Pensacola's Lower Palafox Street -

In 1970 the downtown area of Pensacola still hosted many of the shops that might have been found in the area during World War II. In fact, some evidence of old Jim Crow could still be found on some of the older buildings - which shocked most of the northern kids that first made the walk from the ship to the downtown shopping district. The town has outgrown that now and, with a few exceptions, the downtown area did not outlast the onslaught of two or three large malls at the edge of town.

A couple of bars could be found in second story digs (notice the big red sign that says LOUNGE) and they were not very particular or discriminating when it came to carding Sebago Sailors. This was great, it made a very short stagger from the front door of their ultra-violet atmosphere back to the brow of Sebago, just five blocks away!

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-Mark Pfrenger collection