Published by the Department of Public Affairs, City of St. Augustine. Florida September 7 2010
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City opens Lincolnville dialog |
 Our Planning and Zoning Board (PZB) today opens a dialog long awaited by residents of Lincolnville - a discussion of key elements in their neighborhood - a National Historic District.
"The discussion item came from the City Manager's Office," City Planner David Birchim says. "We will be discussing the Willie Galimore Center, right of way improvements - sidewalks, Riberia Street, and other infrastructure, the Echo House status, and the overall condition of private property housing stock and vacant lands."
PZB members, meeting at 2 p.m. in the Alcazar Room at City Hall, "will provide feedback to begin a community dialog with the goal of improving the neighborhood," Birchim says.
There are at least two university studies of Lincolnville, from architectural and planning students at the universities of Florida and Notre Dame, which are likely to figure into future community dialog. |
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Ceremony of Remembrance
Our city's annual Ceremony of Remembrance will be conducted Saturday at 8:30 a.m. in our Plaza de la Constitución.
The brief ceremony, initiated two days after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, will conclude at 8:45, the time the first plane hit the north tower of New York's World Trade Center.
The St. Augustine Police Department will post the colors, Rev. Ted Voorhees, Vicar of St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church, will give the invocation, and Elizabeth Roth will present musical selections.
The ceremony will conclude with the ringing of the bells throughout the downtown. |
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925 year old Aviles charter
replicas presented to city | |
Pedro Menendez was 16 years old, and likely in command of ships protecting Spanish merchantmen in the Mediterranean, when his home city of Aviles celebrated its 450th anniversary in 1535.
Thirty years later, he would found another city, now on the cusp of its own 450th.
 The sister cities of Aviles and St. Augustine came together once again last week as Roman Alvarez Gonzalez, city councilman of Aviles and minister of Culture and Sports, brought with him canvas reproductions of the original charter of the City of Aviles, authorized by Spain's Alfonso VI in 1085.
Alvarez presented the documents Wednesday to the St. Augustine Archaeological Association - where he was inducted as its first European member, and Saturday to the Diocese of St. Augustine during Founder's Day ceremonies.
With the presentations came a mystery. Alvarez said half the original document was lost for some 200 years - carried off for safekeeping when Napoleon invaded Spain. Alvarez' research led to its recovery.
Elizabeth Gessner, who helped with interpretation during Alvarez' visit, explained "the Fuero (charter) was a document given by the king with the rights and privileges - as well as duties, such as taxes - to a city, region, or institution, that formally permitted it to exist. Fueros were the subject of great negotiation between the king and local leaders and were in effect for centuries," Gessner says.
Art lecture concludes Alvarez visit
Aviles Councilman Roman Alvarez concludes his weeklong visit to St. Augustine tonight, donning his hat as an art historian to discuss St. Augustine's artistic connection to sister city Aviles.
He'll make a presentation on the paintings of the popular 19th century painter, Joaquin Sorolla. The presentation is at 7 at the Art Association. |
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| FDOT won't fool with Mother Nature | |
 Weather prompted the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to correct persistent flooding on King Street, and weather will delay the project start until January.
"The project is being postponed in part because community members expressed concern that traffic and pedestrian impacts could adversely affect retailers during the holiday season, and weather during hurricane season is more likely to prolong the duration of the project," FDOT's Sandra Mancil says.
The $577,000 project, originally scheduled to begin today, will replace the old drainage system between the King Street Bridge over the San Sebastian River and Malaga Street with a new system that includes replacing pipes beneath King Street and constructing a new backflow prevention structure at the San Sebastian River.
The rare project postponement was made possible through the cooperation of contractor MASCI of Port Orange, Mancil said.
Meanwhile, sidewalk construction continues on West Castillo Drive adjacent to our Visitor Center parking facility, where westbound traffic will be detoured to Orange Street today through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Find details on these and other area projects here.
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| Living history highlights Founder's Day |
From the carefully researched banner of La Compañía de Santiago (The Company of St. James) to the robes and ornamentation of Sister Maria Guadalupe, Saturday's highly successful Founder's Day ceremonies reflected actual history of September 8, 1565 - the founding of St. Augustine.
"The Founding Day commemorations on the Mission site are not a 'pure' living history event and never have been," La Compañía organizer Davis Walker noted, referring to speeches and proclamations in the event.
But the landing of Pedro Menendez, the Mass, and the entourage that carried Menendez' casket to the new Mission of Nombre de Dios Museum were carefully orchestrated to reflect that September day 445 years ago.
Elena Sala researched details to create the St. James banner, and among the celebrants was Sister Maria Guadalupe, who might have been on her way to a Carmelite mission in New Spain (Mexico).
Dianne Jacoby's representation was a reminder that, while Catholic nuns were not a part of Menendez' expedition to Florida, they were already established in Latin American missions and would play a major role in our city's continuing history with the arrival of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the mid 19th century.
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History's Highlight 'Ye compleatest piece of architecture'
A bried prayer service was held at the Chapel of Our Lady of La Leche during a Founder's Day procession Saturday. The following account is drawn from articles in the St. Augustine Catholic in 2008 by Historian and former Mission of Nombre de Dios Director Michael Gannon.
5 years and 2 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
"Ye Indian or milk church . . . is ye compleatest piece of architecture about ye town, above which is a prodigious sight (a façade) of carved stone according to their fancy. It is strange ye Spaniards should bestow ten times more labour & charge on this Indian church than any of their own in ye town."
Botanist John Bartram, 1765
The first Chapel of Our Lady of La Leche on the grounds of the Mission of Nombre de Dios is believed to have been built between 1605 and 1620.
The dedication originated in 1598, when a Catholic couple in Spain found a small statue of Mary depicted in the act of breastfeeding the infant Jesus. Sometime later, the wife experienced complications in bringing a child to term. The couple prayed to Mary under the title of Nuestra Señora de Ia Leche y Buen Parto - literally, Our Lady of the Milk and of Happy Delivery. Their faith was rewarded with a safe delivery and with a wholesome period of nursing.
 Learning of this prodigy, King Philip III of Spain had a shrine erected in Madrid to honor Mary under the new title. The devotion spread to Latin America. It was likely the Franciscan friars who brought the devotion to St. Augustine, where residents were profoundly devoted to the mother of Jesus.
A wood plank chapel with a copy of the Nursing Mother statuary was erected on the grounds of Mission, and soon both Spanish and Native mothers and mothers- to-be began making pilgrimages to the shrine, first in our country.
In 1677, Spanish Governor Pablo Hita y Salazar had the wooden structure replaced by a new chapel using coquina, a shell rock quarried on Anastasia Island. In 1702, an English-led force from Carolina destroyed the chapel. Rebuilt with stone, it was attacked a second time in 1728 by a Carolina force, who carried off the statue of the Nursing Mother.
In the second reconstruction Spanish Governor Antonio de Benavides moved the chapel site a slight distance to the south, and the coquina remains from the old church were left scattered on the ground.
During the British occupation of Florida from 1763 to 1784, the chapel was turned into a hospital, giving a nearby waterway its name, Hospital Creek. When the Spanish returned, the revered statue was not with them, and without that image and without any Christian Indians to serve - they had all gone to Havana with the Spaniards - the ornate stone building was left empty and unused.
In 1795, its distinctive façade and walls were dismantled so that the coquina stone could be used in a new St. Augustine parish church, the Cathedral-Basilica. A church official wrote, "The 'frontispiece [will be] that of the Church of Our Lady of La Leche . . . and in such a manner much will be saved."
The stone chapel and its several sites were forgotten through the next 73 years, until 1868, when Florida's first resident bishop, Augustin Verot, reconstructed a stone chapel on the still existing foundations of the original. Thirty-four years later, the new chapel was destroyed by a hurricane.
Another 24 years passed until Michael J. Curley, fourth Bishop of St. Augustine, erected a fourth stone chapel on the same foundations.
Last year, University of Florida Archaeologist Kathy Deagan discovered three coquina building stones under the southeast corner of the present chapel. University analysis determined the stones to be from Father Verot's 1875 chapel. The stones are on display at the Mission's new museum.
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The St. Augustine Report is published by the Department of Public Affairs of the City of St. Augustine each Tuesday and on Fridays previewing City Commission meetings. The Report is written and distributed by George Gardner, former St. Augustine Mayor (2002-2006) and Commissioner (2006-2008) and a longtime newspaper reporter and editor. Contact The Report at gardner@aug.com |
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