Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It may have been a different era of history, culture and politics but there are often parallels between the kind of stories that made headlines then and today. As interesting as the differences may be, so are the similarities. These are some of the top stories from this week in 1960. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• Philips Highway Plaza, Jacksonville’s newest shopping center, was formally dedicated. Speakers included John Barr, chairman of the board of Montgomery Ward & Co., and Samuel Friedman, president, and Ralph Biernbaum, vice president and general manager, of Food Fair Properties Inc. Food Fair owned and operated the shopping center and Montgomery Ward was the major tenant.
Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Charles E. Bennett, Jacksonville Mayor Haydon Burns and members of the County Commission, City Commission and City Council.
The property was designed as an “all-weather shopping center” with each store individually air-conditioned and the areas around them protected from the elements.
The plaza was named, as was the highway, for Henry Bethune Philips, who was a circuit judge for 23 years. He was born in 1858 on a farm near the site of the shopping center. His father, Albert Graham Philips, acquired a large tract of land in the area in a Spanish land grant.
A passionate advocate of better roads, Philips died in 1940, soon after the highway was dedicated. He was represented at the shopping center ceremony by a granddaughter, Mrs. Walter S. Bostwick.
The day it opened, Philips Highway Plaza was the largest shopping center in North Florida and the second-largest in the state, exceeded in size only by the 163rd Street Shopping Center in North Miami, which also was owned by Food Fair.
• Motorists who enjoyed violating posted speed limits were put on notice that enforcement was about to reach a higher level when Sheriff Dale Carson asked the County Commission to issue a bid call for radar equipment to be installed in police cars.
County Patrol Chief William Johnston said the new equipment, which had recently been demonstrated here, was “just what is needed” for modern traffic control. He also said the equipment was “foolproof” and would be spotted around the county in various places where numerous complaints were being received about “hot rodders” and heavy-footed motorists.
• A construction expert from Australia on a tour of the state discovered the new Atlantic Coast Line Building and declared, “This is the best building I’ve seen in Florida.”
Richard Taylor spotted the 17-story railroad headquarters building while driving through Jacksonville after a tour of Miami. He decided he wasn’t going to leave without a closer look, so he enlisted the help of the Army Corps of Engineers, which had been his host on a study of reclamation projects.
The corps put him in touch with architect William K. Jackson, a partner in the firm of Kemp, Bunch and Jackson, designers of the building. Jackson took Taylor on a guided tour.
“I was fascinated by the building because of its color and trim style. It really advertises itself because of the exterior color and texture,” said Taylor.
He also said the building had a “tremendous” psychological impact.
“Either you feel comfortable and happy in a building or you don’t,” said Taylor. “The whole plan, interior color and all, gives a sense of well-being.”
• Arguments over where to draw the line on newsstand sales of “lurid literature” were presented to Circuit Judge A.D. McNeill in the County Solicitor’s campaign against obscene reading materials.
Before the judge was a petition to dismiss the complaint brought by County Solicitor Lacy Mahon Jr. against Benny Talpalar, operator of a newsstand at 401 N. Main St.
In the second of two suits brought under a 1959 obscenity law, Mahon asked the court to declare 11 books sold at the newsstand as obscene. A previous suit in which 20 magazines were declared obscene by Circuit Judge William H. Maness was pending before the 1st District Court of Appeals.
As a result of the arguments. McNeill would have to read the 11 books challenged by Mahon plus legal briefs submitted by Assistant County Solicitor Hans Tanzler and Arthur Gutman, the attorney representing Talpalar, before ruling on the dismissal motion.
Gutman argued that the great danger of the 1959 law, which required a Circuit Court ruling on the obscenity question before Criminal Court action could be taken, was that it would set up “one-man censorship.”
Tanzler wrote in his brief that some of the material in the books in question was “worse than the ‘hard core’ pornography in evidence in Criminal Court cases” he had tried. Tanzler said the ruling sought by the solicitor’s office that the books were obscene was to “protect the public, primarily young readers, from exposure to reading matter concerned with immoral and perverted sexual behavior.”
• The City Commission ap-proved a contract with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for performances in the new municipal coliseum Feb. 2-5, 1961. The agreement earmarked 35 percent of the net receipts for the City and 65 percent for the circus after granting the circus concession rights on programs, novelties, cotton candy and snow cones.
Coliseum General Manager Bill Lavery said the total cost of operating the show for the four days would not exceed $14,000, including the City’s share of the advertising budget.
• County and City investigators reported apprehending what they called “one of the most active burglary rings in county history.”
More than 100 burglaries were admitted by the three men who were arrested. The trio was held in the jail without bond pending a complete investigation.
The reputed ring, known to police as “The Sand Dune Gang,” specialized in looting automobiles parked in dunes along the St. Johns River at Fort George. The suspects also made statements admitting to burglaries in Jacksonville Beach that dated back eight months.
The gang targeted cars with out-of-town license plates parked by fishermen, tourists and sailors. The loot ranged from power tools to toothbrushes.
• At its meeting in Jacksonville, the School Health Advisory Committee to the State Department of Education and State Board of Health recommended the formation of a joint group to study Florida laws pertaining to immunization of school-age children.
A spokesman said the committee was concerned because there were children attending public schools who had not been adequately immunized. The spokesman indicated the committee was not in favor of a “compulsory approach to immunization” but “we feel that a new look at this entire problem is indicated.”
• A proposal that the State Department of Public Welfare initiate a full-scale child adoption program was reviewed by the Legislative Council’s committee on health and welfare.
Two views on the proposed program were offered to the committee. Need for the new service and its potential cost were outlined by Miss Frances Davis, director of child welfare for the department, while opposition to the state undertaking the new venture was voiced by Circuit Judge William H. Maness.
Maness was a member of the special committee named by the State Welfare Board to study the state’s adoption problems and which recommended that the welfare department go into the field. Maness stressed that if the welfare department undertook child placement, it would be invading a field in which there were “already 10 or 12 private agencies which were doing a good job.”
Maness said he realized the private agencies might be handicapped in their placement work by a lack of funds.
“If that is true,” said Maness, “perhaps supplemental state funds might be made available in these agencies rather than creating a state bureau.”