Florida Boulevard

Florida Boulevard is a major thoroughfare in the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Designated as Business Route 61/190 from River Road to Airline Highway, the road assumes the routing of U.S. Route 190 from the eastern half of East Baton Rouge Parish through the Florida Parishes to the route's terminus in eastern St. Tammany Parish at White Kitchen. It is known as "Florida Street" until Foster Drive and then "Florida Boulevard" for the rest of its route in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Originally, Florida Street was a road of minor significance in Baton Rouge. In the late 1890s, the road ended at Magnolia Cemetery. With the 1926 creation of the US Highway numbering system, US Route 190 was signed to the Baton Rouge-Hammond Highway (present day Old Hammond Highway or Louisiana Highway 426)), Jefferson Highway (present day Jefferson Highway or Louisiana Highway 73), and Government Street. During the early twentieth century, Florida Street was slowly extended through Mid City; by 1929, the road ended at Jay Bird (present-day Foster Drive).
With the completion of the Mississippi River Bridge north of Baton Rouge in 1940, Florida Street was extended and four-laned to the new Airline Highway bypass east of Baton Rouge. The two roads intersected in a traffic circle. During that decade, the road was extended to tie into the Baton Rouge-Hammond Highway near the Amite River just south of the Comite River. During this time, U. S. 190 was rerouted to Florida Boulevard, and the road was locally called the "New Hammond Highway" to distinguish it from the old Baton Rouge-Hammond Highway. During the 1950s, subdivisions, such as Broadmoor, Villa del Rey, and Sherwood Forest began to line the road past Airline.
Florida Boulevard was four-laned past the original traffic circle in the late 1950s and across the Amite River when a second bridge opened in 1960. Service roads line both sides of the road in this area, as well, until its intersection with Old Hammond Highway.
From the 1950s-1970s, Florida Boulevard experienced major commercial growth. Originally, Florida Boulevard served as a northern boundary for the Downtown Airport (Baton Rouge's first airport) until it closed in the early 1970s. In 1960, the Bon Marche Mall opened on Florida Boulevard and served as the city's major shopping hub until the completion of the larger Cortana Mall, also located on Florida, in 1976. In 1967, the traffic circle was removed in favor of a cloverleaf interchange with Airline Highway, although some legacies of the circle remain, such as the adjacent bowling alley, "Circle Bowl."
Until the 1980s, Florida Boulevard was the center of commerce in Baton Rouge, just as Scenic Highway was the center of industry. This was the gateway to undeveloped land east of the city, and large, prosperous neighborhoods sprang up on and near this corridor, including Melrose Place, Goodwood Homesites, Broadmoor, Villa del Rey, and Sherwood Forest. With the oil bust of the 1980s came a wave of crime and poverty in the city. The exodus of the middle class from North Baton Rouge that had begun in the late 1960s was hastened as crime increased.
The landscape of Florida Boulevard changed in the 1990s. Bon Marche Mall experienced major downfalls throughout the 1990s with its last store, Montgomery Ward, closing in 2000. The subdivision created just north of the mall, Mall City, experienced major crime issues during the 1980s and 1990s. Today, the Bon Carre Business Park occupies the space of the former mall. In 1998, Baton Rouge Community College opened on Florida Boulevard at Foster Drive. The opening of the Mall of Louisiana south of Florida also caused the Cortana Mall to experience a loss of business.
The roadway is four lanes without medians from its origin in Downtown until just west of the Foster Drive intersection. At that point, it widens to six lanes with a raised median, and remains that way until the Airline Highway interchange, at which point the main road narrows back down to two lanes with a raised median, but this also marks the beginning of dedicated frontage roads on both the north and south side of the highway.

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