A Jacksonville native, recently retired from FAU, remembers coming to the Park with her Grandmother

“Saturday mornings, she would get me all dressed up, and this is in the 70’s, and we’d take the bus, she didn’t drive, to downtown Jacksonville. Everybody took the bus. It dropped us off right at the Park. We’d head over to the Woolworth’s building to buy peanuts, and then we’d go to the Park and sit on a bench by the fountain that used to be here, and feed the pigeons. I mean, there was 1 million pigeons and they were super friendly. They would get on my lap and on my head! I mean to sit there as a little kid, downtown, and have these pigeons just sitting in my lap and letting me feed them, I mean, I was in heaven.”

Photos by Toni Smailagic