Latest news with #CommunityBridge
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Pride Month kicks off Sunday on Jacksonville's Riverfront
June is Pride Month, and Jacksonville's LGBTQ+ community and its allies plan to celebrate. On Sunday, June 1, two events are planned Downtown. The 5th Annual Acosta Bridge Pride March will begin at 6 p.m. Anyone interested in taking part is asked to wear rainbow colors, bring Pride flags, and meet under the Acosta Bridge by the San Marco Skyway Station. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< After that, at 8:20 p.m., will be the Pride in our Freedoms Community Bridge Lighting. Participants will line the pedestrian walkway of the bridge and shine rainbow-colored lights. At the same time, there will be a watch party at Friendship Fountain. In a news release, organizers said, "Born from resistance to the Florida Department of Transportation's attempt to dim the Acosta Bridge Pride lights in 2021, this year marks the fifth anniversary of the Acosta Bridge Pride March. Five years later, our message remains the same: Lights or no lights, there will always be rainbows on the Acosta Bridge in June." They issued a similar statement about the Main Street Bridge lighting. "The Main Street Bridge faces the Acosta Bridge. The latter, up until 2023, was illuminated in rainbow colors at the start of Pride Month. Today, it is illuminated in red, white and blue. The two color schemes, facing each other, symbolize the interconnection of Pride and Freedom. There can be no freedom without diversity, and there is no diversity without freedom. These ideals are inextricable and inalienable." [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Community Bridge mural to be rebuilt in $1.3 million effort
Work has begun to reconstruct downtown's Community Bridge mural in its entirety in a project expected to cost more than $1.3 million. Contractors began surface testing on Tuesday as part of a city-funded effort to replace the mural. Over its 27-year life, the mural has suffered enough damage from moisture and vandalism to warrant its complete replacement, its creator, William Cochran, said in an interview on Tuesday. The tests were one of the first steps to reconstruct the mural and gather information on what materials to use for the art's restoration. The trompe l'oeil — a French term for art that deceives the eye into thinking it is three-dimensional — mural adorns the bottom and sides of downtown Frederick's Community Bridge. The bridge, along South Carroll Street, runs over Carroll Creek. Before the mural, the bridge was unadorned concrete. Construction of the mural started in 1993 after ideas and funding for artwork on the bridge were sourced from the community. Local nonprofits and businesses helped to provide both material and financial support, Cochran said. 'A different individual or family sponsors nearly every stone in Community Bridge,' Cochran said in his 2021 'Report: the death and rebirth of Community Bridge.' After Cochran finished the artwork in 1998, the city agreed to take over maintenance of the mural. The mural suffered 'unforeseen' water damage over the following years, according to a 2022 city agreement paying Cochran's studio over $142,000 to begin painting the new panels. The mural's panels, he said, were designed to be waterproof, but they needed regular maintenance to remain so. When Cochran finished the mural, much of the surrounding Carroll Creek Linear Park had not been built. In 2005, construction started to completely change the landscape around the creek. The creation of the modern park was meant to prevent floods, provide new pedestrian walkways, and make new public spaces in the downtown area. Now, the park's concrete walkways angle down toward the bridge, creating more opportunity for water damage, Cochran said. On the eastern side of the bridge, a panel covers up a space where vandals tore a hole in the mural. Biological growth encouraged by moisture form dark streaks along its walls, Cochran said. Cochran finished the original mural in five years. He said it will take five years to do it again. The plan is to replace the concrete panels that make up the mural on the bottom and sides of the bridge with a more water-resistant version of the same art, Cochran said. A state grant will cover $250,000 for the cost, but the remaining $1.1 million will be sourced from the city's operating budget, according to the city's fiscal year 2025 capital improvement plan. 'It's an important work of public art for the city and the city is taking steps to ensure it is still there for future generations,' Frederick Manager of Arts and Culture Laila Abdul-Hadi Jadallah said.
