After days of cold and rain, the weather in Jacksonville finally warmed up just in time for the weekend.  Like a true Floridian, as soon as the mercury hits the 50′s, I threw on a pair of flip flops and headed outside.  With my toes exposed and a short sleeve shirt on, I hopped in the car, cranked the heater up and drove downtown outfitted with my camera, a Starbucks giftcard and a die.  It was the perfect day to go on a dice walk (plus parking is free downtown on weekends, score!).

For a your typical dice walk, you would use a standard die and assign each of the numbers a direction.  For instance:

1 & 4- Left
2 & 5- Straight
3 & 6- Right

The idea is to roll a die every time you come to an intersection and turn in the direction the die tells you to.  Easy enough, right?

I had something even handier than your traditional dice.  I just so happen to tote around a game called LCR with me in my purse every where I go.  The dice are labled with L (left), R (right) and C (center or straight) so they would be perfect for a task such as this.  I began my journey at City Hall and wandered my way around a few blocks downtown.

First, I came across MOCA- Museum of Contemporary Art.  MOCA is located just off Hemming Plaza, a bustling urban center where people gather to listen to live music or play chess on the many outdoor chessboards.  I did not stop to pay MOCA a visit because I have been here previously and didn’t really “feel” it.  I’m not a huge fan of modern art and many of the pieces they had on display were too out there for me.  Instead, I continued next door to the Main Library.

The Main Library is a modern facility that is covered with murals and various exhibits.  It spans 6 floors and covers 300,000 square feet.  I popped in to check out their Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race exhibit.  Deadly Medicine is based on an acclaimed 2004 exhibition of the same name that opened at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. I have always been intrigued by the Holocaust and the ideology behind it so I’ve never been able to pass up the opportunity to see an exhibit about it.  In fact, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum was one of my favorite stops when I was in DC last summer.

The view from the 4th floor of the library.

I love old churches, and this is one of the city’s oldest.  Like most churches in downtown Jacksonville, this church was built to replace one that was lost in the Great Fire of 1901.  The fire was sparked by a kitchen fire and wound up devastating the city.  2,368 buildings were destroyed, 10,000 people were homeless and seven residents were dead. In all, 146 city blocks were destroyed.  Sadly, the church has fallen into a state of disrepair and is now under ownership of the City of Jacksonville.

Although Jacksonville is a major city, it pales in comparison to other cities when you look at its skyline.  We don’t have many skyscrapers, and the ones that we do have are rather old.  Many of the towers are being renovated and turned into modern condos and lofts.  The city is going to great lengths to clean up our downtown and make it more hip.

Growing up, we rarely went downtown and when I was old enough to drive, my mother forbid me from going downtown because it was unsafe.  Naturally, this only made the city more appealing to me and I would travel across the river to drive the streets with my boyfriend after work.

This rad, typical 1960′s building served as the city’s main library until 2005.  The building had really cool mosaics on the ground level that caught my eye.

I had never noticed the building before, and I thought the Classic Revival Greek Ionic structure was pretty cool looking.  After the Great Fire of 1901, Andrew Carnegie gave the city $50,000 towards a new library.  Above the door, the words “Open to All” are etched into the limestone.  It was described as nearly fireproof, with wood only in the floors, doors and sash. Today it houses a law firm.

Okay, quick story.  See the 11E building?  One night a friend and I were downtown and she locked her keys in the car.  Stranded, she randomly ended up talking on the phone with a guy in TX who had a brother that lived in one of the lofts in the building.  The guy called his brother who met us at the bar and walked us back to his building.  It was 3 AM and we had no other option: we were spending the night with a stranger.  He turned out to be a really awesome guy.  His loft was killer and I couldn’t help but open the window, lean out and check out the view.  He offered to take us up to the roof.  Armed with a bottle of vodka, we took the stairs to the roof, he disconnected the wires on the magnetic lock that sealed the door after hours and we spent the entire evening on the rooftop.  I freaked out my friend by sitting on the edge of the building with my feet dangling over the side.  It was an incredibly random, fantastic evening.

If the red doors wasn’t enough of a clue to you, this is the First Presbyterian Church.  This Gothic Revival church was built in 1901 to replace the church destroyed by the fire (see the pattern?).  Two years ago, I went on a Historic Church tour with my friends Sara and Heather.  It was a great walking tour that granted us access to numerous churches downtown.  The church features high ceilings, deep dark wood and gorgeous stained glass windows.

Completed in 1910, this structure is known as one of the finest Gothic Revival churches in the State.  Standing at 178.5 feet, it was Jacksonville’s tallest building until 1913.  This is another one of the churches that I visited in the Historic Church tour.  The interior of the church is as fine as any cathedral that I have visited while in Europe.

All in all, the Dice Walk was quite successful.  It was a nice way to spend a lovely February Saturday.   I got to see parts of the city that I don’t often get to see.  One thing that I thought was rather funny is that I kept getting hit on as I walked the streets downtown.  It wasn’t until I was sitting at Starbucks later that afternoon that I realized why.  The shirt I was wearing featured two doves and said, “Free to Romance”.  LOL

When my Dice Walk took me within a block of my car, I put my die away and headed towards my car.  I stopped to take the above picture before I climbed into the car and headed home.