Ambar Ramirez
Words & photos by Ambar Ramirez
If you’ve heard of Edge City, you’ve likely heard of Gunnel Humphreys. For 50 years, Humphreys’ daily routine was familiar and consistent. Her mornings began at 6 a.m., and after breakfast and a quick outfit change, she and her partner Tom would hop on their bikes and head to Five Points to open their store, Edge City. But now, at 80 years old, Humphreys is learning to navigate life away from the store, embracing a new chapter that’s entirely her own.
Born and raised on the West Coast of Sweden, Humphreys has always lived a life far from ordinary and one full of art and culture. As we sat in her eclectic apartment, surrounded by art collected over the years, coffee table books, her two cats and vibrant neon lighting, she reflected on the journey that brought her to where she is today.
“In Sweden, the whole area where I come from is a textile industry. So I have always worked in fashion in some way. In Sweden, I pretty much was first into working on window displays and then I worked with another company where I made the catalog basically with the graphic arts department. I have been extraordinarily lucky my whole life without having any formal graphic artist training or anything. And, you know, it was way before computers—it was all hands-on, X-Acto knives and burners. And then, I met this American man, and we got married in Sweden. From there we went to, Augusta, Georgia, actually, because he had to finish his service in Augusta for a year. Then he asked me where I wanted to go. His mom lived in Jacksonville, and I always loved the openness, the beach, the water and the bridges, I always liked that,” Humphreys shared.
Freshly married, Humphreys arrived in Jacksonville in the late ’60s, when she landed what many would consider a dream job at the time —working for “The Florida Times-Union.” It was an exciting period as print media was thriving and expanding. Humphreys described that chapter of her life as strikingly different from her working experiences in Sweden and Germany. As a foreigner, everything was new and exciting, she was living the American Dream. Her favorite part of the job? The breaks, when she could slip away and indulge in her love for shopping.
During this time is also when she would meet her life partner— Tom McCleery. Humphreys’ eyes brightened when talking about her and McCleery’s dynamic. Together, anything was possible. Together, they would come across Edge City and put Five Points on the map.
“So Wayne Wood, I don’t know if you know but Wayne Wood is like the father of Jacksonville in the preservation of history, he came by and said to Tom, ‘Edge City is for sale, and I think you should buy it,’ and so, Tom bought Edge City. That was in 1975. And in January of 1976 we opened Edge City. And if you want to talk about 5 Points at that time, it was very, you know, there wasn’t anything happening. There were very solid, companies there. Gown shops and mens shops and eyeglass places, but Tom and I, we really made it happen. With Edge City, we really put 5 Points on the map. People came from all over because it was the only unisex boutique, and we were so different.”
Before Humphreys and McCleery gained the reigns on the boutique, Edge City was a drug paraphernalia store. We laughed as Humphreys reminisced on why they kept the name Edge City even after changing the store’s merchandise.
“So we bought an existing store, you know, these three guys, had lost interest and it looked awful in there. It was like a gray shag rug with holes in the floor and dusty cacti. I mean, they just lost interest, so that’s why they wanted to sell it. And so it had the name already—Edge City which comes from a book by Thomas Wolfe called “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” And I could never find a better name. We tried to come up with one but I could never find anything that was better,” Humphreys said.
Despite smoking weed during that time (it was the ’70s afterall), Humphreys and McCleery slowly moved away from selling posters, water beds and the typical things you would imagine a drug paraphernalia store to sell to selling anything and everything they could find at thrift stores and antique shops.
“We had no money. But we kind of figured things out. We sold used clothes and stuff that we found in Jacksonville. We were big into going to thrift stores and sold anything we could sell. But anyway, we started going to the international boutique show in New York, which was fabulous. The timing of that was like a snapshot of that era. I mean, everything was vibrant and new. Today everything has been done, you know, there’s no newness at all in fashion, but at that time, you know, you had London happening, it was just really fabulous. It was a liberation, it was a revolution and so much change. Women burned their bras and everybody got divorced, it was freedom like unheard of,” Humphreys recalled.
During their travels to stock the store, Humphreys and McCleery were inspired by the vibrant changes that defined the ’70s. They brought that spirit of innovation from places like New York and London back to Edge City—and to Jacksonville. Edge City quickly became a symbol of Jacksonville’s adaptability and its appetite for continuous growth and change. None of it would have been possible without the teamwork and vision of Humphreys and McCleery. And as Humphreys put it, McCleery and her were essentially a match made in heaven.
“He and I, we were a team. We really had a fun, fun time and we were a good team. In hindsight, I mean we really clicked, it just was organic how we worked,” Humphreys recalled.
Right in line with their visionary business model, Humphreys shared how the birth of screen printing really brought Edge City to the next level.
They screen printed their logo — lips — on everything and everything. “The more lips we printed, the better it seemed. And the bigger they were, the better. We sold sweatshirts and t-shirts, but not that American cream kind, we had these very fine China t-shirts — finely woven and really high-end quality.”
Though Humphreys has had a symbiotic relationship with luck, it doesn’t mean she hasn’t had her fair share of grief. In 2016, Humphreys lost McCleery. But even now, as she sips her tea in her one-bedroom apartment in Riverside, Humphreys tells the story of we. What may have been one’s downfall, was Humphreys’ motivator. She still had Edge City after all.
“Five Points is my life,” Humphreys said.
After McCleery’s passing, Humphreys continued work at her and McCleery’s passion project for eight years. Those eight years weren’t without hardships. Humphreys had to learn how to navigate a business that was built to run with two pairs of hands at the wheel. And then, of course, there was the pandemic.
“Tom actually was in charge of the checkbook, so when he died, I had to figure everything out myself. It actually just got to become easier when I was in charge, but then we go through a pandemic. I mean, who would have known in your lifetime that you should have a pandemic?,” Humphreys recalled. “We didn’t know anything about masks. We didn’t know what it was. I, you know, when I opened again, I wrapped presents with rubber gloves. I mean, you didn’t know where it came from.”
The pandemic was a big reality check for many and Humphreys quickly acclimated to the change. Edge City began selling masks, and Humphreys had fun finding creative ways to market something that was scary for most. It was also during this time that Humphreys began valuing her life away from the store.
“We sold a lot of high-end, tailored-looking masks, that’s how I kind of survived the pandemic. And, you know, I wasn’t in the store at all. March of 2020 — that’s when I started riding [my bike]. I never had that much time in my life, you know. I always have been riding a little bit before I started the store, but then I started riding 22 miles. I figured that that was just perfect and kept it up every day since that,” Humphreys said.
Last year, Humphreys sold Edge City and turned it over to a new owner. And even though she no longer has Edge City or McCleery, Humphreys is intrinsically woven and weaved into Jacksonville.
“I feel like I’m part of the fabric of this neighborhood,” Humphreys shared.
Humphreys always biked to work along with McCleery, now retired, she rides 22 miles every morning. After the 22-mile bike ride, she gets home and heads over to the Church of the Good Shepherd to swim hour laps at their pool. From there she’ll either head over to the park or to Cummer Museum to peruse the new exhibits. No matter what she’s doing, the fact is that she’s doing something. For Humphreys, being 80 is nothing but a number.
Humphreys is on the verge of a new chapter in her life. While she’s adjusting to changes in her daily routine and watching the city around her evolve, some things remain constant—her love for art, fashion and self-expression, along with her close-knit group of friends who keep her grounded and active.
Follow FOLIO!