In 1972, Hurricane Agnes skirted the Tampa Bay area and made landfall near Apalachicola. Newspaper accounts of the flooding Agnes brought to Shore Acres might be mistaken for stories written about the impact of Hurricane Idalia, which followed a similar path at the end of August 2023. In both Agnes and Idalia, residents scrambled to find high ground for cars, appliances, and belongings. The high tide crested seawalls, came up storm drains, filled the streets, and then made its way into homes. 

There are important differences between Agnes and Idalia, however. On the June night that Agnes swept past us toward the panhandle, city and county officials thought impact would be minimal.… Read More

Musician, professional athlete, conductor, a student of language and science. You might think I’m talking about a group of outstanding people, but in fact, I’m introducing Dr. Chelsea Gallo, the newly promoted resident conductor for The Florida Orchestra’s 2023-2024 season. Her list of accomplishments is long and all the more impressive when you learn she became a conductor quite by accident after a torn ACL changed her entire path. 

Gallo’s love of music, however, has always been with her. She began playing the violin and piano at the age of four, and eventually chose to study music in her collegiate and post-collegiate years, earning a master’s degree in Vienna, Austria, where she also played professional softball.… Read More

There has been much news about the Hines–Tampa Bay Rays proposal to build a new stadium in St. Petersburg, just southeast of Tropicana Field. It’s not just a stadium, however, but a 20-year $6.5 billion proposal to redevelop the 86-acre area of the historic former Gas Plant neighborhood. The proposed redevelopment calls for 6,000 residential units, including 1,200 affordable and workforce units both on- and off-site; a hotel; 14,000 parking spaces; a refurbished park along Booker Creek, which meanders through the site; an entertainment venue; and space for and a $10 million contribution to a new home for the Dr. Carter G.… Read More

This September, a group of 30 female musicians flew from Ukraine to Tampa for a Florida tour to donate its profits to humanitarian causes in Ukraine. They are the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, a nonprofit, Ukraine-based spiritual group that is touring the Sunshine State as part of their Southeastern United States tour. They often travel to raise money through spiritual concerts, and their members are graduates of the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Several host churches are on the list, including St. Pete’s First Presbyterian Church at 701 Beach Drive.

The Ukrainian group normally consists of 52 members, but they are leave behind their male counterparts.… Read More

Ask most folks about their favorite neighborhood wildlife and you’ll probably hear about birds, butterflies, or adorable squirrel antics. One critter you probably won’t hear much about is the bat. Legends swirl around these nocturnal mammals: that they’ll flap blindly into your hair, drink your blood, give you rabies, or even destroy your home. On reflection, maybe we’ve all been watching a bit too many horror movies. 

Whatever the source of these frightful fantasies, says Shari Blisset-Clark, president of Florida Bat Conservancy, they unfortunately mask the true value of a remarkable animal – one we should welcome into our communities. “I think bats make wonderful neighbors!”… Read More

Katherine Bell Tippetts was certainly one of the most remarkable woman leaders St. Petersburg has produced. She grew up in Somerset County, Maryland. She married an international newspaper correspondent and newspaper owner, Col. William H. Tippetts, and arrived in St. Petersburg with her husband in 1902. She lived here until her death in 1950.

Following the death of her husband in 1909, Tippetts took control of her husband’s business interests, including the Belmont Hotel, located at 575 Central Avenue. Financially successful, she sent two sons to Princeton, a third son to the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a daughter to Florida State College for Women.… Read More

You’re walking through St. Pete’s Crescent Lake Park on a Wednesday afternoon and you see a particularly colorful rock. Unable to resist, you pick it up. This is no ordinary glittery stone. It’s painted orange and pink and blue with a goofy cartoon bird winking at you from its smooth surface. Is it game piece? A lost toy? You flip it over and there’s a message: Go to St Pete Rocks Facebook page.

Before you can even pocket the stone, you’ve got your phone out. That’s when you learn that there’s a whole community – a seemingly secret world – of “painters, hiders, and posters” of painted rocks sharing their art and telling stories about their finds. … Read More

In “Exploring St. Pete’s Jewish History, Part 1” historian Monica Kile introduced many of St. Petersburg’s early Jewish families and how they helped to shape the culture and economy of the city. In part two, we take a closer look at their challenges and successes. Read part one here.

In the last issue, we met Old Northeast resident Jay Miller, and learned about how his and other Jewish families came to live and build successful businesses alongside each other in St. Petersburg in the first half of the 20th century. But, particularly in the early years, they also faced widespread antisemitism. … Read More

We are now well into the 2023 hurricane season, though St. Petersburg thankfully has not seen a direct hit since 1921. Known as the Tarpon Springs Hurricane, the 1921 hurricane was a Category 4 while over the Gulf, with winds declining to a Category 3 by landfall. A six-to-eleven-foot storm surge flooded low-lying areas throughout Pinellas County, including St. Petersburg. Since then, there have been many near misses, two of the most recent being Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Hurricane Ian just last year. Irma, a Category 5 over water, brushed St. Petersburg with a negative surge that emptied the bay.… Read More

St. Petersburg has honored many of its citizens with the title of “Mr. Baseball.” There was of course the first Mr. Baseball, Mayor Al Lang, after whom Al Lang Stadium is named. It was Al who mostly started it all by bringing Major League Spring Training to the city beginning with the St. Louis Browns and their manager Branch Ricky in 1914. Much later there was Mr. Baseball Bob Stewart and Mr. Baseball Rick Dodge, both of whom piloted the building of Tropicana Stadium, which led to securing the Tampa Bay Rays in 1995 (their opening season was 1998). Stewart was chairperson of the St.… Read More