You know how, in horror movies, right before things get real, someone says, “It’s quiet. Too quiet.”?

That is decidedly not the case with Bird Island, sometimes called Coffee Pot Bird Preserve. You can hear – and often smell – the island residents before you see them. A cross-section of birds flap around this tiny Snell Isle island, from black crows to white ibis. Though it’s likely the crows have landed for an opportune snack, white ibis are among many species that nest and roost here. Herons, both blue, green, and triple crowned night herons, peer out from the mangroves. Roseate spoonbills provide occasional pops of color, while squadrons of brown pelicans dominate the island.… Read More

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” 
– Robin Sharma

Giving is the best present we can give to ourselves. And, though the rewards are great, giving something as precious as time can be challenging. Personal wisdom gained over time, lessons that each of us had to take time to learn, is perhaps our most precious asset. Imagine then, the incredible wealth of knowledge in the possession of our senior citizens. 

A recently expanded program supported by Seniors in Service of Tampa Bay, called Senior Companion, aims to make good use of lifetimes of wisdom while easing the loneliness that sometimes comes with it.… Read More

There’s a certain Dalí piece that exists not only in painting form at St. Pete’s Dalí Museum, but as a virtual reality experience in an entirely separate part of the museum. Archeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus hangs on a white wall in the museum, and also in a whole other dimension.

The Dreams of Dalí VR experience comes with the price of admission. While this is a fairly new technology to many, art museums have been using the concept for years to immerse guests in art. In 2018, the Smithsonian Institution added a virtual exhibit – No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man.… Read More

Historic landmarks, especially cherished churches, require TLC, and so it is with First United Methodist located across from Williams Park in downtown St. Petersburg. The church dates its history back to 1889, a year after the city’s founding. The first church building was erected in 1892 and later succeeded by a second building on the corner of 2nd Avenue North and 3rd Street in 1902. The present grand structure dates from 1925-27. 

It was a challenge to get the church built. After much of it was constructed in 1925, an outer wall collapsed, virtually requiring construction to start anew. Upon rebuilding, the church was retrofitted with an interior steel frame.… Read More

If you bump into Tampa Bay’s media guru and Beach Drive resident Elliott Wiser walking around downtown St. Pete on September 24, don’t be surprised if you see a big smile on his face. It was on that day in 1997 he launched Bay News 9, the popular 24-hour news channel here in Tampa Bay. 

 Yes, 25 years ago Wiser had a dream. A vision. And while retired now, it is with a sense of accomplishment and pride that he describes a project that seemed surreal at the time. 

“This idea started out as a new concept for a TV station,” he explains.… Read More

The first rule of the St. Petersburg Bike Co-op: It’s not a bike shop. For a total of six hours a week, the co-op at 559 Mirror Lake Drive North is open for anyone to come in and buy a bike or get a bike repair. The bikes are mostly donated or built from scratch by shop volunteers and mechanics. That factor allows prices to be extremely low. 

“I didn’t enjoy working for profit,” says shop coordinator Caelan Jeffery. “Working with expensive bikes and pompous people, it’s not for me.” 

Along with a fluctuating team of about 10 volunteers, mechanic and co-op coordinator Jeffery runs the show in an equal distribution of power that only a co-op can truly attain.… Read More

There’s a hidden gem on the second floor of a 1916 building that was once known as the Rutland’s department store: The ArtLofts of St. Petersburg. Established as ArtSpace in 1996, with a name change to ArtLofts in 2002, it is the longest, continually running artist studio space in St. Petersburg.

ArtLofts houses artist studios on the top floor of this building, which also holds the Florida CraftArt gallery and offices. This working artist enclave hosts a variety of mediums ranging from copper and wire sculpture to photography, watercolor and acrylic paintings, encaustic works, collage, and more. 

For most of the year, Old Northeast resident Margaret Ann Burtchaell is hard at work in her commercial kitchen on 4th Street, where she and her team are busy creating everything from specialty cookies to gourmet comfort food. 

But in the summer, her kitchen is in a villa in Italy, where she teaches cooking classes to guests enjoying a week-long vacation in the Sabine hills just outside of Rome. The villa is part of a 150-acre estate that includes orchards full of cherry, fig, orange and lemon trees, olive groves, and rosemary bushes.

“It was one of those unexpected blessings in life that come along,” says Burtchaell.… Read More

Though he’s an anthropologist rather than an archaeologist, Bryan T. Shuler is an adventurer, scholar, professor, musician, pilot, and all-around fascinating guy – much like Indiana Jones, except that Shuler is the real deal. Sometimes, when he is on one of his adventures, he even wears a hat that looks suspiciously like the iconic fedora.

Shuler’s life reads like an adventure novel, with wild tales from his globe-trotting escapades: getting charged by a bull elephant as a Fulbright Scholar in Ghana; being surrounded by whales as the onboard anthropologist for the National Geographic Explorer during a six-week expedition off the coast of Africa; hiking in the Yung Frau region in the Swiss Alps; he still recalls “the breathtaking view and thrill of crossing a glacier in a crevice.”… Read More

Seeing the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club trophy wall on Netflix feels like a glitch in the Matrix. Cindy Smith-Maglione, a Redington Beach resident and the former vice president of merchandising for Abercrombie & Fitch, gave an interview under the iconic white-and-green shuffleboard club sign in White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch on Netflix. It’s not just any documentary – it was one of the top shows on the streaming service.

Staff members at St.… Read More