Jefferson Park
From Omnictionary
Built on the site of a former Naval base, Jefferson Park is a sprawling subdivision containing some 10,000 residences, including standalone luxury homes, condominiums, townhouses, and a thriving business district.
History
From 1962 to 1989, the current site of Jefferson Park was a United States Naval base. More than 530,000 sailors served their basic training on the Base. When Congress announced plans to close bases in order to cut defense spending, the Orlando Base was one of the first to go, with many members of Congress arguing that it made no sense to have a Naval Training Center seventy miles from the nearest significant body of water. (Indeed, the Navy had to build a huge faux warship on land in order to train the new recruits.) The decision to close this particular military installation had unforeseen consequences; Orlando's Navy base was indeed a training center, basic training was indeed carried out at the base, but that activity was merely a smoke screen. In secret and behind the scenes, the Naval Training Center, Orlando was in fact, the Advanced Threat Assessment Center ATAC, a joint effort of the CIA and the Navy to gather and study Soviet bloc weapons and equipment. ATAC was the Cold War repository of numerous top secret acquisitions; most notably the Soviet nuclear missle submarine K-129 and the the Soviet Kashin Class missile destroyer Otvazhny (Courageous). A secret operation, Project Jennifer, was launched and K-129 was retrieved intact at depth from the waters off Oahu, Hawaii by the CIA's Glomar Explorer, a ship purpose built for the task. In another highly dangerous covert operation, Project Greengrocer, the Otvazhny was recovered and eventually refloated by the crews of the Robert E Lee formerly a George Washington Class nuclear ballistic missile submarine extensively refit for underwater recovery work.
To hide the activities required to haul large sections of Soviet naval hardware inland, operation Crackerjack, the need for a facsimile warship for training purposes was announced. During the construction of the 'faux' warship(a facsimile of a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier)the giant prefabricated sections provided cover for each late night convoy's true cargo. One side benefit was the platform provided by the the training warship dubbed the USS John Green by cadets(John Green is rumored to have been a prohibition era rumrunner in the Florida Keys.) The John Green is in fact a working aircraft carrier.
Redevelopment
When the Navy gave the land to the citizens of Orlando, a series of planning commissions were brought together to discuss possible reuse options. Suggestions included what would have been one of the largest urban parks in North America, a mixed-income housing project including government-subsidized apartments, and a baseball stadium to attract a major league franchise. In the end, the local government felt that building high-income housing relatively close to downtown would help build the property tax base. The small real estate development company that won the contract for the project, Swartz & Sons, immediately became one of the largest real estate enterprises in history. (One member of the Orlando City Council was later investigated for alleged improprieties, but was never brought to trial.) Jefferson Park was built over the course of two and a half years. Every home, townhouse, and condo sold within three months of going on the market. With its large interconnecting parks and child-friendly playgrounds, Jefferson Park remains one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Orlando, despite the fact that every. single. freaking. house. looks. the. exact. freaking. same. As one resident has noted: The floorplans may vary, but the soullessness does not.
Unexploded Ordnance
In May of 2000, three fourth grade Audubon Park students--Carli Lamon, Peter Geller, and Kayley Porter--were playing in Jefferson Park one day after school and began a digging project at the bottom of a drainage ditch that circumnavigates the park. Their announced intention was to dig the deepest hole in the world. When they had dug approximately two feet beneath the base of the ditch, they discovered a large mass of metal. Geller's father was eventually called to the scene, who dug around the object until it became obvious that it was missile-shaped, at which point he called the Fire Department. The unexploded but armed missile had apparently been left by the Navy.
The story was front page news in the Orlando Sentinel the following day, and an exhaustive investigation by Sentinel reporters combing Jefferson playground and greenspace with high-powered metal detectors eventually discovered more than a hundred buried weapons, from rocket propelled grenades to loaded M-16 rifles.
The Navy has never accepted responsibility for the unexploded ordnance, claiming in its definitive statement that, "The buried weapons found by young residents of the Jefferson Park and the staff of the Orlando Sentinel were not placed there purposefully or accidentally by anyone acting under the official auspices of the United States Navy."
