I registered on this site just to post on this thread. I moved to other cities and states after Jax many, many years ago and only recently returned for a high school reunion at Episcopal. Things have changed and not for the better in most cases (the whole Beach, Atlantic and University Blvd corridors between downtown/St. Nicholas to around St Johns.Bluff seems very rundown now), but I'll stay on topic for this thread.
I was born and raised in Jax in 1961, and grew up in a neighborhood called Killarney Shores off Beach Blvd. it is across Beach Blvd from the Grove Park road, and behind the boat access area. it was a very tight neighborhood, and everyoen knew and talked with everyone. All the kids played sandlot football and baseball, there were community picnics, things you just don't see much of nowadays.
I worked part-time summers in the 70s at the Pizza Hut which used to be there long ago; now it is some biker bar. Florida-bonded pools seems to still be around though. Our neighbor Jim Almond who owned Jimmy's Chicken is long gone, I forget what it was even before that.
The Midway drive-in was right next to our neighborhood on its east flank; we had a treehouse on the western edge over the fence so we could see, and spliced a speaker to get sound and just ran the wires over the drive-in roadway at nights. I also remember taking my parent's huge green cadillac with the white top and being so excited to make out with my high school girlfriend parked at the movie. It originally had one screen which faced away from Beach Blvd with the big M-I-D-W-A-Y letters on it; later in the early 70 I think they added the second screen you could actually see as you drove by on the road; sometimes some pretty racy Skinemax-level scenes would be playing it was hilarious people would drive by reaaaal slow. The day they tore down Midway was a hug sad day for nostalgia. That old bowling alley (which itself was much newer than Midway) is still languishing there today.
Across the street where some strip stores have been for a long time, was a huge forested set of trails we would ride and race out Suzukis and Yamahas in. We also rode our cycles around the huge man-made lake between our neighborhood and Hogan Road, called the sand mines.
Places and things I remember most:
Beach Blvd
- the pony rides, next to Uncle John's Pancake House
- Putt-Putt, where I first saw and played Asteroids (they had added the game room by then). The last hole where you had to hit it hard and it went into the white brick wall and spit out the big tube; if you made a hole-in-one they woudl give you a free large Coke.
- Winn-Dixie was the local grocery store just past where Southside Blvd went overhead. There was also a drugstore on the far end.
- the drive-through liquor store building standing out to the side of Winn-Dxie where some of the most obviously-drunk people would stop in for more WHILE DRIVING.
- Rick's Suzuki dealership down near the ranger station tower where imy dad bought me my first motorcycle (a 125cc).
- There was no St. Johns.Bluff Road, and no real cross-street at all until you hit San Pablo Road near the intracoastal. Beach Blvd was all forest and two-lanes (not yet four lanes) from around where St John's would eventually be to San Pablo.
- The Par 3 golf course and the little amusement park nextdoor with the train that would circle the area through the woods. YOu could still see the tracks and the little bridge it went over a few feet of creek for many years even after it closed.
- The Alhambra dinner theatre, which I guess is still around. It pre-dated FCCJ being across from it. In fact, it was the only notable buliding I recall when I was very young when it was two lanes.
- The two-lane drawbridge at the intracoastal.
- Nick's Pizza in the green plaster deco building at the beach.
- Homestead the original "real" one. And the Copper-Top Pub in the front of the house. The barber's chair they installed to lean you back for upside-down margeuritas where they poured it all into your mouth. Watching some guy try to break the "record" of 12 upside-downers and stagger outside and heave.
- Sunrise surf shop.
- Bono's BBQ.
- The white lifeguard station at the end of Beach Blvd.
Beaches area
- Crossroads down past Ponte Vedra, where I would go at dawn to surf with friends. Also Hannah Park at the boundary with Mayport was a big place to go surf. The old Jax pier as well. And "The Poles" which were the remains of the very old Atlantic Beach Pier.
- Aqua East surf shop, the original small store on the east end of that little strip of stores, and the phone recording each morning to hear about the waves to see if we should haul ourselves out early for the "morning glass". I can still hear his recorded messages: "This is Sandy Forsyth of Aqua East surf shop in Atlantic Beach...".
- Silver's drug store (where Sundog diner later would be). Getting breakfast or lunch there in our wet trunks and bare feet - no one cared.
- Pete's bar, enough said
- The Sea Turtle, Holiday Inn and HoJos were the only hotels on the entire stretch of beach. Everything else was residential. Then they built Pelican Point hi-rise and it was so out-of-place. Nowadays the whole beach is COVERED in neutral stucco-faced monstrosities.
- Breakfast on the Jax pier in that old green bulding on it.
- Watching fishermen on the end of the pier get mad at us surfers for messing up their fishing (on big days where the break would actually be out near the end of the pier) and once in a while trying to actually hit someone with a sinker.
- Casa Marina live music.
- Shuckers!
- I remember when Ragtime opened. And Sundog Diner. I hated Sundog for the longest time since they were where our beloved Silver's used to be.
- the old Neptune theatre where we would also go in our trunks in the daytime.
- Lum's hotdogs.
Atlantic Blvd/Arlington Expressway
- Again, two-lane all the way in to Craig Airfield from the beach.
- the old two-lane drawbrige, which got replaced long before the Beach Blvd conterpart did. I remember how high it felt when my parents and I first went over the new two-lane span. It would be years before they built the other two lane section .
- There was nothing all the way to Craig Airfield similar to how forested Beach Blvd was.
- Cycleback Park! I would go with friends and take our cycles (or you could just rent some there) by the hour and motocross your heart out. Off San Pablo Road just north of Atlantic.
- Shogun japanese Teppan-yaki grill tables (my first of that style, later followed by Mikado in Baymeadows and Chizu at the beach which is the only one of them still going). Bobby, who started Chizu, used to be one of the best of the tabletop cooks at Shogun.
- Regency Square. I remember it more from its original size and shape. I remember when May Cohens and Penneys were the ends. And Annie-Tiques used to be in a building in the parking lot of its own. Then they added the whole western side. Then they renamed May Cohens to Maison Blanche or somesuch.
- Orange tree and Mr. Dunderbachs were the best ever. I even remember what I used to always get at Dunderbachs: The Red Baron, and we woudl always sit at the counter near the back. It always smelled like a German deli in there.
- The Regency theatre in the parking lot behind Penneys was originally a single large screen. Then they split it into the Regency Twin theatres whre I saw Star Wars premier in 1977. I was also there when they commemorated the time capsule they used to have buried in that little garden-like area as you walked in. It used to say "To be opened in the year 2000" on the stone face. And Ialways used to think "Wow, that is a forever long way off." I have no idea what ever happened to it or if they opened it or moved it or what, since the entire building long ago got torn down once the multiplex replaced it.
- There used to be very little around the mall proper. Bennigans and later Darryl's (where I think Olive Garden stand now across the street from the mall) were very popular. Darryl's was a small chain out of N.C I think, and they had awesome ice cream drinks.
- The Phoenix near Century 21. And T-Birds (I think that was it off Atlantic, before they moved to Baymeadows later in that mall they built).
- Chi-Chi's mexican off the Arlington Expressway, cheap marguerita Wednesdays!
- CJ's, Calico Jacks, in that small strip of stores I think it was called Expressway Mall. It was the townies version of Shuckers but a lot smaller.
Southside Blvd/Baymeadows
- Southside Blvd always had those service roads from as far back as I recall. I remember when they built the overpass over the Arlington Expressway (as Atlantic Blvd became that) to the mall. Before that you had to stop in both directions at lights.
- Southside Blvd was two lanes from Beach Blvd onward toward Deerwood. There was next to NOTHING out there early on. No apartment complexes at all, just Deerwood's entrance off the two-lane road. Later they added the four-lanes but they did it in stages so there was this wierd stretch where it constricted to two lanes which lasted for years.
- 1980s: Baymeadows also had a Darryl's in a two-story brick building, no idea what is there now or if anything is. It seems like the sort of building that would end up being a Spaghetti Factory or something.
- 1980s: Happy hour at the Holiday Inn on Baymeadows Road, they had a buffet ot appetizers and very cheap drinks.
- ealry 1990s: There was also some outdoor Riverwalk-like partying along Baymeadows Road but I can't recall the name of the plce; it was either Italian or Mexican with a patio out front. Jax sure loved its happy hour deals and "places to be". Jax was small enough where you would recognize a lot of people who would go out often, even if you didn't actually know them or their names.
- There was no overpass over the train tracks just past Phillips Highway back in the early 70s. They built that to stop accidents and having to stop dangerously close to the trains.
- Phillips Highway had a mall at the corner of Phillips Hwy (i.e. Hwy 1) and Atlantic Blvd. In it was a theatre where I saw the original Heavy Metal animated movie (the same one they make fun of on an episode of South Park). The music was and still is awesome. I seem to recall some popular nightspot in that complex too but it escapes me now.
Downtown
- The "circuit" of the 1980s: Harbormasters, Riverwalk, The Landing.
- The Landing was in its early years very popular, alive and cool. Fat Tuesdays, Hooters, L&N Seafood Grill, Annie-Tiques (moved there once the standalone building in Regency Square got torn down, and later ended up in that mall in Baymeadows).
- The Coliseum and its pot-hazed concerts. You name the band, they were at The Coliseum at some point.
- Led Zeppelin at The Coliseum in 1973. Apart from my older teenage friends I went with, its hard to find others who were there. The best band in history IMO. Years later in 1988, seeing Robert Plant tour and when they suddenly played the notes to Communication Breakdown a few songs into the concert you would think the roof was going to cave in form the screaming. They also played In The Evening, and it was surreal.
- Van Halen on their opening album tour in the Civic Auditorium. People went nuts when they played Running with the Devil.
- The Gator Bowl and its all-metal stands. When people stomped their feet the whole stadium would rattle. It was always like being at the best college stadium.
- The Florida-Georgia (yes, not Georgia-Florida
games. Watching Herschel Walker tear up the Gators 44-0 one year.
Miscellaneous
- going out on the U.S.S. Saratoga with my parents when I was a little boy (early 70s?), when they took military and civilian personnel employees and their families on a cruise out to the ocean and back, it was unbelievable to walk on that carrier deck.
- Taking the ferry to get to Fernadina or anything north of Jax beach. That little ferry. I remember waiting for it many times. Way before the Dames Point Bridge, you had to either take that ferry over, or go all the way around downtown Jax on I-95 to get to the airport or go north.
- Strickland's and Parson's seafood restaurants. The Rite Spot. The original locations out there near the ferry.
- As the original poster said, Gulf Life was the tallest bulding long ago. It was always strange to see a downtown skyline unbalanced by a very tall buliding on the non-downtown side of the river.
- Also as he said, they had painted the main bridges the team colors of FSU and UF: I think the Matthews Bridge was FSU maroon, the Main Street Bridge gator blue, and the Acosta Bridge orange. The Hart Bridge was still Green (I guess for Miami?). I think those are right going from memories.
- The Buckman Bridge being built and having a new loop around that whole side of the city. Between not having the Buckman or the Dame Point Bridges, you just don't know how hard it was to get around.
- Finally, I remember when toll booths no longer were open. They bulldozed some of them out of the roadways at night so people wouldn't try to fly through those concrete lanes without having to stop any longer. It was so strange seeing the entire toll concourse at the base of the Matthews Bridge gone.
It was fun just going over these thoguhts to write them down here. Good thread!
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Re: Surfboards by Califano/ Dive Shop on Beach Blvd.
