(Source of images: 1955-56 Jacksonville Municipal Yearbook)

You know a riverfront looks really bad when parking lots are an improvement!  During the mid 1950s, the City of Jax built parking lots along much of the Northbank.  They covered the unsightly wharves & warehouses that once lay where the Jacksonville Landing marketplace is located now.  Indeed, the Landing's site used to be underwater, and ships & boats landed at the piers there.  The parking lots, however, extended the riverfront about 1 1/2 blocks.  (150 years ago, this area sometimes rang with gunfire.  Storeowners lounged in back of the businesses on the south side of Bay Street, shooting at alligators in the river.) 

TOP PHOTO -- Dating from 1955 or '56, the image shows the area just west of the Main Street Bridge.  It was snapped shortly after the parking lot was constructed.  The red arrow indicates the future spot of the Jacksonville Landing, constructed during the 1980s.  The blue arrow points out the old Hotel Mayflower, the site of today's BellSouth Tower. 

BOTTOM IMAGE -- Depicted is a new parking lot just east of the Main Bridge.  In the spot today is the parking lot and parking garage located between the Adam's Mark Hotel and the Jax Landing.  The green arrow denotes the cupola of the stately old 1902 courthouse, razed in 1960.  What a sad loss!  It stood where the eastern end of the Yates Building (Property Appraiser's Office) is located now.

SHORE SIDE PARKING -- During the mid Fifties, the new Northbank parking lots were the pride of the city.  An interesting explanation comes from the 1955/56 Jacksonville Municipal Yearbook:

"After several years of planning, Jacksonville's new waterfront parking project, situated along a four-block area on the north side of the St. Johns River, was in full operation shortly after the beginning of 1956.  Unique among a number of publicly-owned parking enterprises throughout the United States, Jacksonville's project was developed from an unattractive riverfront of warehouse and shipping facilities that have been replaced by a well laid-out parking pattern capable of taking care of nearly 1,900 cars at one time.  Fringing the parking plot on the river is palm-lined sidewalk, with grass parkway and a concrete balustrade.  Envisioned in the original City Plan in 1929 by George W. Simons, Jr., and expanded to a broader scale in a project proposed in 1950, the parking area lies between the east side of Hogan Street and the west side of Newnan Street... In addition to the parking stalls, the development also includes a new four-lane street, now known as Water Street, which is the north boundary of the project, and two-lane ramps leading on to and off of the Main Street Bridge..."

To more recent generations, the once-impressive parking lots seemed an eyesore.  Such structures as the Jacksonville Landing, Richard P. Daniel State Office Building, and the tall, former city hall (the current City Hall Annex) were constructed on or next to the parking areas.  Thus, yesteryear's improvements can easily become today's embarrassments.

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