Great places of assembly and sport, of culture and enrichment, have colored the imagination, yet precious few have made it to bricks and mortar. Even an airport and a zoo, a yacht basin, a baseball park and the ever-popular amphitheater have been broached at the odd juncture of the municipal centerpiece. City officials revealed three newest proposals April 26. One is for a 44-story building that would be the city's tallest. The site of these castles in the air presently is occupied by the Duval County Courthouse, an unimaginative block of aging building foredoomed by the city administration and other inexorable forces.
All plans are, of course, tentative.
The betting will not be heavy on the third. Of all the downtown dreams that vanished in the cold light of dawn, perhaps the most substantial was Henry Klutho's dream of a great civic center for all public functions. Klutho proposed his grand design this time of year in 1926, a season when dreams had no horizon, when no alarm clock ended reverie. Great buildings grew like mushrooms on the lush ground of Jacksonville. The George Washington Hotel, the Park Lane Apartments, the Florida Theater and the Lynch Building all were under way.