Arts for ACT Auction Preview Opens October 7 During Art Walk
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FREE Take Me Read Us Online at Home IslandSunNews.com VOL. 15, NO. 38 From the Beaches to the River District downtown Fort Myers SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 ing sponsor. Arts For ACT Auction Preview This is the 28th year that Opens October 7 During Art Walk ACT has held this fundraiser. From the live auction collection will be works by Sherry Rohl, David Belling, Christine Reichow, Jan Ellen Atkielski and Kellen Beck Mills. The live auction will also have pieces by international artists Marcus Jansen and Darryl Pottorf, plus the art of 22 local and national artists. Over 75 NYC DECO by Richard Stanton silent auction artists’ works will also be on display at the gallery. There are oils and acrylics on canvas, photography, collage, graphite, jewelry, gift baskets, sand, shell, pine needle Mosaic artwork by S. Guelcher and fiber art, whimsical painted furniture, mosaics, gourd art and sculptures. This exhibit continues until it is taken to auction on Saturday, October 29 at rts for ACT Gallery will hold an opening reception during Art Walk on Friday, Harborside Event Center. October 7 from 6 to 10 p.m. Individual tickets and table sales for the October 29 Disco Ball Gala can be A This month, the gallery will feature more than 100 of the live and silent purchased online at www.artsforactfineartauction.com auction artists for the Abuse Counseling and Treatment (ACT) annual fundraiser Arts for ACT Gallery is located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers. Arts for ACT. The theme this year is Disco Ball Gala. Bill Smith, Inc. is the present- designs and transportation networks Green Wave Band Seeks Registration using national best practice standards. To register for Thursday’s eight-hour Support For Trip To London Reopens For interactive workshop at the Center for ast September, the Lord Mayor of Westminster visited Florida and presented Performing Arts of Bonita Springs that the Fort Myers High School Music Department with an invitation to march Transportation begins at 8 a.m., email annpierce350@ Lin the New Year’s Day Parade in London, England in 2017. In addition to the gmail.com. Cost is $125, which includes marching band performing in the New Year’s Day Parade, the choir and symphony Summit breakfast and lunch. orchestra will perform in Westminster Central Hall for the gala concert series. “Although previously closed, requests ddressing the region’s looming to participate in this workshop were so The New Year’s Day Parade in London is the biggest event of its kind in the transportation problems seems to world, boasts a street-side audience of more than one million attendees, receives a great that we had to change to a larger Abe a hot topic among Southwest facility and reopen registration,” said huge amount of international media coverage as well as the recognition and support Florida officials and professionals. How of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The greatest street festival in Europe features Ann Pierce, education chair for Streets to enable people – instead of automo- Alive SWFL. “This group of presenters more than 10,000 performers, representing over a dozen countries worldwide. biles – the safe and convenient mobility The parade starts as Big Ben strikes noon on New Year’s Day in Parliament represents the very best in the nation to access their daily needs is the subject on the new directions in transportation Square and finishes on Piccadilly at Berkeley Street. For a point of reference, the of the previously sold-out (Day 1 portion) parade is seven times larger than New York’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. and community design, and people of the two-day Transportation Summit, from Key West to Clearwater have been On September 21, London New Year’s Day Parade Media Specialist Dan Kirkby set for Thursday, September 29 and visited the United States to do a feature on the Green Wave Marching Band at the registering for this unique opportunity to Friday, September 30. In response to learn from them.” Edison Ford Winter Estates. the interest, organizers had to move The dates of the trip are December 27 through January 2. The Day 2 portion of the public the Day 1 portion of the workshop to a conference is on Friday, September 30 “Taking an entire music department to London is an enormous undertaking and, larger venue and reopen registration. needless to say, very costly,” said Mark Dahlberg, music educator at Fort Myers from 8 a.m. to noon at the Cape Coral This interactive workshop, led by Yacht Club. It will offer an informative High School. “While making the commitment to go, we need people who can help national and international experts, and support us financially.” program by a team of national organized by Streets Alive SWFL and the experts who will be joined by regional Dahlberg explained that each member of the band needs to raise approximately Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association, $3,300 to go on this trip. speakers to give unique presentations will give government and business addressing questions about new For more information or to make a donation, visit wwww.fmhsgreenwave.net or leaders, planners, engineers, realtors call 334-2167. patterns in community development and and landscape architects the hands- transportation planning, as well as the on chance to create better community continued on page 13 2 THE RIVER - SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 Historic Downtown Fort Myers, Then And Now: ACL Depot Closes A Chapter – Again by Gerri Reaves, PhD ictured in the 1925 photo is the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL) passenger depot, built in 1924 on Peck Avenue (now Pnamed Widman Way) at Jackson. Local history buffs know the building as – until recently – the Southwest Florida Museum of History. In 1925, the depot site still had that “just constructed” look, with a scrawny landscape and small palm trees being watered. Note the two horse-drawn wagons near the building and the train (far left) sitting on the tracks that ran along the depot’s south side. When it opened on February 4, 1924 at the height of the tourist season, dignitaries and a crowd of hundreds witnessed the number 83 train arrive with the first passengers to disembark at the new depot. They would have been among the countless visitors over the decades who first glimpsed Fort Myers from a train car. The depot was built in the popular Mediterranean Revivalist style at a cost of Ninety-two years after opening as a modern railway-passenger depot, the building closed $110,000. It featured a stuccoed exterior with parapets and red barrel-tiles and was a for the second time, ending its run as an historical museum last June. Visible on the far left is “virtual twin” of the one in Sarasota, according to railroad historian Gregg Turner. another sign of change, the new fire station in the final stages of construction. It was not the first railroad depot in town. The first, a wood-frame one, opened in photo by Gerri Reaves 1904 at Main and Monroe and operated until the one on Peck was completed. disappointment that would have been to early citizens who had fought tirelessly for a rail Fireplaces, a baggage area, and a ticket office were on the ground floor. From the extension to the city. The railroad proved to be a key factor in the city’s development and second floor, a telegraph operator could view rail activity. economic growth. The depot’s interior reflected the racial segregation of the time, with separate waiting The depot was purchased by the city in 1975 for use as an historical museum. After areas, bathrooms, and drinking fountains for blacks and whites. a period of vacancy, in 1982, the depot opened as the Fort Myers Historical Museum. It In fact, to insure the non-mingling of races in the depot, CP Staley, Fort Myers was later renamed the Southwest Florida Historical Museum. city manager, made a request by letter just three days after the opening to JF Council, Traces of both names are evident in the recent photo: the first name on the superintendent of the Charlotte Harbor Division of ACL in Lakeland. weathered sign (left) and the second on the building’s façade. He requested that ACL alter procedures and back the train into the station so the The depot was originally an open-air structure, but when it became a museum, the private Pullman cars would not arrive on the depot’s east end where the colored waiting exterior brick-floor breezeways and perimeter space were enclosed to create more interior room was located. space. Council’s letter denying the request stated that it was not “practicable” to require The museum’s quiet closing last June poignantly contrasted with the joyous and main-line crews to perform such a service and that it would not be “right” to delay optimistic boom-time opening. passengers in reaching the depot because the train was backed in. According to the museum’s website, the museum is currently “in the process of In 1971, ACL passenger service ceased in downtown Fort Myers. What a merging with the Imaginarium Science Center of Fort Myers.” The depot is undergoing renovations for ADA compliance. As for the next chapter in the beloved depot’s history, stay tuned. Stroll down to Widman Way and Jackson and contemplate the historical importance of the 1924 ACL passenger depot. Then, learn more about local history at the following places. The Southwest Florida Historical Society’s research center is an all-volunteer non- profit organization open Wednesday and Saturday between 9 a.m. and noon and Wednesday 4 to 7 p.m.