Tag Archives: First Baptist Church Jacksonville

Resuscitating Klutho’s Last Downtown Design, the Florida Baptist Convention Building

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For 40 years, the Florida Baptist Convention Building has stood abandoned. Now architect Brooke Robbins is bringing the old building, the last downtown design by architect Henry John Klutho, back to life. Recently I wandered with Brooke up the stone stairwell, through the building’s history, to its rooftop.

The Armory

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Truly this story has it all. The old Armory has stories enough for a hundred cities. There’s no way to tease it adequately. Urban exploration. Thousands of concerts, from opera to Janis Joplin and the Allman Brothers. Political debates and politicians’ funerals and boxing bouts. Stories of integration (James Weldon Johnson, Duke Ellington, Marian Anderson) defiant against Jim Crow. And a call for a future.