Tag Archives: Southern Gothic

The Mystery House at Atlantic/Neptune Beach

Posted on January 17, 2021 | 1 comment

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Supposedly the hurricane tossed the house back up on the beach that way and rather than tearing it down, some smalltime Barnum charged admission. At the beginnings of a town called Neptune, the “Mysterious House” stood out beyond the dunes. Inside, gravity went askew. You felt like you were walking up the wall.

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Tagged Al Mosher, Atlantic Beach, Dan G. Wheeler, Dan Wheeler, Dixie before Disney, Donald Mabry, Florida history, Jacksonville Beach, jaxpsychogeo, Lemon Bar, Lemon Street, Mayport, Mysterious House, Mystery House, Neptune, Neptune Beach, Ocean Boulevard, Pablo Beach, Sanborn Fire Insurance, Sanborn map, Southern Gothic, St. Augustine, Tim Gilmore, Tim Hollis

Harry Crews’s Childhood Nightmare Northside

Posted on May 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

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The novelist Harry Crews chronicled how Jacksonville imported desperation from half the state of Georgia. It offered hope, but required human sacrifice. First coming to Jax when his stepfather-uncle aimed a rifle at his mother’s head, Harry lived in half a dozen houses across the Northside, all of which his family called “the Springfield Section.” When Harper Lee read Crews’s second novel, she said William Faulkner had come back to life.

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Tagged " E.E. Cummings, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, Abraham Joseph, Andrew Jackson High School, Bacon County Georgia, Biography of Harry Crews, Blood Bone and Marrow, Drew Mansion, Erskine Caldwell, Fairfield, Florida Gothic, Franklin Street Baptist Church, Grit Lit, Harper Lee, Harry Crews, Historic Springfield Jacksonville, Hoyett Crews, Jacksonville Northside, jax psycho geo, Jeeter Lester, Junior Lister, King Edward Cigars, Klutho Apartments, Klutho House, Leland Lister, Myrtice Crews, Naked in Garden Hills, New Springfield, North Jacksonville, Okefenokee Swamp, Paschal Crews, Phoenix, Phoenix Avenue, Public School no. 8, Ray Crews, Scar Lover, Southern Gothic, Springfield, Swisher and Son, Ted Geltner, Tim Gilmore, Tobacco Road, University of Florida, white flight, William Faulkner

The Independent Life Building / Wells Fargo Center

Posted on May 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

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From lightning strikes to the locomotive buried in its foundation, from loyalty to President Nixon to overtures to the National Football League, from the architectural sketches of Wah Yo Eng to the immigrant family of Bulgarians, Haitians and Jamaicans, the Independent Life Building (now the Wells Fargo Center) has reflected Jacksonville back to itself since 1974.

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Tagged Accustaff, Accustaff Building, Bay Street, Beth Dunlop, Bill Ectric, Bill Ectric King, Bill Foley, Bill Kinh, Bob Irsay, Bud Adams, C.J. Holmes, Colt Fever, Consolidation, David Eisenhower, Doug Eng, Drew Company, Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad, Florida Gothic, Great Fire of 1901, H. and W.B. Drew, Henry Flagler, Independent Life Building, Independent Life Insurance Company, J.H.W. Hawkins, J.M.W. Hawkins, Jacksonville Bulls, Jacksonville Businessmen’s Club, Jacksonville Colts, Jacksonville Oilers, Jacob Bryant III, jaxpsychogeo, JMW Hawkins, John C. Christian, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, KBJ, KBJ Architects, Kemp Bunch Jackson, Lyubomira Lazarova, Mayport, Mayport Naval Station, Mayport Navy Base, McConihe Building, Modis, Modis Building, Richard Nixon, River Club, Southern Gothic, Tim Gilmore, United States Football League, USFL, Veliko Tarnovo, Way Yo Eng, Wayne Wood, Wells Fargo Center

New Story: Geodesica

Posted on February 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

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Here, Charles died in Drew’s arms. Here in the rotunda, at the bottom of the ocean, though Santa Monica demolished this amusement park the year I was born, it thrives. Gilbert Spindel drew up his “Roundhouse” blueprints and promoted them in newspapers across the country in 1956. This particular Geodesica served as “exhibit house” three years later. All the rest comes forward like tides, historical patterns, ghosts. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio…”

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Tagged A Home for All, Bonnie Abbzug, Buckminster Fuller, Buzludsha, Charles Edison Chapman, Chaseville, Chaseville Cemetery, Dallas Wax Museum, Drew Hunter, Edward Abbey, FCDA, Federal Civil Defense Administration, Fibonacci Sequence, Florida history, Fort Caroline Club Estates, Geodesic Dome, Geodesica, Gilbert Spindel, Gina Martinelli, Golden Ratio, Harry Truman, Howalt Drive, Huricane Dora, jax psycho geo, Leaves of Grass, Leon Felhandler, Lonnie Wurn, midcentury modern, Monkey Wrench Gang, Neptune's Kingdom, Nevada Proving Grounds, Newel Hadley, Ocean Park Pier, Octagon House, Orson Squire Fowler, Pacific Ocean Park, Reggie Williams, Round House, Roundhouse, roundhouses, Sally Corporation, Sarah Felhandler, Southern Gothic, Spaceship Earth, Spindel Geodesica, Star Williams, Sunken City of POP, Tim Gilmore, Timucuan Indians, Upshot-Knothole, Walt Whitman

The 500th Story

Posted on January 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

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The 500th JaxPsychoGeo story. About time. About how my dreams after my father’s death differ from the dreams I had when my mother died. About why I started this bizarre website. About a lynching my friend’s father witnessed. And about the perspective a 1.8 billion year old piece of mountain granite provides.

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Tagged A.P. Goff, ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Blanding Boulevard Baptist Church, Cynthia Goff, David W. Strunk, frederick douglass, jax psycho geo, jaxpsychogeo, Joan Irene Gilmore, Leslie William Gilmore, Life Begins at 40, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Norman Rockwell, Oglethorpe Georgia, Old Folks at Home, psychogeography, Slim Whitman, Southern Gothic, Stephen Foster, Swanee River, Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Terry Mattison, Tim Gilmore, Willie James Howard

Lovett’s / Winn & Lovett / Winn-Dixie & my Grandfather

Posted on March 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

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“When I was a little girl,” my mother wrote, “before we had money, my father liked to tease me and loved to laugh.”

Architectural critics who saw the voluptuous curves of Art Deco as “effete” credited Art Moderne with streamlined manliness.

He gave her “strict instructions to be patient and not to wiggle at the window, or the birds wouldn’t come. So I followed his instructions and stood by the window, looking out, watching him, and I was very still.”

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Tagged A.C. Hopkins, Abner Hopkins, Art Deco, Art Moderne, Avondale, Eddie Keene, Fairfax Manor, George Washington Hotel, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, Lovett's, Mayfair Street, Ortega, psychogeography, Riverside, Silvertown, Southern Gothic, Tim Gilmore, Winn & Lovett's, Winn-Dixie

New Story: Bayard Antique Village / Beautyrest Cabins

Posted on December 14, 2016 | 1 comment

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Reports of the death of Bayard Antique Village from the fire just before Halloween were greatly exaggerated.

The old Beautyrest Cabins in the rural outpost of Bayard became Bayard Antique Village in 1967. Between one-room cabins on the Village’s one-lane road loop: stories of murderous sawmills, century-old ghosts of prostitutes, eyeball candy, not “eye candy,” and clowns.

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Tagged Ali Mama's, Bayard, Bayard Antique Village, Bayard Inn, Beautyrest Cabins, eyeball comfit, Flannery O'Connor, Greg Rozier, Hazel Motes, Horne's Beautyrest, Horne's Pecan Candy, Interstate Highway System, Jacksonville, Jax, Jim Antone, Jim Moore, Jimmy Searcy, Mrs. Slowski, Old St. Augustine Road, Pam McCaleb, Philips Highway, Southern Gothic, Stuckey's, Tim Gilmore, U.S. 1, Vivian Searcy, Wing Hotel, Wing Inn