Tag Archives: Tommy Hazouri

Remembering Jacksonville Mayor Jake Godbold, who passed away 1/23/2020

Posted on January 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

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Nobody else ever brought Jacksonville together like Jake Godbold did. After Godbold died earlier today, 1/23/2020, the T-U quoted Mike Tolbert saying, “Jacksonville just lost its best friend.” Indeed. Not quite three years ago, I wrote this story about Jake’s days at Fred Cotten’s Barbecue. It made me quite happy that he read it and liked it.

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Tagged Brentwood, Fred Cotten, Gateway Chemicals, Godbold Jake, Golfair, Independent Life Building, Jacksonville mayor, Jacksonville Mayor Jake Godbold, Jake Godbold, Kirby Smith Junior High School, Mayor Jake Godbold, Melanie Dosztan, River Club, Tim Gilmore, Tommy Hazouri

New Story: Jacksonville Beach: New Trinity, Killing the Devil, and the Murder of Vera Gould

Posted on November 8, 2018 | 1 comment

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After the three young people stabbed K.’s grandmother to death in her Jacksonville Beach home, newspapers quoted them calling her “Satan,” themselves “the New Trinity” and Lex Hester, one of the most prominent men in Jacksonville’s political history, “the Antichrist.”

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Tagged Al Capone, Antichrist, Anton LaVey, backmasking, Bill Magnuson, Billy Lee Magnuson, Bob Price, Carole Magnuson, Chittenango High School, Chittenango New York, Church of Satan, Consolidation, Dayspring Farms, Devil Worship, Duval County, Eduardo Sanchez, Ernest C. Miller, Ernest Miller, Fletcher Junior High, Fletcher Middle School, Florida Times-Union, Folie à deux, folie à trois, Frank Brunson, Hans Tanzler, Henry Lee Lucas, Hotel California, Hotel Statler, House of David Ministries, J.J. Daniel, Jacksonville Beach, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, Jake Godbold, jaxpsychogeo, Jessie-Lynne Kerr, Kill Devil Hills, Kill Devil Hills North Carolina, Led Zeppelin, Lewis Alexander Hester III, Lex Hester, Local Government Study Commission of Duval County, Louis C. Corbin, Louis Corbin, Michelle Remembers, Mike Gould, Neptune Beach, Ottis Toole, Outer Banks, Renee Magnuson, Richard Bowers, San Pablo Elementary, Satanic Bible, Satanic Panic, Satanism, schizophrenia, shared psychosis, Steve Parker, TacoLu, Tim Gilmore, Tommy Hazouri, Vera Gould, Virginia Beach, William Magnuson

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

Posted on September 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

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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.

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Tagged Alton Box Company, BMW, Buckman Sewage, Crestwood, Crude Sulphate Turpentine, CST, Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Druid Hill Lane, Earl Thomas, Environmental Protection Agency, George Herbert, George Robbins, Glidden, Glidden Chemical Company, Great Stocking Rot, Gwen Yates, Gwendolyn Yates, Jacksonville, Jacksonville Environmental Protection, Jacksonville: The Consolidation Story, James Crooks, Jan Hill, jaxpsychogeo, Jefferson Smurfit, Joseph Hagan, LyondellBasell, Mattie Browning, Melissa Bush, Mike Templeton, Mike Tipping, Millennium Specialty Chemicals, Moncrief Creek, Norwood, Pinova Holdings, Prime Osborn, Renessenz LLC, Robert P.T. Young, SCM Glidco, SCM Organics, Seminole Kraft, Sharonda Powell, Standard Turpentine Co., Symrise, The Smell of Money, Tim Gilmore, Tommy Hazouri, Trout River, Union Camp Corporation, Wellington Cummer, William C. Gentry, William Gentry, World Cars, Yellow Fallout

New Story: Farris and Company Slaughterhouse

Posted on July 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Built in 1921, the Farris and Company Slaughterhouse stands both cavernous and labyrinthine. We could easily lose ourselves inside.

Early Arabic business success in Jacksonville occurred in the face of vicious racism. City directories and census forms often recorded Syrian immigrants as “Negro” in the middle of the Jim Crow Era.

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Tagged abattoir, Farris and Company, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, Najeeb Farris, slaughterhouse, Tim Gilmore, Tommy Hazouri

Reggie Bridges’s Shotgun House, WATG Radio, and the Unofficial Museum of Brooklyn

Posted on February 4, 2017 | 1 comment

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For half a century, Reginald Bridges’s 544 square foot shotgun house has hummed with the magnetic density of Brooklyn’s long life. Most much larger houses have lived far less.

Reggie and Harold operated WATG Radio from the back yard and transmitted via cable across Spruce Street to Brooklyn Park. The station might not have transmitted far, but the whole neighborhood listened.

Now we’re looking together at a grainy photograph of a little boy in a suit standing on a Brooklyn sidewalk half a century ago. If you could photograph time, you’d have this very photograph.

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Tagged Brooklyn Jacksonville, Brooklyn Park, Forest Park Elementary, Harold Bridges, Hazel Thomas, Jake Godbold, jaxpsychogeo, Josephine Statums, LaVilla, Mary McLeod Bethune, Reggie Bridges, Reginald Bridges, Setzer's Grocery, shotgun house, Tim Gilmore, Tommy Hazouri, WATG, We Are the Greatest

San Marco’s Politico Ghosts Still Lingering at The Towne Pump

Posted on January 29, 2017 | 1 comment

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After the editor downed 27 shots of Wild Turkey, the Towne Pump hung a plaque on the wall in his honor.

When the mayor’s press aide was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated after speeding away from the Towne Pump three sheets to the wind early one October afternoon in 1977, Tanzler held a press conference saying he’d ordered his staff to stop drinking on their lunch hours.

The ghosts of politicos and newspapermen bleed through to our time. Sometimes we notice.

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Tagged Billee Bussard, Cafe on the Square, Charlie Patton, Dick Bowers, Dick Bussard, Gifford Grange, Hans Tanzler, Indochine, Jack Newsom, Jacksonville, Jacksonville Journal, Jacksonville Monthly, Jake Godbold, James Rink, jaxpsychogeo, John Curington, Mediterranean Revival, Paul Ortis, Raymond Chandler, Richard Bowers, Robert Mitchum, San Marco Building, San Marco Preservation Society, San Marco Square, Sarah Wood Hunt, Square One, Tim Gilmore, Tommy Hazouri, Towne Pump, Towne Pump Building, Towne Pump Drugs and Sundries, Towne Pump Sector, Zeke Wood