Tallahassee's Railroad Square arts community mourns losses after devastating storms
Tallahassee's Railroad Square arts community mourns losses after devastating storms
The city's beloved arts and culture district was hit especially hard after at least two tornados swept through Leon County early Friday morning.
Suz Nellis was fishing a painting from beneath a pile of rubble, using a thin, rectangular metal post, when she stopped to brush fire ants off her arms.
“I’m trying to save whatever artwork I can.”
An anthill had formed along the foundation of Able Artists Gallery, which had mostly collapsed after at least two tornados swept through Tallahassee early Friday morning. “Oooh, I’m getting bitten,” she exclaimed before venturing inside the back part of the building, which was still standing.
Soon after the storms had passed, Nellis, 67, and a few of her friends and family members drove to Railroad Square Art District, south of downtown Tallahassee, to salvage what they could from the gallery.
“I couldn’t get here very fast from Havana,” said Nellis, who manages the gallery and lives in neighboring Gadsden County. “The roads were blocked. We made several different detours.”
When they arrived, they found that the front end of the gallery had been reduced to a pile of wooden beams, broken glass, nails and mangled metal sheets from the building’s roof and walls. Rain had poured into the gallery’s exposed interior, damaging the artwork inside.
Just before 7 o’clock on Friday morning, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a tornado warning for Tallahassee, with the threat lasting until 7:30 a.m. On Saturday, surveyors with the NWS confirmed that two EF-2 tornados had touched down in Gadsden County and trekked through western and central Leon County, with straight-line winds of up to 100 mph accompanying the storms.
“I just feel sorry for the people who are going to lose things whenever it’s their livelihood,” said Nellis, who managed the gallery. “They don’t have much to begin with — some of them are not real well-off.”
Before the storms, the gallery provided a venue for artists with disabilities to showcase and sell their work, which included jewelry, paintings, photography, sculptures and mixed-media art. Its artists received 80% commission on sales, which is higher than many galleries pay, Nellis explained.
“To the disabled community at-large, it meant having a place to go to be accepted and honored, where oftentimes people who have disabilities fall into the cracks because they're not accepted at other galleries.”
Cleanup in Railroad Square began immediately after the storms, but its future remains uncertain
Able Artists Gallery was among dozens of local businesses in Railroad Square that were damaged by the storm. About 60% of the district’s businesses were damaged, estimated Joe Webster, owner of Spartan Construction, after surveying the park.
“We’re just going to kind of assess the damage and try to make a plan to move forward,” said Webster, whose business is located on a nearby property. “There was just so much damage, we felt the need to volunteer and help clean it up.”
Railroad Square, nestled between downtown Tallahassee and the campus of Florida A&M University, spans 10 acres and is home to more than 70 businesses. For decades, it has catered to art lovers.
Formerly an industrial park, the district’s colorful metal buildings housed an eclectic array of local art galleries, restaurants, vintage stores, gift shops, small theaters, music venues and more. Vivid murals painted on the sides of its buildings gave visitors to the park an outdoor art exhibit experience.
On Friday morning, a very different scene awaited the district’s business owners, vendors and frequent patrons. Power lines were strewn across the roads, fallen trees lay across buildings, metal roofs and walls were peeled off of buildings, exposing their interiors to heavy rain.
"Mostly, it's going to be water that's gotten in and damaged everyone's belongings they have inside,” said Webster, referring to the extent of the park’s damage.
“Some of the exterior facade siding has been ripped off in some areas. We have seen roofs that have been destroyed completely,” he said. “There's some major damage and minor damage everywhere.”
In the late 1970s, former owner and developer Nan Boynton “started having artist events and reaching out to artists to become tenants,” said Boynton’s son Adam Kaye, who took over managing the property, with the help of his sister, after their mother died more than two decades ago.
“It was called Downtown Industrial Park until she rebranded it to Railroad Square in early 1980s,” Kaye said. Boynton began the process of converting the former industrial park’s metal warehouse buildings into art galleries, theaters, music venues, shops and more, and the district has since become a popular gathering spot for college students, as well as creative people of all ages.
On the first Friday of each month, a district-wide festival, known as “First Friday,” began in the evening and lasted through the night. Shops and galleries stayed open later than usual, offering visitors special deals and giveaways, while local bands performed throughout the park.
Kaye declined to say what the future holds for Railroad Square, as he was still processing the extent of the damage immediately after the storm. Businesses in the district, however, have started a GoFundMe page to raise money for repairs.
Galleries can be rebuilt, but there’s no replacing original artwork
As local artist Michelle Ferrier approached the ruins of Able Artists Gallery, she burst into tears. Ferrier’s art was installed one week before the storms hit — it was her first gallery exhibit. Water from the rain had soaked her paintings after the winds blew the roof off the gallery.
“I saved some of your artwork, and we’re drying it off,” said gallery manager Suz Nellis, who held Ferrier tightly in her arms as the artist stared at the devastation surrounding her with a look of shock and sadness in her eyes.
Ferrier walked into the broken remains of the gallery, with her hand over her mouth, letting out a load moan as tears rolled down her cheeks. The artist’s pain was palpable, as Nellis showed her the pieces they had managed to collect from the rubble.
It took her six months to paint the series, which was inspired by jazz, Ferrier explained. “It was all about the joy of life and living through trauma,” she said, pausing to take two deep breaths before she continued. “I used art to help me through trauma, and that art was destroyed in this storm.”
Thomasville resident Denise Atkinson, 57, frequently drove across the Georgia-Florida line to spend time at the gallery, which she described as a “refuge.”
“You can just sit, get some water, relax, look around,” she said. “It's just this real kind of cool, laid-back, eclectic vibe.” Sometimes they held drum circles in the gallery, she said. “We'll do drums or we've got didgeridoos.”
Atkinson drove to Tallahassee as soon as she heard about the damage. The gallery was insured, but there’s no replacing original artwork, she explained.
“They’re artists — this is stuff they’ve made. It’s not like you can just go and buy another one.”
Railroad Square business owners assess damage and help each other clean up
Business owners, vendors and their friends and family checked on the property after the storm, many of them working throughout the day to save whatever they could.
Ned Stacey, owner of Cosmic Cat Comics and Renditions Art Gallery, says he has no plans to reopen his businesses after they were severely damaged in the storms.
“It's been my fear that this would happen at some point,” he said. The walls and roofs of his businesses were covered in sheet metal. “That can’t stand up to anything.”
About 90% of the art in his gallery was destroyed. “Some of the art is salvageable, but most of it has to be thrown away.”
And a lot of the merchandise in the comic book store was ruined, he said. “That whole side of that building is gone,” he said. “It all rained inside.”
Stacey says he didn’t have insurance to cover the losses to his businesses. Now, his goal is to move the undamaged merchandise from his comic book store into storage, he said. “I’ll do what I’ve been doing for some years, which is online sales and things like that.”
Just around the corner from his store, about a dozen people, including Railroad Square business owners, helped move antique furniture and decor, vintage clothing and old artifacts out of Talquin Trading Co. and into a covered warehouse in the district. The store’s roof was blown off of the building, leaving rooms filled with fragile, decades-old items exposed to the wind and rain.
“There is a lot that is pretty destroyed, especially like wood things or paper things that got to soaked,” said Ashley Mullins, a vintage goods vendor who volunteered to help the owners of Talquin Trading Co. “I think a lot of it can be salvaged, especially like, glass and ceramics. You know, it's all gonna’ need a really good scrub down and reorganizing, but a lot of it can can be saved.”
Mullins is a vendor at The Other Side Vintage, which is located in a brick building near the front of the park and was spared from most of the storm’s damage. Mullins also manages Rare Bird, a high-end vintage furniture business that has one location in a shopping strip near the back of the square, and another location in the Midtown area.
“Their roof stayed on. I know their awning came off and their electrical came off,” she said. “There’s probably some water damage, but they fared pretty well compared to some of the other people at the front of the square.”
Next to Talquin Trading Co., a music production studio and practice area for local bands called The Vault was also hit hard by the storms. “It was pretty much completely destroyed,” said Greg Kriman, the venue’s co-owner.
Kriman says they opened in the fall and describes the space as “a collective for artists and musicians and producers to come together and work on their craft.”
“Bands would go over there to record to kind of have a co-working space,” he said. “They would film music videos, store some of their equipment, rehearse.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up for The Vault to help replace tens of thousands of dollars worth of amps, instruments and production equipment.
Kriman is also the co-owner of Kameleon Kava & Coffee, which is located near the back of the district and withstood the storm. “We just had a small leak, nothing super crazy,” he said.
“I just hope that they reopen Railroad Square as soon as possible, and as soon as it’s safe for everyone.”
Near the front of the district, 82-year-old local artist Francoise King was walking through the Mickee Faust Club theater, looking for her husband who’s an actor with the club. King says she often helped backstage. “It was fun when I was involved,” she said. “I was never onstage.”
For about 35 years, the Mickee Faust Club, a theater for activists and actors who belong to marginalized groups, has put on several shows a year “for the weird community of Tallahassee.” The theater’s roof was blown off in the storms, exposing the stage and seating area to the rain.
King also had an art exhibit in SideTrax Studio, located across from the theater. Her art wasn’t damaged because it was located in an area that remained covered, but several other exhibits were ruined. “The whole door was blown off,” she said. “All of this stuff has to be removed.”
The owner of the gallery asked the artists to remove their work to protect it from further damage after the storms had passed, King said.
“I think this place is going to be closed solid once everybody gets their stuff out,” she said, referring to Railroad Square. “It’s gonna’ take some time [to rebuild].”
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled The Mickee Faust Club. It’s spelled Mickee, not “Mickey.”
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