Gorgeous white sands of St Pete Beach |
ST PETERSBURG FLORIDA: JEWEL IN THE MUCK OF ‘VACATION LAND’
Amidst the vast sprawl of Florida ‘Vacation Land’ with its unending miles of hotel-backed beaches jammed with vacationers, gaudy amusement parks, and assorted tinsely tourist attractions, stands a charming city with much more depth. St. Petersburg, Florida is bursting with art, culture, historic buildings and neighborhoods, markets and some quirky unique past times.
Don Cesare Hotel at St Pete Beach |
I must admit it wasn’t always this way for St Pete, as I discovered during the St Petersburg Preservation Society’s weekly Saturday Walking Tours. St Pete was actually founded in the late 1800s as THE original Florida ‘Vacation Land’. Conceived and promoted by 3 key Florida land owners, St Pete was dubbed ‘Health City’ and a railroad installed to ship people in.
Their scheme worked. The land developers quickly built heaps of hotels, cafeterias, movie theaters and churches to accommodate the masses of Americans flocking to St Pete’s sun, sea and warmth.
Over the decades more and more elderly people made their way to St Pete’s wonderfully warm, healthy environment. So many that in the 1970s St Pete became the brunt of various national jokes. It was referred to as the city of “the newlyweds and nearly deads” and the place “where retired people go to visit their parents.”
Oh, dear, not good for commerce! During the following 2 decades, St Pete became pretty much a ghost town.
Stetson School of Law, originally Ragayt Hotel, St Petersburg |
Dazzio School of Art and gallery |
In recent years, among other things, St Pete has been dubbed America’s #1 mid-sized-city ‘Top Art Destination 2010’. It is home to several world-class museums including the important Dali Museum and Chihuly Glass Collection.
It offers the largest produce market in the US southeast, every Saturday. It has many important registered historic buildings, neighborhoods and districts.
It’s home to the world’s largest shuffleboard club. Has the country’s only lawn bowling bowl testing center. Has one of only two post offices in the States delivering mail by bicycle. And offers other quirky charms. Let’s take a look at some of them:
shop signs at St Pete art district |
AMERICA’S #1 MID-SIZED CITY FOR THE ARTS
Ceramics at Craftsman House |
In addition to boasting 4 world class museums, St Pete has a burgeoning and diverse local arts community. Several blocks of Central Avenue in downtown St Pete are filled with painting galleries, craft shops, ceramic shops and even an art school.
Further out along Central Avenue are 2 more blocks of art galleries, antique shops and boutique cafes.
Saturday Morning Market, downtown St Pete |
SATURDAY MORNING MARKETSÂ SaturdayMorningMarkets.com
Band and enthusiastic dancer at St Pete Saturday Morning Market |
St Pete’s market is unique in the US on many counts.
It’s the largest market in the southeast. It’s the only market with a seating area and a band in the middle of the market.
It’s the only city market run privately instead of municipally. It has the largest selection of ethnic foods and largest variety of arts n crafts. Most of all, it’s a fun venue with a sense of community among both vendors and visitors. Not bad St Pete!
planes at Albert Witted Airport, St Pete |
Besides use for private planes, the airport offers flight instruction, plane storage and parking, fueling, and other flight services. Several important life-saving organizations also use the airport.
The Dali, St Petersburg |
DALI MUSEUMÂ TheDali
art store at Dali Museum |
Dale Chihuly Float Boat, 2010 3 x 4½ x 12’ Chihuly Collection presented by Morean Arts Center St. Petersburg, FL Photo by Terry Rishel |
CHIHULY GLASS COLLECTIONÂ Chihuly Collection
I recently visited the Chihuly Collection in St Pete and was simply blown away. To learn more about what you’ll experiencet here, read my take on the Collection, complete with professional photos of the Chihuly installations from the Collection’s press kit.
St Petersburg Shuffleboard Club |
SHUFFLEBOARD CAPITAL OF THE WORLDSt Pete Shuffle
Ever heard of shuffleboard? It’s a little-known outdoor leisure game along the lines of croquet, lawn bowling and bowling. And St Pete is the Shuffleboard capital of the world!
Shuffleboard is played on a long narrow shuffleboard court by 2 or 4 players who slide hockey-puck-like discs down the court aiming to land in the scoring area at the far end of the court. The objective is to earn 75 points before your opponent.
Shuffleboard requires both skill and strategy. Players must learn the proper pushing strength and aim to place their pucks on the point zones or knock out their opponents’ pucks.
St Petersburg courts on Friday evening |
Since 1923 The St Petersburg Shuffleboard Club has held the honorary title of Largest Shuffleboard Club in the USA, for what it’s worth. That turns out to be more than I’d expected.I’d always guessed shuffleboard to be an odd American pastime, so I was surprised to learn that the game is popular in Canada, UK, and Europe, especially Germany. It originated as a ship game on British Naval ships. The land-based version was invented right here at the St Pete Club.
Friday evenings courts are open to the public. 100-150 people regularly play each Friday night.
St Pete Lawn Bowling Club |
LAWN BOWLINGSt Petersburg Lawn Bowling Club
If shuffleboard doesn’t catch your attention, how about lawn bowling? Another long-term St Pete pastime, it got rolling in 1916 by an American and two Canadians. Currently the St Pete Lawn Bowling Club includes members from the US, Canada, Scotland and Germany.
Lawn bowling is also played on outdoor courts, but with ‘bowls’ instead of pucks. They’re not ‘balls’ I was informed because they’re not round but rather shaped like flattened balls with one side weighted. The weighting causes the bowls to curve when they’re rolled, making the players’ aim more difficult.
In lawn bowling, players roll the bowls in a curved arch down the court trying to get as close to a white marker as possible. As in shuffleboard, part of the strategy entails knocking opponents bowls out of the way. Teams play 12 rounds, or ‘ends’ as they’re called, and tally up total points from all 12 segments to find the winners.
Club members playing lawn bowling |
The St Pete Lawn Bowling Club holds two distinctive honors. The main building is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places along with the likes of the Statue of Liberty.Secondly, this club is the only place in the USÂ to test and re-spin lawn bowls. Whats more, the making, balancing and testing of lawn bowls was invented here in 1938-1940 with the help of a hired professional billiards manufacturer.
Nowadays, those skills are left to Austin Sevener, which apparently makes him the only lawn bowl refurbish-er and tester in the USA! If you visit St Pete, stop by M-W-F mornings to play some ends of lawn bowling with the very friendly, welcoming club members.
St Petersburg open-air post office |
OPEN-AIR POST OFFICE AND CYCLING POSTAL DELIVERYÂ St Pete. org
St Pete’s post office is listed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings. Built in 1916 to imitate the architecture of a hospital in Italy, the beautiful building showcases many intricate details no longer found on government buildings, including curved archways, American eagle carvings, and rows of brass postal boxes.This post office is unique on two other counts as well:
Johan, one of St Pete’s cycling postmen |
2. St Pete postmen deliver mail by bicycle! Only one other place in the US, in Arizona, has bicycle mail delivery.St Pete has 15 bicycle delivery routes. Postmen arrive at 7:30am, sort mail for about 2 hours, then set out on their 6-hour pedal around the city. Since they can’t possibly carry all the mail for the entire day at once, the post office has set up ‘relay boxes’ around the city where postmen stop to pick up their next batch of mail. Pretty cool!
House in North Shores District, now a B n B |
HISTORIC HOUSES DISTRICTSSt Pete Preservation
Kenwood holds the largest collection of ‘bungalow’ style houses in the USA. ‘Bungalow’ houses come in many different styles including Mediterranean, ‘airplane’, and Craftsman.
What distinguishes them, among other things, are their front porches with columns, wide overhanging roofs, and often a set-back upper story. The neighborhood also boasts brick streets, granite curbs and hexagonal sidewalks. This area was St Pete’s original full-time residential neighborhood (as opposed to tourists and part-time residents)
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Nowadays Kenwood is a community-connected neighborhood with active members who work to preserve its charm and authenticity.
As you can see, St Petersburg, Florida is a flourishing city full of interesting, unique and quirky charms. I hope you’ll get to visit one day to enjoy the arts, history and, of course, the sun, sand and sea that still remain in ‘Sunshine Capital of the USA’.
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