JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Countless people around the world will gather on New Year‘s Eve to bid farewell to 2024. At the same time, Rain Dogs, the popular bar in Riverside‘s iconic Five Points neighborhood, will shut its doors. Rain Dogs’ forthcoming departure is the latest in a number of closures for the area known for attracting diners, shoppers, and people with a love for nightlife.
Its unique flare is why amateur photographer, Bill Beck, likes to come by to take pictures.
“Come here about once a week, because it’s old-style Jacksonville, there’s old stores,” Beck said. “It’s not like a strip mall where everything looks the same.”
Like some, Beck is disappointed to see the recent changes. In the last few months, Alewife Craft Beer Bottle Shop and Tasting Room, Mixed Fillings Pie Shop, and Sun-Ray Cinema have all closed their doors. Now boarded up, preparing for a live music venue to eventually move into the space, Beck is happy to take photos and reminisce.
“My wife, daughter and son would come down here and watch Star Wars,” Beck said. “It was always so much more interesting than going to a regular movie theater. I just hate to see it go, because things like that are more homey.”
If anyone understands Five Points' changing landscape, it’s Dr. Wayne Wood, the Jacksonville Historical Center’s historian-at-large.
“Since the 1920s, 100 years ago, when it first started, it’s gone through many, many changes,” Dr. Wood said.
Dr. Wood explains that Park Street was originally residential, but eventually, that changed.
“So, in 1922, a grocery store popped up on the corner of Margaret and Park Street, and within five years, the entire block of Park Street had turned to commercial,” Dr. Wood said. “Just like that, it changed.”
Dr. Wood said through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, Five Points was a great place to shop and hang out.
“You could get your groceries, you go to a movie, get hardware, buy gasoline, in this one little spot,” Dr. Wood said.
As many know now, more changes were to come.
“Economics change, culture changes. Back in the 70s, it became a very hip, swinging spot with Edge City being the focus of that hipster, hippie sort of groove,” Dr. Wood said. Then in the 80s, River City Theater took over the old 5 Points movie theater, and there were those plays and culture and things like that."
Later, in the 90s, Dr. Wood said Club 5 came to the neighborhood.
“There was goth, there was drag shows, there were all kinds of things,” Dr. Wood said. “It was a change of the face of 5 Points.”
Eventually, Sun-Ray Cinema moved into the space and thrived for many years before its closure. If you’re at all worried about 5 Points and its future, Dr. Wood simply says: don’t be.
“There are still over half a dozen fine restaurants in five points that are thriving and doing well,” Dr. Wood said. “It‘s not like 5 Points has been abandoned, it‘s in a bit of a downturn with some closed businesses. The 5 Points is a rocking, hip, cool spot that will just continue to evolve into something new.”
Beck—with camera in hand—will be ready to capture that evolution.
“I hope to see them expand,” Beck said. “I mean, things have kind of been hard getting over the virus. And also, maybe it’ll make a rebound, when I tell everybody about it.”
