Letter: St. Augustine risks losing its beauty

Letter: St. Augustine risks losing its beauty



John Aranza
Chicago, Ill.
Publication Date: 09/21/06
Editor: I've taken my last eight consecutive May vacations in St. Augustine, and the cumulative, recent changes depressed me this year. It's like Paradise Lost.
State Road 16 and 210 off Interstate 95 have been so built up that they resemble suburbia outside of Chicago, their virgin openness gone forever.
The bridge project from Ponce De Leon to St. Augustine Beach has only encouraged cars to race and speed like on the Dan Ryan Expressway here.
And slowing down on Ponce De Leon to turn off to a business brings instant horn blowing and finger gestures.
Progress, it seems, has also brought big-city nervousness and rudeness -- what my family goes to St. Augustine to leave behind.
I'm afraid that you're losing your historical and romantic charm. Condominiums are on the San Sebastian where a quaint fishing shed was. Gentrification is changing Lincolnville. Up-scaled hotels line Anastasia Boulevard.
This isn't a damnation, but a lament. The ocean, especially as a late night retreat, can't be breached. But can we even be sure of that?
Towns outside Chicago are limiting growth and subdivisions now. This is a nation-wide dilemma.
I just hope that you can imagine from outside of yourselves what you want and what you are actually creating.

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