house swap.

According to current owner Pattie Houlihan, the Reinhold family sold the house to a Mr. Livingston, who eventually decided to swap 1880 Shadowlawn with Bob “Squirrel” Read, who lived at 1820 Shadowlawn. As the story goes, the Livingston children had moved out and the house seemed too large for Livingston and his wife, while Martha and Bob Read had four daughters, making their smaller house too cramped. For the whopping sales price of one dollar, the Reads moved in and lived at 1880 Shadowlawn for 18 years, 1965-1983.

That’s one version of the story. In another version, which Peggy Bryan remembers being passed down through her family, three men – Paul Reinhold, A. Y. Milam and another man whose name has been lost in this telling – decided to swap houses. The Reinholds, living at 1880 Shadowlawn, moved to the Milam home on Yacht Club Road. The other home traded was presumably on Edgewood Avenue in this version of the story. The three couples not only survived the house swap but eventually all three celebrated their 50th wedding anniversaries.

Marketing plat map shows 1880 Shadowlawn as lot #8, near where Richmond Street meets Shadowlawn Street.
Marketing plat map shows 1880 Shadowlawn as lot #8, near where Richmond Street meets Shadowlawn Street.

Coincidentally, Randie Read, one of Martha and Bob Read’s daughters, married Brightman Skinner, second cousin to Houlihan’s husband, Richard Skinner. Bryan is the daughter of Anne and Cotton Wellington and granddaughter of Klare and Paul Reinhold.

After the house-swap years, Kim and James Toliver Lane lived there for a short time, adding a pool, and then Lisa and Jim Borger owned 1880 Shadowlawn for 14 years.

In 2003, Houlihan and Skinner decided to move from their home on Pine Street to accommodate their two daughters’ need for more room as they approached their teenage years. Greta is now 28 and Claire is 25.

“Shadowlawn reminded me of the houses I grew up with,” said Houlihan, an architect. “I loved the house on Pine Street, and we had planned a large addition for it, but it seemed too much for what the house was originally meant to be.”

Pattie Houlihan and Richard Skinner, current owners of 1880 Shadowlawn, added more pillars to the front porch overhang and a decorative balustrade was installed on top.
Pattie Houlihan and Richard Skinner, current owners of 1880 Shadowlawn, added more pillars to the front porch overhang and a decorative balustrade was installed on top.

Her husband was skeptical about Shadow-lawn at first. “My first reaction when I toured the house was it had giant dining and living rooms we’d never use,” said Skinner, who is also an architect. Then, his wife showed him a room in the back that could be a music room and took him to see how large the backyard was. He was beginning to be hooked.

“Then I saw how large the bedrooms on the second floor were and I could see how wonderful it would be for the girls,” Skinner said. “They could have their friends over in their own space.”

Not a lot has changed about the house except an addition off the back made by the Lanes to enlarge the kitchen. “When something is beautifully designed there’s no reason to mess with it much,” Houlihan said, “but Richard and I did make changes to the front entry portico about six years ago. It seemed there were a few alterations made to the house exterior that were incongruous and not in keeping with a Neel Reid design. After looking at many of the homes designed by his firm in the Atlanta area, Richard felt strongly that the proportion of a double column and detail of the balustrade were much more in keeping with something that would’ve come out of their office back in 1923.”

The couple also had to do some structural work. “We shored up the center beam to level things,” said Skinner. They also needed to install an updated air conditioning system without impacting the house’s layout. The solution was to install it in the attic and put the ducts in built-out chase walls. “You would never know there is ductwork in the house,” he said.

The only other changes upstairs are that the master bedroom now has its own en suite and opens into a room that used to be sectioned off as a morning room/sewing room.

Downstairs the couple updated the kitchen with new finishes and lots of counterspace and cabinets and added a laundry room.

They love best the room off the living room because the sun comes up outside the windows. “We have coffee in here every morning and read the newspaper,” Skinner said.

The couple also did some extensive landscaping. “The house is on a sand ridge that makes it the highest point in the neighborhood,” Houlihan said. “Because it is such a walking neighborhood, we did a garden wall and whole new planting plan.”

They also planted fruit trees and created a parking court.

As the house on Shadowlawn approaches its centennial birthday in 2024, the home’s classic lines have stood the test of time. “This house was really well-designed,” said Skinner.

High Knob House, 1620 High Knob Lane, Blacksburg, Va.

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
High Knob
High Knob

Currie also designed the house at 1620 High Knob Lane in 1962 for James Adger Smyth Johnson and his first wife, Elizabeth Jenkins Johnson.

The house is a mid-century modern classic sitting on 66 private acres on High Knob along Cedar Run Road off of Ellett Road and adjoining the town limits of Blacksburg, Virginia. It overlooks the Ellett Valley in Montgomery County, Virginia. Nearly 64 acres of the 66 are forested.

The house is 4,800 SF with a large main level deck and matching patio below and expansive windows throughout. In addition to master suites on both levels with direct access to the balcony or patio, there are two more bedrooms and four full and one half baths. The interior features rare wormy chestnut paneling, random-width pegged hardwood flooring and four fireplaces built of bricks from original Virginia Tech faculty houses built in 1893 – 1894 along a lane in the vicinity of today’s Pamplin Hall, Burruss Hall, and Norris Hall on what was then called Faculty Row. The exterior is brick and wood siding with a new metal roof that replaced the original cedar shake shingled roof. An in-ground pool is also on the property.

Johnson retired as vice chairman and a director of Union Carbide Corporation. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he began his career with the National Carbide Division of Union Carbide in Cleveland, Ohio. He served as general manager of the Eveready Battery Company in Shanghai, China, during the 1930s. Following his return to the United States he held a variety of senior management positions with Union Carbide prior to be being appointed vice chairman in 1967. Johnson, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was a former member of the Board of Visitors of Virginia Tech.

PRESERVATION THOUGHTS

Courtesy of Marc Brodsky, public services and reference archivist, Virginia Tech’s Special Collections in Newman Library, Currie’s drawings of High Knob House show a wooden bridge made of 2” x 4” wood deck (on edge) and handrail bolted to the inside of posts that leads to the front door. In addition the plan includes a covered walk with a built-up roof above and brick paving in a herringbone pattern in 2” sand over 4” of gravel.

Current photos of the house, however, show no bridge or covered walkway and, in fact, it appears that the land leading up to the front door of the house is infill. If it is not infill, then perhaps the house was sited on the property differently than Currie intended.

Currie’s plan also shows a carport to the left and 8’ in front of the house that includes storage units on both interior side walls. There is a 2” X 4” wood deck bridge from the back of the carport that leads to the house with two doors into the house – one on the side that leads into the “Servant’s Room” and a second entrance into the kitchen.

Between the bridge from the carport and the bridge to the front door was supposed to be a 11’-2” deep by 18’-8” wooden deck outside sliding glass doors that lead into the dining room. Current photos show no carport and the wooden deck is now a concrete patio that sits directly on the ground.

This changes the entire elevation of the front of the house is several significant ways. Currie clearly planned a more dramatic entrance to the house. Currently, what was supposed to be at least a story and a half front is now one-story. In fact, the house as Currie planned it was supposed to be a full 9’ out of the ground on the left. The deck outside of the dining room was supposed to be about 4’ above ground under the deck outside of the dining room, and the wooden bridge to the front door about 3’ above ground. The wooden deck outside the dining room connected directly to the wooden bridge from the carport to the Servant’s Room and kitchen, which made servicing people using the deck more practical. There is no direct connection now. A concrete walk leads part of the way up to the front door, and stones have been placed to imply a walkway from the sidewalk to the concrete patio.

Another major change to the exterior of the house is that a red metal roof has replaced the cedar shake shingles that Currie planned.

Currie House I (Pagoda House), 1105 Highland Circle, Blacksburg, Va.

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
Currie House I
Currie House I

While in Blacksburg, Currie designed a number of homes in the International Style that he learned under Gropius and Breuer. The Currie house stands as a highly proficient and personal expression of 1960s Modernism, an architectural style influenced by the International Style of earlier decades. A rare instance where the architect was his own client, the house was designed in 1960 by Currie, head of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute school of architecture, for his own residence. He incorporated into his design Gropius’ and Breuer’s penchant for strong horizontality and large glass areas. Currie departed somewhat from his mentors’ industrial character by using a spreading hipped roof, a feature reminiscent of the works of Frank Lloyd Wright.

There are few award-winning, high-style modern houses of the Currie House’s era in the state, and in the southwest region it is recognized as the finest. Currie’s clear, formal statement of contemporary design received exception to the fifty-year rule for the National Register of Historic Places because of the rarity of similar architectural resources in southwest Virginia. The home’s deck offers a spectacular view from the Allegheny ridge above Blacksburg looking northeast to the Roanoke Valley and south to Christiansburg.

Completed in 1961, the house won American Institute of Architecture awards in 1962 and 1982. It was named to the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places (NPS property number 94000549) in 1994.

Currie sold the house in 1966 when he left the area to its present owner, W. Peter Trower, Ph.D., managing director of The Secular Society Inc. and retired Virginia Tech physics professor.

Leonard James Currie and James Adger Smyth Johnson

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
Leonard Currie with Walter Gropius
Leonard Currie with Walter Gropius https://50years.caus.vt.edu/history/

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, two men – Leonard James Currie, American architect, planner, educator, and James Adger Smyth Johnson, retired vice chairman and a director of Union Carbide Corporation, graduate of Virginia Tech and former member of Tech’s Board of Visitors – made indelible marks on both Virginia Tech and the town of Blacksburg. Several homes in Montgomery County still stand as monuments to their commitment to bring International Style architecture to southwest Virginia.

Leonard James Currie, who was born in 1913 and died in 1996, came to Blacksburg in 1956 to teach architecture at Virginia Tech. In 1956, Currie was appointed to replace the retiring Clinton Cowgill as department head of architecture.

He received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Minnesota in 1936 and a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University in 1938. He did an apprenticeship with Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, 1938 – 1940, and was a Wheelwright traveling fellow, 1940 -1941. Gropius was head of the Bauhaus in Berlin, 1919 – 1928. Gropius and his Bauhaus protégé, Marcel Breuer, both moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Currie was a student of both and a subsequent colleague of Walter Gropius at The Architects Collaborative (TAC).

Currie joined the Carnegie Institute’s archaeological expedition to Copan, Honduras in 1941 and assisted Pan Am Airways and the U.S. Government in the construction of airport facilities in Guatemala and Nicaragua, 1941 – 1942. He served as an officer in the United States Army, 1942 – 1945, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

He then was named assistant professor of architecture at Harvard University, 1946 – 1951. Currie provided technical assistance to the U.S. government and other institutions in Costa Rica, 1951, and served as director of the Inter-Am Housing Center in Colombia, 1951 – 1956. After he returned to the United States in 1956, he chaired the architecture department at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

As department head, Currie added urban design and planning to the curriculum, which became a degree program. Art courses were actively taught as support courses for the architecture degree and for the university community at large. Currie introduced international content into the curriculum and recruited new faculty with significant national and international stature.

He left Virginia Tech in 1962 to become dean of the College of Architecture and Art at the University of Illinois, Chicago, 1962 – 72. Currie continued his work as a professional architect, educator, and planner throughout the 1970s and 1980s. No longer dean, he continued to serve as a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, 1972 – 1981, as a Fulbright Senior Fellow, 1972 – 1973, and as a visiting professor at international universities. A partner in the firm Atkins, Currie and Payne, he later headed Leonard Currie and Associates.

Currie served as a member of the Chicago Cultural Commission, 1963 – 1966, as a co-promulgator of the Charter of Machu Picchu. He authored numerous books and articles including Housing in Costa Rica (with Rafaela Espinosa), Planning of Central American Campuses, and Designing Environments for the Aging. Involved in many different projects, Currie’s achievements include work on the Rockefeller Foundation, planning for the campus of the National University of Nicaragua, and award-winning residential homes.

He participated on various college committees and represented Virginia Tech both nationally and internationally. He endowed a scholarship in the name of his granddaughter, Michelle Currie, and funded an award for teaching excellence in the college.

Currie achieved status as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and in 1993, received the Virginia AIA Chapter’s highest award, the William C. Noland Medal. At CAUS awards ceremony in April, Currie was presented a special lifetime achievement award. For his achievements and outstanding service to the college, he was recently named professor emeritus of architecture.

While in Blacksburg, Currie designed a number of homes in the International Style that he learned under Gropius and Breuer. One of the homes he designed was for James Adger Smyth Johnson and his first wife, Elizabeth Jenkins Johnson, at 1620 High Knob Lane in 1962.

The house is a mid-century modern classic sitting on 66 private acres on High Knob along Cedar Run Road off of Ellett Road and adjoining the town limits of Blacksburg, Virginia. It overlooks the Ellett Valley in Montgomery County, Virginia. Nearly 64 acres of the 66 are forested.

Johnson retired as vice chairman and a director of Union Carbide Corporation. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he began his career with the National Carbide Division of Union Carbide in Cleveland, Ohio. He served as general manager of the Eveready Battery Company in Shanghai, China, during the 1930s. Following his return to the United States he held a variety of senior management positions with Union Carbide prior to be being appointed vice chairman in 1967. Johnson, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was a former member of the Board of Visitors of Virginia Tech.

Grant Writing Fundamentals

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment

I enjoyed catching up with Christine Rothberg, with whom I used to work at Lutheran Social Services and meeting future social workers during Christine’s class yesterday evening at the University of North Florida. She is doing great work in preparing these students for multi-method clinical and administrative practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities by teaching them about biopsychosocial-economic and spiritual wellbeing.

Christine invited me to speak to her students about the role of grant writing in social work, something I have done in some form or another for the past 37 years. I enjoyed my time with the students. I assured them that, if they are interested in writing grants or perhaps asked to take on that role for their future employers, they can bring a unique perspective to the role, because unlike those of us who come to the role with a writing background and expertise, they can approach a grant application as someone “on the ground,” who knows the program/project and the need. My goal for the class was to give them a structure to work within to produce the most convincing request possible.

I saw this quote somewhere that I cannot now find – “Grant makers are in the business of funding ideas, as opposed to merely providing funds for things.” Writing grant applications may sound perfunctory, but I would submit that grants are what allow a nonprofit to dream, expand and re-invent itself. While donations from individuals are the backbone of an organization, grants fund projects and programs that meet specific needs the organization has identified and that enable it to provide better service.

Grant writers have the opportunity to work closely with other areas of the nonprofit, especially the program director/manager for the project that needs funding, the director/vice president of operations, the finance director/chief financial officer and the resource development director/chief advancement officer, to develop a sound proposal tailored to the specific funder being solicited.

To that end, an effective grant writer needs to be a critical thinker, someone able to see issues, needs and challenges from all sides – the organization’s, the community’s and the grantor’s, specifically. The following points may help a grant writer achieve this omniscient point of view: 

  • Ask yourself what would motivate, engage, inspire and fundamentally change the lives of the people (or other living creatures) you hope to help. How will the resources for which you are asking for funding accomplish that goal? What positive outcome(s) will the funding realize?
  • Research is critical. Conducting targeted research helps you find the right funders to partner with and support your organization’s work. Sending the right proposal to the right funder is key to finding the match. Get to know potential grant-makers better by obtaining copies of their annual reports. Scrutinize their website. What buzz words do they use? Most importantly, request a copy of the grant guidelines, if they are not available online. Follow the requirements of the funding notice or application strictly. Your guide for what to include or not to include in your document is the request for proposal (RFP) or grant application. Give the funder exactly what they ask for, no more and no less.
  • Present a logical solution to a problem. Think of your proposal as a story with a beginning (the problem or opportunity is the need statement), middle (the solution is your program), and end (the results are your outcomes). The solution to the presented problem needs to make sense. Tell the reader right up front what you are going to do, who is going to benefit and why they should care.
  • Convince the funder you know what you’re doing. The proposal should demonstrate that you have a clear understanding of the need in your community and a strong programmatic response. After reading your proposal, the funder should feel confident that your organization would be a responsible steward of their funds. Present a solid plan and highlight the skills and experience of your leaders. Show how your organization is uniquely able to solve an issue by providing the service for which you are requesting funding.
  • Make sure the budget and the proposal narrative match. The project budget is another opportunity to tell your story and demonstrate your credibility. Keep in mind that the budget is often the first thing funders study. Everything in your budget should be reflected in the narrative.
  • Give the funder reasons to care about those you are helping. Allow the funder to “see” a person helped by including testimonials and/or success stories in your grant application.
  • Remember that funders are people. Pick up the phone and call (when appropriate) instead of relying solely on email. Even better, make sure that your CEO, development officer and board of directors are aware of which funders you are approaching. If they have connections with the funders, a phone call or email from them to the funder ahead of time will improve your proposal’s chances of funding. Foundation fundraising (like all fundraising) is about relationships. Some funders require a site visit of those organizations they are most interested in funding. Offer a funder a site visit, if not required, both before and after receiving the grant. Remember to thank the funder for taking the time to consider your application, whether you receive the grant or not. You may well get another chance to apply, and you want to leave things on good terms.

Core Elements of a Grant Proposal:

  • An abstract, or summary, that introduces the project and argues for its need.
  • Background information on your organization, which may include an outline of its history, key leadership, demographics and special programs, among other items. In this section, assure funders that yours is a viable and trustworthy institution that will use awarded funds well.
  • A needs or problem statement that draws on facts, data and research to justify the importance of your project.
  • A description of the program chronicling your solution to the problem set forth in the preceding section.
  • A description of the program’s outcomes, highlighting what will change as a result of it.
  • Evaluation criteria demonstrating how you will measure whether or not the program’s goals have been met.
  • Other funding sources that you’ve petitioned for support.
  • Projections of sustainability and future funding, to show that it will continue beyond their donation.
  • A budget that shows project costs.
  • Any requested supplemental materials and a cover letter. Typical attachments/supplemental materials requested include:
  • IRS 501(c)(3) Determination Letter – A vital document that every 501(c)(3) organization must keep safe. State laws vary, but in order to keep nonprofit status current, the group may be required to file a copy of the determination letter with the state agency that registers nonprofits.
  • IRS Form 990 – A United States Internal Revenue Service form that provides the public with financial information about a nonprofit organization. It is often the only source of such information. It is also used by government agencies to prevent organizations from abusing their tax-exempt status.
  • Current Organization Operating Budget
  • Project/Program Budget
  • Financial Statements for the previous two years (audited, preferably)
  • Organization’s Most Recent Audit

Most foundations and grantors, private and public, have online applications with specific information and usually maximum character/word counts; however, some family foundations and individuals still prefer a letter proposal format that may be emailed or mailed as a hard copy. Often private foundations will dictate a maximum number of pages allowed. Regardless, in all cases, pay close attention to stated limits.

The Way We Were: William H. Rose

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
William and Betty Rose
KAREN RIELEY
PUBLISHED IN MARCH 2019 ISSUE OF THE RESIDENT NEWS –https://residentnews.net/2018/08/02/way-we-were-william-h-rose

William Rose has a lifetime of memories and a postcard art collection that allows him to see Jacksonville through the eyes of his father, Max Rose, as well as recall his younger years growing up in Jacksonville.

Rose, 92, has collected postcards produced in the early 1900s of Springfield and downtown Jacksonville that he has enlarged and framed. Some of the postcards were ones his father bought in 1918 and wrote to mail to his mother, Bessie, who was living in Baltimore before his parents married. He also buys postcards of old scenes in Jacksonville.

William Rose with stamp collection
William Rose with stamp collection

He collects postage stamps, too. He remembers digging for stamps in the dumpsters behind the downtown U.S. Post Office building.

Rose’s father was born in Lithuania. His grandfather moved to South Africa to avoid serving in the military, and his father went to live with him when he was 13 years old. Rose’s father and grandfather moved to Jacksonville in 1911 so that his father’s aunt, Ida Feldman, could help raise his father.

“My aunt was extremely wealthy,” Rose said. “In the 1900s, she and her husband, Morris Feldman, owned a lot of downtown Jacksonville property on Bay Street.”

When the aunt died, she left the house that used to be at Post and King in Riverside to Rose’s father. She left the rest of her money to River Garden Nursing Home, Jacksonville Jewish Center and the country of Palestine.

His dad's store, Rose's Super Market, at 6th & Market
His dad’s store, Rose’s Super Market, at 6th & Market

In January 1917, Rose’s father married Bessie Isaacs. In 1919, he opened a grocery store in Springfield at 6th and Market. A Feb. 2, 1935 ad for Rose’s Grocery & Meat Market, at the corner of Sixth and Market streets listed meat prices of 20 cents per pound for homemade pan pork sausage, 15 cents per pound for rump or chuck beef roast and three cans of dog food for 25 cents.

“My father would try to talk guys out of buying cigarettes by telling them that they weren’t good for them,” he said. “He told them that they weren’t made for smoking; they were made for selling.”

William’s father, Max Rose, operated the grocery and meat market for 50 years. In a story that appeared in the Oct. 23, 1972 edition of the Jacksonville Journal, Rose’s father, who was then 81, recalled the early days of operating the store. “In those days you knew everyone, and everyone was your friend,” he said.

Rose’s father had a delivery service as well. “I’d pedal over on a special bicycle with a big basket up front. People would call up for kerosene, and I’d go over, pick up their empty 5-gallon can, fill it and ride back to their house. I made a 10-cent profit on the deal.”

When William was born in 1926, his family lived in the house behind the grocery store. Rose had two older sisters, Mildred Rose Rothstein and Charlotte Rose Fialkow.

Uncle William holding niece Barbara in 1939 at the family home on 6th Street
Uncle William holding niece Barbara in 1939 at the family home on 6th Street

“They tell me that my father was so happy to have a son that he added “and Son” to the “Rose’s Grocery Store sign when I was born,” Rose said. “But he took that off before I was old enough to notice it.”

Rose remembers that the streetcar in Springfield used to cost a nickel for one ticket or a dime for three tickets. Cabs cost 10 cents to ride, but they didn’t go everywhere. He had a girlfriend who attended Lee High School. After he finished a school day at Andrew Jackson High School, he would pay 10 cents to take a cab to downtown Jacksonville, and then he had to pay another 10 cents to take a different cab to Lee High School in Riverside.

Rose claims to have visited all of the movie theaters in downtown Jacksonville as well as the Riverside Theater, now called Sun-Ray Cinema, in 5 Points. That theater opened in 1927 and was the first theater in Florida equipped to show talking pictures and had air conditioning.

“I went to many movies at The Florida Theatre,” he said. “I remember Jimmy Knight playing the Mighty Wurlitzer organ in the mid- to late-1930s. The Florida Theatre, built in 1927, was the largest movie palace in Jacksonville and one of only four remaining grand movie palaces of the era in the state.

“I also remember going to the Capitol Theatre on Main Street between 7th and 8th Streets,” Rose said. “My father would give me a dime for the movie and a penny for the gum-ball machine.”

One Saturday in 1934 or 1935, when Rose was eight or nine, he went to the theatre to see what he recalls as “Little Orphan Annie.” When he finally got to the front of the line, he placed a coin on the counter. The cashier said, “Son, the movie is a dime, and this is a penny.” He suddenly realized that he must have put the dime in the gum-ball machine by mistake. “I never did see the movie,” he said.

Rose’s father bought a Pontiac in 1937 from Claude Nolan. “It cost more than $900. I couldn’t believe that it had a radio in it,” he said.

Rose worked for his father in the grocery store until he finished high school and enlisted in the Navy during World War II. He was on the USS Alex Diachenko, which was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific Theater and participated as a transport ship in the consolidation and capture of the Southern Philippines and Borneo operations.

William and Betty Rose, 1951
William and Betty Rose, 1951

When Rose came back to Jacksonville after service, he lived with his parents for a couple of years until he married Betty Sager in 1951, also a lifelong resident of Jacksonville. She had graduated from Lee High School and Florida State College for Women (FSU).

With his new bride, Rose bought the house he lives in now on San Amaro Road for $17,000. “People wondered why we wanted to live so far out of town,” he recalled.

He used to walk down the middle of San Jose Boulevard because there was so little traffic. “I remember cars hitting the telephone poles because the kerosene street lamps would go out and they couldn’t see the poles in time,” Rose said. “I used my flashlight to help direct traffic.”

He was working at his father’s grocery store in Springfield when he got married, and his daily commute required traveling from Miramar to Springfield every day.

“I’d buy turnip greens from the produce market, take them home, put them in the yard and sprinkle water on them to keep them fresh,” Rose said. “The next day I’d put them back in my car and take them to the grocery store.”

On Dec. 29, 1963, Rose was on his way to work when he saw smoke coming out of all the windows of the Hotel Roosevelt in downtown Jacksonville. Fire had broken out in the ballroom of the 13-story hotel, one of Jacksonville’s most grand hotels, on Adams Street just west of Main. Twenty-two people died, most from asphyxiation and carbon-monoxide poisoning. Some people escaped to the roof and needed help. Rose told the rescue people to call the Navy to get the people off the roof. “The next day I read in the paper that the mayor had called the Navy,” Rose laughed. “But I think they got the idea from me.”

Rose in the Navy assigned to the USS Alex Diachenko transport ship
Rose in the Navy assigned to the USS Alex Diachenko transport ship

When his father became too old to run the grocery store, Rose sold it. His father told him to go see Benjamin Setzer at National Drug Company, who asked him to come to work for him to oversee distribution. Setzer, a Lithuanian immigrant like his father and a former Springfield resident, had operated Setzer’s Supermarkets that became one of Jacksonville’s early grocery chains by the end of the Great Depression.

Then Rose worked for his brother-in-law’s wholesale grocery, the Hymie Fialkow Company. His brother-in-law eventually sold his grocery to Sysco Corp., where Rose worked as senior marketing associate until his retirement 17 years later.

After he retired, he volunteered in gift shops. He noticed framed stamps that were selling for $25; the stamp was worth 25 cents. He thought would be a good way to get rid of his stamps at flea markets. He also makes kitchen magnets out of postage stamps and has earned the moniker of “The Stamp Man.”

After 30 years of service in the Department of Children & Families, Betty retired and devoted many hours volunteering for her synagogue, the Jacksonville Jewish Center, Hospice and Bikkur Cholim. The couple were married for 57 years before Betty passed away in 2008 and had two daughters, Margaret Rose and Allison Rose Holtz.

Both Betty and William were active in the Jacksonville Jewish Center and the center’s synagogue for many years. Betty volunteered in the office and William made sure the right prayer books were in every one of the 375 seats.

Age has caught up with Rose leading him to decide to quit driving, which means he won’t be going to the flea market any longer. But, he still intends on continuing to frame stamps. “It keeps me busy and I love doing it,” he said.

State, federal budget cuts to the arts present opportunities, challenges for downtown museum

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
The Museum of Contemporary Art at Hemming Park
The Museum of Contemporary Art at Hemming Park
KAREN RIELEY
PUBLISHED IN JULY 2018 ISSUE OF THE RESIDENT NEWS –https://residentnews.net/2018/07/01/public-school-budget-cuts-present-opportunities-challenges-for-downtown-museum/

Due to proposed budget cuts at the state and federal level in arts education, including field trips, the Museum of Contemporary Art – Jacksonville, or MOCA, will continue to get creative in order to reach beyond its doors and engage young minds.

Dedicated arts magnet schools, such as Central Riverside and Fishweir Elementary Schools, and LaVilla and Douglas Anderson Schools of the Arts, could see their arts programs cut to one day a week or lose arts resource teachers, thus limiting opportunities for exposure to the arts.

While MOCA provides arts education for Duval County Public School children as well, government cuts in arts budgets will present challenges for the museum, too. “Currently, we no longer have government funding to bring children in Title I schools to our museum,” said Nan Kavanaugh, director of communications and marketing. “Sponsorships and private funding have become critical.”

It was private funding in 2016 through a gift from J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver that allows the museum to employ an educator for family and children’s programs. As the Weaver Educator, Anthony Aiuppy oversees the museum’s two flagship programs, “Voice of the People,” which brings fourth-graders from underserved schools to the museum twice a year to write an essay about an art piece and record an interpretive art essay for museum visitors to hear, and “Art Aviators,” an educational initiative designed for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and other exceptionalities.

In the meantime, MOCA is creatively working to attract visitors of all ages. For example, it hosts hands-on family days to get children into the museum, where they can engage with the permanent art.

The museum recently collaborated with Friends of Hemming Park on a Family Day, and is working with the other local museums and the main Jacksonville Public Library next door.

“We are also looking for outreach opportunities outside of downtown, such as satellite or pop-up art events like the one we hosted in Space 42 art gallery in Riverside,” said Kavanaugh.

In January, the museum teamed up with Space 42 to host New York City artist Rosemarie Fiore as she did a live “smoke painting” performance. “We want people to have the opportunity to experience contemporary art outside of our downtown walls,” Kavanaugh said.

Exposing youth to contemporary art in an educational format isn’t brand-new to the 94-year-old museum. Since 2009, MOCA has had a flourishing relationship between its artists and scholars and the University of North Florida students, faculty and staff.

“MOCA provides UNF with a learning laboratory in which ideas important to our time and place can be explored,” said MOCA’s new director, Caitlín Doherty. “That vitality, sense of exploration and curiosity drive artists and scholars alike and serve as a bridge back to our Jacksonville community as a whole.”

Doherty sees the challenge of deepening the relationship between UNF and downtown Jacksonville as an opportunity for growth that will attract new audiences to the museum.

The museum is making strides in increasing UNF student and faculty involvement beyond merely taking field trips to the museum. As one example, more UNF art classes are actually based at the museum.

UNF’s gallery space in the museum is coordinated by regionally-known artist and art teacher Jim Draper. He works with UNF faculty who guide students in creating their own art shows in the museum.

“Our goal is to have students understand all aspects of creating art,” Kavanaugh said. “While not every student will become a well-known artist, with exposure to all aspects of the arts, a student may end up curating art, funding the arts, loaning art from a personal collection and appreciating art, in general.”

UNF student Gabbi Bautista with Nan Kavanaugh, director of communications and marketing
UNF student Gabbi Bautista with Nan Kavanaugh, director of communications and marketing

In 2014, MOCA added a student-in-residence program with separate studio space. The student works with a curator, directs the installation team in hanging the student’s art and has the opportunity to interact with the public who comes to view the student art.

UNF students can also work in a paid position as MOCA ambassadors. They are the first point of contact for visitors at the guest relations desk and throughout the museum. The program is open to all UNF graduate and undergraduate students who have a passion for museums, art history, and contemporary art.

Gabbi Bautista is a public relations major at UNF. Bautista, who graduated from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, appreciates the opportunity to interconnect arts and media and hopes to put her high school art skills to use in working with the media as a public relations professional someday.

“It is a very fun job,” Bautista said. “People often tell me how nice it is to have someone in the museum to talk to them about our works of art.”

The museum also offers internships to UNF students. Interns are exposed to art and art history, art education, the museum profession, and public programming.

MOCA is the perfect setting for art students as it is “self-curating,” according to Kavanaugh, explaining that it researches, collects, documents and creates its own exhibitions, rather than renting art shows like many museums choose to do.

Conversely, the museum’s first sculpture-only exhibition, “A Dark Place of Dreams,” will travel to Charleston, S. Carolina, after it closes here Sept. 9. The monochromatic assemblages of Louise Nevelson (1899-1988), one of the pioneering American sculptors of the 20th century, will stand alongside three contemporary artists: Chakaia Booker, Lauren Fensterstock and Kate Gilmore.

“For those living in or nearby downtown, a visit to MOCA can provide a transformational experience through the arts but, short of that, you can just enjoy a great meal, send your kids to a fun art camp or be entertained by a special film in the auditorium,” said Charles Gilman, outgoing board president. He will pass the torch to Rick Hawthorne, attorney at Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow, LLC, as the incoming board president.

Museum shop closing for new retail venture

Taking a step toward downtown revitalization, the museum is partnering with Troy Spurlin, owner of the 5 Points retail store Generation Us, to transition the museum shop to create a contemporary retail destination retail.

A larger initiative includes redevelopment of the lobby to make the museum’s first floor an open community space and to bring more people downtown, according to Doherty.

Spurlin, who also owns Troy Spurlin Interiors in Riverside, served as MOCA’s director of marketing and special events from 2004 to 2007. He decided to open a second retail store to be part of the focus on stimulating downtown commerce.

After the closing sale, which runs through July 14, the MOCA Shop will close for renovations, with an anticipated opening to kick off the fall exhibition season.

Dredging plans for Lakewood area creek lack cohesive desire by residents

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
Barlow Curran in his backyard pointing out berm created when creek was originally dredged and moved in 1953. Area beyond berm is marshland where the creek originally ran.
Barlow Curran in his backyard pointing out berm created when creek was originally dredged and moved in 1953. Area beyond berm is marshland where the creek originally ran.
KAREN RIELEY
PUBLISHED IN AUGUST 2018 ISSUE OF THE RESIDENT NEWS –https://residentnews.net/2018/08/02/way-we-were-lee-beger/

The lack of flow in once-navigable Christopher Creek begs for dredging, but while there are several options available which could make that happen, there is no cohesive wish among property owners on the Lakewood area creek’s banks.

Some residents enjoy the wildlife which has settled in the area and are afraid dredging will destroy their habitat. Other property owners are fearful of an increase in property taxes or a special assessment for a dredging project.

Christopher Creek’s navigable access to the St. Johns River was part of what drew developers to the area after World War II veterans began looking for homes in the suburbs.

In 1953, Crabtree Construction Company bought and began developing the Lakewood subdivision that is bounded on the north by Miramar and the south by Christopher Creek, and lies between San Jose Boulevard and St. Augustine Road.

Aerial of Christopher Creek shows the portion east of San Jose Boulevard that has a marshy island created by decades of silt build-up.
Aerial of Christopher Creek shows the portion east of San Jose Boulevard that has a marshy island created by decades of silt build-up.

To create as much waterfront property as possible, the company dredged and relocated part of Christopher Creek to give it more branches for creekfront lots and the potential for docks, bulkheads and boats.

Barlow Curran can point out which part of the creek is natural and which was manmade, because his father was vice president of Crabtree Construction Company and oversaw the Lakewood development. “The creek is straight as an arrow in front of my property because it is manmade there,” Curran said. He can point out the berm that was created from dirt dredged to create the creek. On the other side of the berm is marshland from what used to be the creek.

“We moved into the home that my father built in 1954 when I was two,” Curran said. He and his wife now live in the same house. “I used to take a 14-foot boat with a 35-horsepower outboard motor out into Christopher Creek, go under the bridge on what is now called San Jose Boulevard and into the St. Johns River,” Curran remembered.

That’s no longer the case. The creek that once was as much as 6-feet deep in the center is now silted up to the point that it has a sandbar at high tide. Curran has taken down his dock, but kept the pilings in the hope that he can put up a dock and take out a boat again someday.

Curran also remembers alligators, largemouth bass, brim and bull frogs. “Residents today are just as glad that the alligators are gone,” Curran said. The water life found in deeper freshwater is largely gone. In its place are resident and wading birds such as wood ducks, great blue and white herons, snowy egrets, wood storks and roseate spoonbills. “I watch the ibises feed on fiddler crabs and minnows when the water is at low tide.”

While the birdlife may be interesting, many waterfront residents want to take advantage of the creek today by boating on it and fishing in it as did those who first bought the 1950s Lakewood houses. People visiting Nathan Krestul Park want to launch boats, too, as the signage for the park indicates they should be able to do.

Toni Woods, who lives on Christopher Creek Road, shared her thoughts with District 5 Councilwoman Lori Boyer in an email last July. “I put my kayak into the creek at the park last weekend and even the channel to the river was so shallow I got stuck,” she said. “I would be happy to help any way I can to make it so it can be paddled again as it once was.”

During Hurricane Irma, the creek rose over the bulkhead of Tom Henley’s San Marie Drive South property, and up into the lower level of the house.
During Hurricane Irma, the creek rose over the bulkhead of Tom Henley’s San Marie Drive South property, and up into the lower level of the house.

Silt issue goes back decades

Varying suppositions exist as to why the creek has become silted. One theory is that when the retention pond at the head of Christopher Creek was created for Walgreens at University and St. Augustine it sent lots of sediment down the creek. The City filed an environmental resource permit (ERP) application in December 2014 for a temporary sedimentation basin at Nathan Krestul Park to address the problem caused by the retention pond.

However, in July 2015, the City withdrew the ERP application and there were no other application submittals for a project related to Christopher Creek sedimentation, according to Teresa Holifield Monson, public communications coordinator for St. Johns River Water Management District.

“I think the retention pond is just a one part of the problem,” Curran said. “The creek was filling up with silt before that pond was built. My father always believed that the silting started when the San Jose Forest homes on the south bank of Christopher Creek were built.” Those homes built in the 1960s sit on high lots and have steep runoffs into the creek.

But even the Lakewood subdivision itself is subject to runoffs. All of the homes north of Christopher Creek sit at higher elevations designed to have water run down into the creek. And more and more development has happened in the area.

“The creek has not been maintained for its full drainage capacity,” Curran said. “Plus, more development equals more concrete and less natural land to absorb the water.”

With storms seemingly occurring more often and with greater intensity, at least two residents have more reasons than recreational enjoyment to push for having the creek dredged. Tom Henley’s waterfront property is on San Marie Drive South across from Nathan Krestul Park.

“During Hurricane Irma, my entire backyard flooded all the way up into the first level of my house, even though I have a bulkhead,” Henley said. And yet, at normal levels the water is so low that he finally sold his boat.

“I tried talking to St. Johns River Management District, but no one seems interested,” he said. “Councilmember Lori Boyer is the only one who has expressed any interest.”

Three trees fell into the creek near Curran’s house also during the hurricane. “I called the City’s Public Works Department and told them that the trees were blocking the creek which would be a drainage problem for the whole neighborhood,” he said. “They came out right away to cut the trees up and haul them off. That would seem to indicate that the City thinks it is responsible for the creek.”

“To my understanding, the fact that the creek was dredged and relocated would make a good case for a maintenance dredge today,” said Alaina Johanson, who lives on Segovia Avenue.

Shot from Nathan Krestul Park, this view shows how Christopher Creek branches around a marshy island, before flowing under San Jose Boulevard toward the St. Johns River.
Shot from Nathan Krestul Park, this view shows how Christopher Creek branches around a marshy island, before flowing under San Jose Boulevard toward the St. Johns River.

Funding a dredging project

How to get the dredging approved and funded is the question and concern. There are four ways this could potentially happen, according to Boyer. 

The easiest route would be for the City to modify the current proposal to dredge Nathan Krestul Park so that it includes maintenance dredging of the entire creek.

Residents could pursue an ecosystem restoration project with the Corps of Engineers in which the Corps pays 75 percent of the cost and the City or others – such as the property owners – pay 25 percent. This option would take longer. One dredging project recently approved for Fishweir Creek took about 10 years to get accomplished.

Another option is to create a special assessment district as was done for Millers Creek in St. Nicholas. Residents funded the dredging through assessments on their properties. In this option, the City contributes 12.5 percent to the effort. This could be accomplished within a few years.

 The City could include the dredge in the Capital Improvement Program of the City and bear the full cost. To be included in the CIP, however, the project has to score competitively against other demands for roads, parks, etc. To be successful, a concerted lobbying effort by the neighborhood would be needed.

The Way We Were: Lee Beger

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
Lee Beger directed The Laramie Project for The 5 & Dime
Lee Beger directed The Laramie Project for The 5 & Dime
KAREN RIELEY
PUBLISHED IN AUGUST 2018 ISSUE OF THE RESIDENT NEWS –https://residentnews.net/2018/08/02/way-we-were-lee-beger/

Directing is in her blood, history shows. When her mother, Pearl Lee Lowery from Georgia met her father, Arthur Stewart from Alabama, they had both recently moved to Jacksonville.

Pearl worked for a linen company. Arthur had been moved to Jacksonville by Sears Roebuck & Company to help open a new store.

Lee;s parents
Lee’s parents

Arthur’s role was to design the storefront windows. Then, Sears asked him to move again, this time to the company’s headquarters in Chicago, which Pearl and he didn’t want to do. On top of that, the company tried to make him design the windows the way their other stores were designed. The other Sears stores were in the north and designed to catch the attention of people walking by. Arthur told the company that people in his hometown didn’t walk through downtown; they drove.

So, he designed the window the way he knew would be more effective for people driving past in cars; he put a big pile of batteries in the window with a large sign advertising them. The company disagreed, and Arthur decided to strike out on his own.

“I guess I hadn’t thought about how much I’m like my father,” Lee said. “I like directing because I can control what will make a play work best, just like my father knew what made a store window most effective.”

Pearl and Arthur opened Stewart’s Five and Dime store on Florida Avenue on the east side of downtown Jacksonville and not far from the current location of TIAA Bank Field. At first, they kept their full-time jobs. Lee’s grandmother opened the store and ran it until Lee’s parents could arrive after work. They eventually worked full-time managing 14 or 15 stores scattered around Jacksonville, including stores in Springfield, the Westside, and San Marco among other locations. Gradually, in later years, they sold all of the stores.

Lee’s parents first lived on Jean Court in Springfield. In 1943, they bought a house on the river, south of Miramar in an area called Hollywood Park, when Lee was still a babe in arms. Lee remembers a photo of her grandfather holding her in the backyard of the house and looking out on the river.

She thinks the house was designed by Harold Saxelbye and its original address was, simply, Foot of Ardsley Road. “I remember when the post office made us change the address to 4600 Mundy Drive,” Lee said.

The house sat high on a bluff. In fact, her father told her that he picked it out because it was the highest point between San Marco and what is now called Mandarin.

“I loved the big oak trees, all of the plants and the old Florida feel of the property,” Lee remembered.  She has planted her current backyard to be very natural as well, because it is very comforting to her.

Lee Beger posing in the backyard of her childhood home in San Jose
Lee Beger posing in the backyard of her childhood home in San Jose

“My fondest memories of my homeplace were of the river and the sunsets over the river. We had a staircase that went up to a landing and then turned to go up to the second floor. There was a window on the landing where I could look out over the river.”

Lee was not supposed to play on the river, but she remembers that didn’t stop her. “I would skid down the bluff to where my father had put white sand and a bulkhead. Off to the side were trees that went over the water and made a great hideout.”

She also remembers that she was a pretty wild teenager. “We had a long circular driveway with gateposts at the street. I regularly bounced the car off the posts trying to make the sharp turn into our driveway,” she recalled.

The person who bought the house after they lived there tore it down and leveled the property so that there is no longer a bluff. At the time the house was being sold, Lee talked to her sister, Connie Stewart Green, who now lives in Neptune Beach, about whether they should buy the house because of its historical value, but a real estate agent convinced them that they would have a hard time selling it eventually.

Lee attended Hendricks Avenue Elementary School and graduated from Landon High School. She started college at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., but when she had a waterskiing accident during the summer, she couldn’t go back to school in the fall because she needed surgeries. She went to Jacksonville University instead and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theater.

After teaching for two years at newly-opened Wolfson High School, she left Jacksonville to earn her master’s degree in theater at Southern Illinois University. After that, she didn’t want to return to Jacksonville. “I wanted to see the world and have adventures,” Lee said.

She was offered a teaching job at the University of Montana, and while there, met Richard Beger. Lee insisted that he meet her parents, so they returned to Jacksonville and married. They lived in Jacksonville for about a year, while Lee worked retail and Richard worked as a mechanic to earn enough money to get a start as a married couple and return to Montana. Even though they divorced after 10 years, he is still her best friend, Lee said.

Lee’s art of creating in Jacksonville was also an act of nature. “I came back to Jacksonville because my mother had died and my father asked me to return to take care of him,” Lee said. “I told him he needed to ‘sweeten the pot’ to get me to come.” So, he bought her a small house on Mango Place and refinished the floors for her. He lived another 10 years until he was 96 years old.

After she met Cathy Smith, who lived next door to her, they realized that neither had a home large enough for two people. “I happened to go to a small meeting on Peachtree Circle East in Lakewood. I knew the house was for sale. When the owner offered to show me the deck and backyard, I immediately asked, ‘How much do you want for this house?’”

It was just a dirt yard with a big oak tree, but it reminded her of her home on the bluff at the river, and she knew she could landscape it to look like old Florida. “It has been such a wonderful neighborhood with families who stay and look out after each other,” Lee said.

The house was Cathy’s and her home for more than 30 years until Cathy’s death in 2016. Lee still lives there with her dog, Sugar, and lots of photos and mementos from their personal and professional lives and their travels together.

Cathy was born in Georgia. She had only been in Jacksonville a couple of years when Lee and she met. In addition to her work as an event planner in the travel industry, Cathy was the stage manager for the first Shakespeare at the Met that Lee directed in Metropolitan Park and, after that, all of the shows that Lee directed for six years in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Lee was hired to be house manager for The Florida Theatre when it reopened as a performing arts center in the early ‘80s. She had completed her coursework at Florida State University for a doctorate in theater. All that remained was defending her dissertation.

“Working at The Florida Theatre gave me the chance to be part of something bigger than myself that opened new possibilities, Lee said. “The Florida Theatre taught me a lot about theater operation, how to organize and work with people and how to run a theater as a business.”

Even though she loved her time at The Florida Theatre, “the best advice I ever received was from someone who told me to leave The Florida Theatre job and get a job teaching theater in a new art school that was opening, and finish my dissertation,” Lee said.

That new art school was Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, which had been renovated into a magnet high school in 1985. Two years later, Lee was asked to start the theater program at the school, an opportunity for her to teach the arts, as well as direct.

“I always taught them as if they were going to be professionals even though statistics say that maybe only 30 percent of them would go into the arts,” Lee said. “That’s the only way to teach. Don’t teach to the middle; teach to the ultimate. Then, students are prepared to do anything. They can make their own path.”

1989-90 Folio Awards for Excellence in Theatre- Brad Trowbridge (Best Actor), Pam Jackson (Best Lighting Design), Michael Higgins, Lee Beger (New Director) and Richard Sikes (Best Supporting Actor)
1989-90 Folio Awards for Excellence in Theatre- Brad Trowbridge (Best Actor), Pam Jackson (Best Lighting Design), Michael Higgins, Lee Beger (New Director) and Richard Sikes (Best Supporting Actor)

Lee taught at Douglas Anderson for 28 years before retiring in June 2015. She saw the program grow from two faculty into seven and 50 students to more than 200 students. A number of her students have made names for themselves in the acting world. One of her legacies is Liz Pearce, who is a member of the cast of off-Broadway’s “Sweeney Todd.” Another is Daniel Torres who is in the current Broadway cast of “Beautiful.” And, Nick Sacks is an understudy in the Broadway play “Dear Evan Hansen.”

“I thought teaching at Douglas Anderson would just be something I would do for a short time until I could go back north. But I fell in love with it.”

Lee enjoyed building DA’s theater program from nothing, under the guidance of then principal Jackie Cornelius. “I miss it. I was able to direct two shows a year. Within reason I could choose what I wanted to direct.”

In addition to her many years of directing students at Douglas Anderson, Lee directed “Pippin” at Theatre Jacksonville, a series of plays in the late ‘80s for Jacksonville Actors Theatre at Grand Boulevard Mall, Shakespeare at the Met, and a couple of new scripts by Ian Mairs at Theatre Jacksonville. Since retiring, she has directed “August, Osage County” and co-directed “Into the Woods,” both at Players-by-the-Sea.

Lee recently finished directing “The Laramie Project” for The 5 & Dime, a theatre company in downtown Jacksonville. “I directed the play years ago at DA, but I had to tone its content down for students to perform,” Lee said. “Still, the fact that I could do it at all is a testament to what that school is.”

“It is so great to do the play with adult actors for an adult audience, as it should be done,” she admitted. “Cathy would be so happy that I’m directing it.”

Quiet train zone study awaiting funds

~ Karen J Rieley, M.A. ~ Leave a comment
KAREN RIELEY
PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER 2018 ISSUE OF THE RESIDENT NEWS –https://residentnews.net/2018/09/01/quiet-train-zone-study-awaiting-funds/

Efforts by some San Marco residents to create a Quiet Zone in their neighborhood are progressing, albeit slowly. Lilla Ross, who has lived in San Marco for 40 years, is leading the charge to create a Quiet Zone that will eliminate the need for train engineers to blow horns as they approach the 10 train crossings between the trestle bridge across the St. Johns River to Emerson Street.

Ross created a website this past April to notify other San Marco residents who are interested in quieting the train horns, and met in June with Bill Joyce, operations director for the City of Jacksonville’s Department of Public Works.

“Joyce said that the next step is an engineering study that will determine what needs to be done and how much it will cost,” Ross said.

Quiet zones are regulated by the Federal Railroad Administration. Because the absence of routine horn sounding increases the risk of a crossing collision, a public authority desiring to establish a quiet zone is required to equip each public highway-rail crossing within the zone with active warning devices, such as flashing lights, gates, constant warning time devices and power out indicators. Supplemental safety measures including medians or channelization devices, one-way streets with gates, four quadrant gate systems, and temporary or permanent crossing closures reduce risks and enhance safety, according to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

According to the FRA’s “Guide to the Quiet Zone Establishment Process,” the prohibited use of train horns at quiet zones only applies to trains approaching and entering crossings. It does not include train horn use within passenger stations or rail yards, and train horns may still be sounded in emergency situations or to comply with other railroad or FRA rules even within a quiet zone. Quiet zone regulations also do not eliminate the use of locomotive bells at crossings.

“This Quiet Zone project is quite large and addresses train crossings from San Marco to Emerson Street,” Joyce said. “The City’s current proposed CIP [Capital Improvement Plan] includes $250,000 in matching funds to be applied to this effort.”

The crossings that are included in the San Marco Quiet Zone proposal are Prudential Drive (at Baptist Health), San Marco Boulevard, Nira Street, Naldo Avenue, Hendricks Avenue, Atlantic Boulevard, River Oaks Road, St. Augustine Road, Emerson Street and Reba Avenue (south of Walmart). The study will identify each crossing and determine what countermeasures are needed to establish a quiet zone. 

“A study would not be able to be commissioned until the proposed CIP is adopted on Oct. 1, 2018 as part of the City’s FY18-19 budget,” Joyce said. “At this point I would not be able to anticipate a timeframe or cost.”

The FRA does not provide funding for establishing quiet zones. Public authorities that want to establish quiet zones must be prepared to identify sources for the cost to install any safety measures needed. Costs can vary from $30,000 per crossing to more than $1 million depending on the number of crossings and the types of safety improvements required.

In the meantime, Ross is forming a committee to strategize about next steps. Residents who would like to be a part of the Quiet Zone initiative may email her at lillaross@comcast.net to join the committee and add their names to the more than 200 people who have signed the online petition in favor of a San Marco Quiet Zone at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/san-marco-quiet-zone.