Purity Springs

Literally a stones throw from Tampa's most ubiquitous spring, Sulphur Springs, is little Purity Springs. Unheralded, it sits in between a housing development and North River Shore Drive, the head is about 50 or 60 yards from the river.   The Spring pool is small, only about 7 or 8 yards across and about 3 feet deep, but its waters are still a clear, deep aquamarine blue.  The edge of the spring is lined with what appear to be limestone border rocks.  Its flow is directed to the river through a channel under the road.  It is perhaps one of the most accessible springs in the city.  On a warm afternoon you will undoubtedly see a few neighborhood children splashing around in its fairly clear waters, when it isn't occupied by ducks, chickens or other birds.

View North from River Shore Drive, the water flows right under me and the road down to the River.

The decline in quality of Florida's springs has become increasingly apparent over the past couple of years.  Many of the states wonders have either stopped flowing or have had their clear blue waters clouded by polluted run-off, see the Tampa Bay Times recent look at our vanishing springs.  Springs were the states first tourist attractions.  The neighborhood of Sulphur Springs, though now in decline, with its tower, gazebo and large dog track would not exist if it weren't for Sulphur Springs.

Help InVision Hillsborough and Nebraska Avenues

The InVision Tampa ideas page is now taking up suggestions for possible changes and tweeks to the Nebraska and Hillsborough Avenue corridors as the second phase of the InVision Tampa Study.  I've already added one idea to the Hillsborough Avenue ideas page.

Over two years ago now (wow time flies!) I did a post on the old Sears department store building at Hillsborough and 22nd Street, now the home of Hi-Tech Erwin Technical School.  The Sears building is just one of many mid-century modern commercial / retail buildings along Hillsborough Avenue, which was becoming a major shopping and commercial corridor in the 1950s and 1960s.  My idea is that these gems should be revitalized and highlighted to help promote a cleanup and redevelopment of the corridor.   The North Biscayne Boulevard in Miami looked similar to Hillsborough Avenue, full of run down mid-century travel motels and shopping strips.  But at the beginning of the century, local historians and citizens began to push for a revitilization of the blighted area, and the Biscayne Boulevard Historic District was born.  Many of the seedy rundown motor lodges were bought and refurbished to highlight their mid-century style, becoming boutique hotels.  And many of the run down and vacant strip centers now host new tenants, many catering to the history of the area.  I'm not saying Hillsborough Avenue should follow the same model, but I think Tampa can take a few pointers from the Biscayne Boulevard revival to help reshape the Hillsborough, Nebraska and Florida corridors.

Please visit my Hillsborough Avenue idea page and second the idea if you like it.  Or you can create an account for the InVision ideas site and post your own suggestions.  If you don't speak up, your ideas will never be heard.

The City of Tampa's "Out of the Archives"

I just have to highlight the new "Out of the Archives" show created by the City of Tampa's Archives  Department.  It's hosted and produced by Tampania's good friend Jennifer Dietz, the City of Tampa's Archives and Records Manager.  Jen helped facilitate a lot of the hard research done for this blog in her former post as Librarian at the Tampa Bay History Center's research library.  In the innaugural episode of "Out of the Archives", Jen highlights a 16mm, Tampa Chamber of Commerce produced film from the 1950's entitled "Flower of Tampa".  The film highlights the City's world renowned Cigar industry at a time when cigar smoking was on the decline due to the prevelance of the cheaper, machine-made cigarette.  The film also highlights the beauty of Tampa and the rich cultural assets of the area.  The main subject of the film is Rick, the prodigal nephew of long time Tampa cigar maker, Uncle Manuel.  Young Ricky is played by Tampa actor Joe Russo, whom Jen gets to interview for her show, looking good Joe!



The coolest thing about the "Out of the Archives" video is that it is a film that highlights a film which itself is highlighting another earlier film.  At the beginning of the movie Uncle Manuel lights up a cigar for young Ricky and then shows him a film entitled "From leaf to lip" about tobacco harvesting in Cuba.  And surprise, surprise, one of the stars of this documentary is none other than Uncle Manuel himself. 

I look forward to seeing what else comes out of the archives in future installments and hope you will too.  Great job, Jen!

100 West Kennedy

News came this week that the Mercantile Bank building in Tampa will be refurbished as an Aloft hotel.  The building at 100 West Kennedy has been abandoned since 2007, when it was slated for demolition to make way for an ambitious 50 story slender condo building.  The 9 story structure is a great example of international style modernism in Tampa.  The building is all right angles, when viewed from the East or West it almost looks like a rectangular building that swallowed a small square building.   The East and West facing sides of the building are made mostly of glass, with a metal and translucent panel sun screen.  Although, concrete still dominates the structure.  Brick vaneer covers the North and South facades of the building.

Rendering featured on the Tampa Bay Business Journal

The renderings of the hotel after renovation show very little change to the physical appearance.  The articles and news pieces of seen speak more to major renovations happening inside, as I'm sure it will take alot of change to turn this 1960s office building into a hotel.  It looks like the sun screens will be altered into a more playful mass of vertical rectangles and an addition will be added to the roof.  A modern portico will be added to the front and a pool will be added tot he back terrace.

Later I will be looking at how this building was part of Tampa's mid-century modern riverfront.

Sulphur Springs Tourist Club / Harbor Club

I don't know how I missed posting about this one!  I became obsessed with the run down Harbor Club building at the corner of Nebraska Avenue and the Hillsborough River about a year ago when a friend and I went exploring around the place.  I knew it was an old building.  I knew it had been a restaurant at one point.  And I also had some friends that said their bands had played there or that they had seen bands play there in the late 90s. While the building is in pretty poor shape, one thing really stood out to me... THERE ARE SHUFFLEBOARD COURTS HERE!
 

The pink streets of West Shore, or is it Westshore?

West Shore or Westshore?

As I mentioned in my previous post I recently bought a house, it is in Northeast Seminole Heights.  Around the same time my work also moved its headquarters from West Tampa to the Westshore area at the end of Cypress Street.  So my world and my commute have changed pretty drastically, considering that I had lived in Hyde Park and had an easy 2 mile commute to West Tampa for the past 5 years.  I never really spent much time in Westshore or Seminole Heights before this so even though I thought I knew the city pretty well, I'm still finding new and interesting things to investigate.

The first that comes to mind, is the proper spelling of the neighborhood really "Westshore"? even though the street that it is named after is really spelled as two seperate words "West Shore"?  Even Google Maps spells it as one word!  Could this be as contentious as the whole La Setima / La Septima Seventh Avenue debate?

Pink streets in Tampa? Corner of Trask and North A

The second thing I hope to look into is the possibility of the existence of pink streets in the Westshore area.  While driving through the neighborhood along North A and North B just East of the mall I noticed that many of the curbs and the shoulder of many of the roads and even some of the sidewalks were a faded pink color.  The street was probably originally concrete or slab formed.  The streets of the are have since been repaved with asphalt, but only about a foot to the curb.  The pink curbs and sidewalks are spotty, the area photographed above is probably one of the longer stretches, most areas are patched with regular colored concrete curbs.  I immediately thought of the pink streets of St. Petersburg's Pinellas Point neigborhood (shown below). 

Originally platted as Hanan Park, the area around Trask and North A and North B streets was developed during the boom of the early 1920s, although the area has changed drastically since then some of the original houses and buildings from the 20s are still standing.  Were pink streets a thing back then or was this just a local phenomenon?

The pink streets of St. Petersburg's Pinellas Point, courtesy Google Earth

 

In the near future I intend to highlight a few Seminole Height area features that have caught my eye.

Fall events / news

I'd apologize for the absence, but I bought a house so better things were afoot than tending to this blog!  Anyway thought I'd share some upcoming interesting-ness and things to look out for:

- Though not in Tampa, some alarming news on the preservation front in Tampa Bay this week.  The Belleview Biltmore future is looking shaky once again and hints that one of my favorite buildings in downtown St. Pete, the beautiful historic yet abandoned YMCA, may be facing a similar battle or worse fate.

- The Florida Conversations series will start up again at the Tampa Bay History Center on Thursday, October 18th at 6:30 p.m. with a look at Key West http://www.tampabayhistorycenter.org/flaconversations.html. (Don't worry next month they'll be back on a local topic - Hyde Park).  This is usually a monthly event that ceases for the summer.