Published by former Mayor George Gardner March 7 2012
The Report is an independent publication serving our community.
Contributions are greatly appreciated, by mail or 'Donate' button below.
George Gardner 57 Fullerwood Drive St. Augustine FL 32084 |
Archaeology Association marks history 
The site of Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, Our Lady of Solitude Church and Hospital, will be marked on Sisters of St. Joseph grounds on St. George Street March 31 with the unveiling of a marker describing the chapel, built in 1572, and hospital - the first in today's America - in 1597.
And other marker is ready to be placed at the Heritage House, King and Aviles streets, during First Friday Art Walk April 6 - Nuestra Senora de los Remedios, Our Lady of Remedies parish church from 1572 to 1702.
Both anticipate approval from the Historic Architectural Review Board at its March 15 meeting.
The markers are part of a continuing program by the St. Augustine Archaeological Association "to make the archaeology work done in the archaeology zones of the City more visible to the public," Association President Toni Wallace says.
"Our first marker, the Mission of Nuestra Senora del Rosario de La Punta, was installed at the end of Tremerton Street in December of 2008. We have plans to install about a dozen more."
The marker program is funded with membership fees and fundraising by the archaeological association. | |
|
|
Celtic Heritage Festival 2012
The St. Augustine Celtic Music & Heritage Festival opens Saturday, March 10 for two days of festivities at Francis Field - a week ahead of St. Patrick's Day but with pub sessions continuing at Meehan's and Ann O'Malley's thru March 17.
A St. Patrick's Day Parade will step off at 10am Saturday from Francis Field, circling the historic district.
Look for local, regional, national and international acts and vendors as Romanza continues its mission to promote arts and culture of our nation's oldest city.
Details at Romanza.
Poster created by
Anonymous Society of Artists |
|
|
|
3rd workshop on vendors, artists
City commissioners meet Thursday morning, March 8, for the third of three scheduled workshops in an effort to sort out vendors, street performers and visual artists and their places - if any - in St. Augustine.
The session is 8:30 to 10:30 am in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.
The first session, last month, called for a study of extending no vending zones along St. George side streets, a comprehensive plan for vendors, street performers, and artists, and a map of potential sites for a vendor market; the second session focused on public comment.
The workshops are an effort to review "incremental" regulations developed over time and to consider if and how these activities might have a place in St. Augustine's tourism experience. | |
The materials are 15 lists of names. The sources include Flagler College's St. Augustine Foundation, whose members include major scholars in Spanish history of the city's founding period.
The challenge, for the Saint Augustine Jewish Historical Society, is to prove that Jews were aboard the ships in Pedro Menendez' fleet in the summer of 1565.
No easy task, society organizers noted last week in an inaugural session with Dr. John Diviney, Flagler College Coordinator for the Spanish and Latin American Program, presenting "Jewish Diaspora from Spain in 1492 through Pedro Menendez de Aviles' arrival in St. Augustine, 1565."
The year 1492 introduced new terms: Marranos, conversos, and New Christians, applied to the descendants of baptized Jews in Spain and Portugal suspected of secret adherence to Judaism following an edict that Jews be expelled or executed.
By tracing those lists, comparing names and histories with known Jews, the society hopes to rewrite conventional Jewish history claiming the first Jews came to today's America 100 years later, in 1654, at New Amsterdam (New York City).
Join the effort or learn more at http://staugustinejewishhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com/ | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Menorcan heritage Festival
St. Augustine's Menorcan heritage takes center stage Saturday at the Llambias House in its annual festival featuring Menorcan foods, historic documents, dancing, and story-telling. The free event continues from 11am to 3pm.
Colonial Market Artisans painting, crafting, and demonstrating St. Augustine's colonial period fill the Colonial Spanish Quarter Saturday, 10 to 4, in the monthly Day in the Colonial Market. Suggested donation $1. Info 825.6830. |
College collecting hotel memories |
Yet another commemoration surfaces next year - the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Hotel Ponce de Leon, and Flagler College - resident for 45 years since 1968, wants to gather recollections of the grand hotel's heyday.
"If you ever worked or visited the Ponce while it was operating as a hotel or simply have a story to tell about the masterpiece of Spanish Renaissance architecture and the first major poured-in-place concrete building in the United States, Flagler College would like to talk with you," College Relations Director Laura Stevenson Dumas says.
"Flagler College history students will conduct interviews, and recordings will be maintained in the college's archives."
Contact Laura at 904-819-6205 or LStevenson@flagler.edu. |
|
History's Highlight |
Notable history of Hotel Ponce de Leon
3 years, 6 months, 2 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
The signature twin towers of the Hotel Ponce de Leon were originally water storage tanks holding 8,000 gallons each, providing running water for hotel guests.
The headwaiter of the Hotel Ponce de Leon in the 1880s and 1890s was Frank Thompson, a pioneer civil rights advocate and organizer of the professional black baseball team that became the Cuban Giants. One member of the team, Frank Grant, is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Noted personalities including Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, Somerset Maugham, Babe Ruth and Babe Didrikson stayed at the hotel.
The hotel's Artists' Studios attracted many up-and-coming American artists, including Martin Johnson Heade, whose "Giant Magnolias on a Blue Cloth," painted in Studio No. 7, hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
When the federal government implemented direct aid programs to revitalize the community's tourism economy, authors Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Robert Frost, John Dos Passos, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings visited or lived in St. Augustine, creating "The Lost Colony" popularized with the publication of Robert Torchia's 2001 book of that title.
From 1942-45, thousands of young recruits received their "boot" and advanced training at what was certainly one of the most unusual training stations of WWII.
In 1963 the hotel was one of several St. Augustine sites involved in the civil rights movement. Then Vice President Lyndon Johnson was invited to attend a banquet to launch the celebration of St. Augustine's upcoming 400th birthday as the nation's oldest permanent European settlement.
Dr. Robert Hayling and other civil rights activists protested the exclusion of blacks from the event, and after negotiations, two tables were set aside for local black residents.
On March 31, 1964, more than a hundred students from all-black Richard J. Murray High School marched to downtown and sat-in at the hotel's elegant dining room.
In 1968 the hotel became the centerpiece of the newly-established Flagler College. In 1976 the college began a campaign to restore the hotel and other Flagler-era campus buildings. In 1998 students created the Flagler's Legacy program providing guided tours of the hotel.
The Hotel Ponce de Leon was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and became a U.S. National Historic Landmark February 21, 2006.
Information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponce_de_Le%C3%B3n_Hotel
Image: Hotel postcard ca 1909 |
|
|
|
The St. Augustine Report is published weekly, with additional Reports previewing City Commission meetings as well as Special Reports. The Report is written and distributed by George Gardner, St. Augustine Mayor (2002-2006) and Commissioner (2006-2008) and a former newspaper reporter and editor. Contact the Report at gardner@aug.com |
|
|
