Jackson Jambalaya

Thats just sad. We need an audit of those funds. And thanks for documenting what Farish street looks like now.

Wow! Ghost town and NO people. Not even the panhandlers want to go down there. What a shame and total WASTE of taxpayer money.

It was shot on a Sunday evening.

This looks like an urban version of scores of little Delta towns, many of which get repeatedly "studied" or "granted" by well-meaning but gullible foundations. And nothing ever changes. So why is there no accountability for the disappearing funds?

i was told it was repaved with gold bricks. where are the gold bricks?

and there are apnhandlers there, david watkins and the 'consultants'...

Sorry 12:47; there ARE no 'well meaning' foundations in the Delta. They all know from years of experience exactly what they're doing and it was never well intended. Forty years ago the meager audits revealed missing hand held Texas Instruments calculators, folding chairs and boxes of copy paper unaccounted for. Now it's ten thousand dollar office machines, vehicles and laptops.

Total waste of money. $21,000,000.00 of nothing but lined pockets. The only person I saw was one possible drug dealer.....What was he doing on the passenger side of the car in all that traffic....Laughing Loudly!

That is just plain sad!! The bleedhearts won't be making many comments based on that visual evidence.....Speak up "Keep Jackson Beautiful"

Those sure are some expensive bricks on the side walks.... geezuz

Selective editing on part of JJ. I have been to both F Jones Corner and Peaches recently and both were crowded.

Back to work 8:25 !

If you want to be considered for this weeks "kick Ass Intern Award" you will not troll on JJ !

Selective editing? Not hardly. I drove through on a Sunday evening as I wanted to get good shots of the structures and buildings themselves. I know very well that F Jones is a busy place on the weekends and Peaches does a very good lunch business. Even said so on the video, but I guess you missed that part.

How can it be selective editing anyway when I showed the entire length of Farish Street, both sides?

Can you breakdown the $21 miliion spent by the group responsible for Farish Street development. It would seem that you would use
1. Farish Street Historic Distric Neighborhood Foundation
2. The foundation overseeing the renovation of the Alamo
3. Smith Roberson Museum, if any
4. Performa
5. Watkins Development
6. City of Jackson
7. Other

That row of abandoned crackhouses is King Harvey Johnson's legacy. They have been in that sorry condition since King Harvey's first royal terms. There is no reason why those structures have not been condemned, destroyed and their owner billed for the cost.

Before photos would be good.

Would anyone like to guess what it costs to demolish and/or restore old buildings...including getting the rights to do so?

Indeed, anyone want to guess what it'd cost to have bulldozed the street, haul off the debris and build modern buildings?

Hold officials accountable ...in everything...but let's not be so naive. Leaving it as it was was not acceptable.

And, I doubt a one of you wants to do what I'd do, take the owners to the cleaners for letting it get rundown. We can't even get homeowners to maintain homes in neighborhoods down here as we don't want the government interferring with property ownership.

You can't have it both ways. You can't bemoan the loss of value of the area for the majority and defend those who cause the area to lose value. Who owned the buildings? HMMM?

Farish Street has been a rat hole my entire life, and the historical society did more to keep it depressed than to help it recover. Two examples come to mind: the ridiculous preservation of those shotgun shacks which are nothing but an eyesore and the restrictions put in place that prevented Jitney Jungle from renovating their Mill Street building.

People can prattle on about this single spot or that cafe which do a business at specific times, but that's a far stretch from a street buttressed by blues clubs and retail shops frequented by throngs of patrons. It is intellectually dishonest to suggest that Farish Street is anything more than an abandoned street with a fresh coat of paint.

I would encourage all the Jackson cheerleaders to move their establishments there. Malcolm White, move Hal & Mal's to Farish. Jeff Good, move Bravo there. JFP, put your editorial offices to one of the storefronts. Ben Allen, relocate DJP to the corner of Farish and E. Griffith, right across from the oh so popular Frank Jones Corner.

And after you do that, Ben, leave your car parked on Farish Street all weekend, since crime is a mere perception, and prove how safe it is. According to you, Downtown is statistically the safest place in Jackson, so I'll leave my car unlocked in the parking lot of Renaissance and you leave yours unlocked on Farish and we'll compare notes on Monday morning.

All the snide, nasty comments from phony Memphis developers who claim that we are "eating our own" don't change the reality of Farish. It's still a rat hole, albeit one with some pretty brick sidewalks.

Sourpuss. YAWN.

Great photo.....lots of detail.

9:37, good comments, and astute.
Thank you.

The other comments on Farish Street were removed, too bad, because they were interesting. Apparently the person making the crude, insulting comments succeeded in his purpose, to block the good comments that were worth reading, which are now gone.

Didn't you feel like you were taking your life in your own hands driving around over there even on Sunday afternoon?

As much hardware as we had in the car? um, no.

KF, Good job getting some figures on the $21 million. I had no idea it was that much.

I've got a couple of clarifying questions.

Where did the 4/27/99 $6,000,000 Fannie Mae money go, or was it ever used? This is the first I've heard of it. Was it for the shotgun houses?

Also, of the $6 million State of Ms money of 4/27/99, I've been told that IMS Engineering on Amite St, got $1 million as a real estate loan. That company is still in business and, I assume, paying on the mortgage. I know Elkington got $1 million of that money. Where did the rest of the $4 million go?

Finally, I think your bloggers are on to something about the shotgun houses - that's where most of the "lost" money appears to have gone. Do you know who owns those buildings now and why the city has not demolished them already?