Tag Archives: James Crooks

When the City Dumped Sewage Sludge on the Regency Dunes

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National headlines announced fecal matter raining across the city. Sewage lines collapsed without being replaced. Treatment facilities were overwhelmed. Tankers dumped sewage sludge on the sand dunes behind Regency Square Mall where kids had jumped their dune buggies and dads shot World War II rifles. The mayor jumped into the sludge wars.

New Story: Durkeeville: Kennelly Building; Ballot Cures, ‘Black Votes Matter,’ ‘Red Ball Building’ Goes Blue

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The story of the Black Votes Matter mural includes the stories of curing mail-in ballots with signature problems, of the “Mamas of the Movement” and the men and women memorialized in “In-Justice ‘N Jacksonville,” of environmental justice, of painting blue the former business HQ of a conservative Jax politician who opposed taxes and bussing. It’s about bearing witness.

New Story: Three Oaks Plaza, FBI Headquarters, Offshore Power Systems

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Where the Jacksonville Woman’s Club Stood

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It’s not a “demolition,” they say. It’s a “salvage.” Either way, the Jacksonville Woman’s Club building is gone. Causes seen as primarily “women’s” have encountered the same contradictory status of being both exalted and discounted that women themselves have historically experienced. The “Woman’s Club

Movement” owns an important place in the history of feminism, leading even to #metoo. The headline declaimed, “Quadruple Amputee to Get Degree and Bride this Week.” Mellen Greeley, the architect who built the Woman’s Club building, “said the secret to living a long life was being a peaceful person.” My daugthers will always identify by their own names. They’ll never be Mrs. Somebody-Else.

How Mayor Hazouri Defeated Stink / History of the City’s Greatest Offender

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When Jacksonville’s air ranked most fatal, when parts of the documentary The Smell of Money aired nationally, when the city was best-known for its stink, Mayor Tommy Hazouri declared war on odor. The oldest chemical plant in the city still offends. It began more than a century ago.