Articles

Gala Guests Have Heart for Heart Disease

Gala Guests Have Heart  for Heart Disease

The annual Heart and Stroke Ball raised $450,000 for the American Heart Association on March 12 at the Sawgrass Marriott. This year’s “White Out” theme brought 300 elegant attendees together to raise awareness and funds for heart disease and stroke, the nation’s number 1 and 5 killers. The gala featured a cocktail hour, dinner, dancing, […]

Community views new cancer center renderings

Community views new cancer center renderings

Provided the Jacksonville City Council and Land Use and Zoning Committee sign off on the deal, by early 2018 the two-block parcels of mostly vacant land across from Nemours Children’s Specialty Care should look very different than it does now. In a public meeting April 4 sponsored by the San Marco Preservation Society, officials from […]

Episcopal rowers dominate invitational

Episcopal rowers dominate invitational

Not a ripple spoiled the calm, clear waters of the Ortega River early in the morning Feb. 27 as crews from four schools competed in the 2016 Stanton River Bank Invitational. Joining the Stanton River Bank Rowing Club in the competition were crews from The Bolles School, The Episcopal School of Jacksonville, and Hilton Head […]

Middle school students create, perform opera

Middle school students create, perform opera

Full-length opera makes history as first in country Art may imitate life, but for students at LaVilla School of the Arts there is no replicating the production of the full-length opera titled, “Jared: A Tale of Freedom, Control and Choice.”  Indeed, every word and every note of the production is the outcome of collaboration between […]

St. Paul’s students play Tom Sawyer for a day

St. Paul’s students play Tom Sawyer for a day

Mark Twain’s character Tom Sawyer may have had the right idea to enlist help whitewashing his Aunt Polly’s fence, but he had nothing on the students at St. Paul’s Catholic School. After participating in the school’s annual Jog-a-Thon, students cooled down with a painting session at a 60- by 6-foot white picket fence on the […]

Ruth Moore Berry

Ruth Moore Berry

Imagine a time in Ortega without U.S.17/ Roosevelt Boulevard or when traffic consisted of a trolley running across the Grand Avenue Bridge. Ruth Page Moore Berry remembers it well. Growing up in Ball Cottage on unpaved Baltic Street with neighbors Honesta and James Willis of Sunshine House right next door, Berry had plenty of freedom […]

Southbank’s Riverplace Boulevard: Creating a streetscape for the future

Southbank’s Riverplace Boulevard: Creating a streetscape for the future

The city of Jacksonville is one step closer to building a better road for its “urban village” on the Southbank. The Downtown Development Review Board approved a plan Feb. 18 to reconfigure the lanes on Riverplace Boulevard so it can become more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly. Public meetings to discuss the Riverplace road diet project took […]

Plans materialize for East San Marco

Plans materialize for East San Marco

Long awaited mixed-use project coming to fruition After several attempts to finance and bring one of the largest projects in San Marco’s history to fruition, its time has come.      East San Marco, planned for several vacant lots on Atlantic Boulevard at the intersections of Hendricks Avenue and Mango Place just a block east […]

San Marco Preservation looks to put teeth in neighborhood plan

San Marco Preservation looks to put teeth in neighborhood plan

The balance between urban development and preserving the character of an historic neighborhood has always been tricky. In an effort to preserve San Marco as the unique and special historic community it is, the San Marco Preservation Society intends to legislate its neighborhood action plan, San Marco by Design, in order to give it some […]