Tag Archives: Brooklyn

Gravely Hill Plantation and Graveyard

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Why is the world’s oldest man buried here? Or wasn’t he 133 years old? Where are Jim Domingo, Cyrus and Francisco? And who burnt down the old house on the hill? The kids playing hide-and-seek? Or that ageless wanderer who’d lost count of his wars, trying to keep warm on a winter night?

 

When Jax Declared Its Center a “Slum Heart,” ‘Evil,” and Demanded Exorcism

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The deep baritone drips with condescension, festers with open sarcasm.

“This very plumbing, if you can dignify it with the name of plumbing, can bring disease and death into your home through the medium of your servants.”

“Come to think of it,” Slum Heart recalls, opportunistically, “that servant girl who comes to your house each morning […] Do you know where she goes at night?”

New Story: Brooklyn: Avon Apartments / Sam’s Grocery (After the Fire)

I’d just written the 111 year old Avon Apartment Building’s story two weeks ago.

Headlines about a Brooklyn, New York fire on the porch of an old house that just burned in Brooklyn in Jacksonville, Florida?

New Story: Avon Apartments and Sam’s Grocery

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Amal recalls her grandfather fondly and considers the 111 year old boarding house an embodiment of Sam Al Hasan. “There’s so much happiness in that house,” she says. “There’s so much laughter and family togetherness and joy.”

Said the Times, “There are subs. There are heroes. There are hoagies, po’ boys and grinders. And in this port city, which has the country’s 10th largest Arab population, there are Camel Riders.”

New Story: Brooklyn: The Last Buffalo Soldier’s House

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Twice during the Civil War, black Union soldiers occupied Confederate Jacksonville.

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Confederate veteran Miles Price platted this former plantation into lots and sold them to former slaves and Buffalo Soldiers.

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“A house can be boarded up for years,” Paul says, “and it seems uninhabitable. But all you have to do is live in the house and it returns to its human-shaped life.”

New Story: Christmas Eve, Buffalo Soldier’s House and Pseudo-Brooklyn Apartments

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Some of Les Paul Garner’s earliest memories are of running through a line of his friends with the ball, shirtless and exhilarated and sweating in the summer heat, and learning to ride his bike around the corner on Oak Street.

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New condo dwellers walk their AKC-registered dogs past the last Buffalo Soldier’s house in Brooklyn.