Tag Archives: Manuel Rivera

LaVilla’s Progress Furniture Company

Posted on February 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

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Climb the stairs and see there’s more missing than remains of 318 Broad Street. Bernie would tell you, at Progress Furniture Company, 80 years ago, “Buy or Sell…We Treat You Well.” His father was one of two Romanian Jewish immigrants in Jacksonville named Isador Moskovitz. This collapsing commercial building provides a microcosm of decimated and mostly vanished LaVilla. A thistle blooms in bricks near the roof.

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Tagged 318 Broad Street, 324 Broad Street, Bernie Moskovitz, Black Masonic Temple Jacksonville, Broad Street Jacksonville, Broad Street LaVilla, Brooklyn Jacksonville, DeLoach Furniture, Gladys Klausner, Goony Golf, Herman Klausner, Isador Moskovitz, Jacksonville Jewish Center, Jacksonville Train Terminal, Kenneth Klausner, LaVilla, LBee Furniture, Liberty Furniture Company, Manuel Rivera, Manuel's Tap Room, Mayor Ed Austin, Noli Novak, Noli Novak artist, Olga Moskovitz, Paula Klausner, Paula Moskovitz, Progress Furniture Company, psychogeography Florida, Richmond Hotel Jacksonville, Richmond Hotel LaVilla, River City Renaissance, Southern Gothic Jacksonville, Terminal Hotel, Terminal Liquors, Terry DeLoach, Tim Gilmore, United Optical Outlet

When Governor Claude Kirk Hopped the Fence and Took the Mic from “Black Power Agitator,” H. Rap Brown

Posted on April 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

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This ballpark has been the heart of Durkeeville for more than a century. It was Jacksonville’s municipal baseball stadium until 1954. The Negro Leagues played here. Hank Aaron “integrated” the Jacksonville Braves and won MVP, 1953.

White people had lots of guns and white cops all had guns, so black people! should get guns too. So said H. Rap Brown, who bridged the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to the Black Panthers.

Claude Kirk, 36th governor of Florida, Jax insurance salesman, hopped the fence at Durkee Field, tromped toward the pitcher’s mound, and snatched the mic from H. Rap Brown.

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Tagged Art Hamilton, Ax Handle Saturday, Babe Ruth, Ben Geraghty, Black Panthers, Black Power, Bubbling Small, Buck O'Neil, Charlie Griffin, Claude Kirk, Dale Carson, Durkee Field, Durkeeville, Felix Mantilla, Fred Dickinson, H. Rap Brown, Hank Aaron, Hemming Park, honkies, Horace Garner, Indianapolis Clowns, J.P. Small, Jackie Robinson, Jacksonville Braves, Jacksonville Red Caps, Jacksonville Tars, James Baldwin, James Small, jaxpsychogeo, Joseph Durkee, LaVilla, Lorraine Motel, Manuel Rivera, Manuel's Tap Room, Martin Luther King, Negro Leagues, Negroes with Guns, Robert F. Williams, Sallye B. Mathis, SNCC, Stanton School, Stokely Carmichael, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Sugar Hill, The Fire Next Time, Tim Gilmore, Willie Weston

Pedrica Mendez’s House

Posted on September 26, 2017 | 1 comment

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When Padrica was a little girl in the 1940s, the Cuban community in Jacksonville surrounded her and her family with love and a yet larger sense of family.

One night as she left the opera in Rome, a photographer snapped her picture, wrote, “in omaggio alla sua bellezza,” or “in homage of your beauty,” on the back of the photograph, and gave it to her.

The fire that consumed the great two-story house next door jumped sparks at Padrica’s house.

Still what most struck Padrica were the cadences she heard in the Orthodox music of ancient Ethiopia that reminded her dearly, tearfully, of rhymes and end-lines from old “Negro spirituals.”

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Tagged Alvin Ailey, Bert Williams, Carmen Jones, Durkeeville, Ed Austin, Enrico Caruso, Frank Nero, Havana Night Club, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeoTonyaa Weathersbee, Jennifer Chase, Joel McEachin, Josephine Baker, LaVilla, Manuel Rivera, Manuel's Tap Room, Mariano Stabile, MaVynee Betsch, Padrica Mendez, Pedro Mendez, Queen of Sheba, River City Renaissance, Solomon Shad, Sugar Hill, The Two Spot, Tim Gilmore, Victor Banjo, Virginia King