The Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission voted Wednesday to grant landmark status to two properties with ties to the city’s Black history.
By unanimous votes, the seven-member commission recommended protections for properties in the Norman Studios complex in East Arlington and to a two-structure property on the Eastside where Dr. Charles McIntosh, Jacksonville’s first Black pediatrician, lived and worked.
The Norman Studios properties, at 6360 Commerce St. and Arlington Road, included a parcel containing a two-story building and a vacant lot that once was the site of a swimming pool. The building was one of five where silent film producer Richard Norman made films in the 1920s that featured all-Black casts in nonstereotypical roles and were aimed at Black audiences.
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