St. Petersburg, Florida was the first designated green city in the United States! In December 2006, St. Petersburg was certified by the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC) as a green local government designation. St. Petersburg was the first city in Florida to receive this prestigious certification!

St. Petersburg Office of Sustainability

When Mayor Rick Kriseman took office in January 2014, his revised city organizational chart included the newly created Office of Sustainability, to be directed by Michael Connors. Mr. Connors began his distinguished career in St. Petersburg, as director of engineering in 1987.  He is now the director of sustainability and green initiatives and director of public works.… Read More

Sharing All of Those? Sunken Gardens Awaits You!

What to do when you retire? Ummm… go to the oldest roadside attraction in the United States and become a docent! Really? Yes, that’s what one Old Northeast resident did! And, not in an air-conditioned museum; no, this dedicated soul went straight to our beloved Sunken Gardens to volunteer.

Susan Rebillot, who has lived in St. Petersburg since she was 10 years old, has always loved gardening. It was in the family, after all. Her grandfather from Italy was a farmer and her grandmother from France grew roses and other flowers in New Hampshire.… Read More

I had been informed… I had even been warned. But none of the descriptions about Halloween in the Old Northeast truly did my first actual experience of it any justice. Neighbors telling me they gave away over 3,000 pieces of candy before 9pm – I had just smiled, made the appropriate impressed reaction, and assumed they had their zeros wrong. Nobody could give away that much candy – that would not only cost a fortune, it would require a constant stream of delivery, not the usual Halloween doorbell, grab the bowl, greet some kids, close the door routine. Surely, it was impossible.… Read More

As a musician strings through the notes, we are pulled into the music. They begin to string us along like the notes they play. We float away to another place, soaking in the melody hitting our ears. As it kisses our ears, our feet begin to tap and our bodies begin to sway. We’re losing all thoughts, living in the moment and enjoying what we hear. While in the moment, we don’t think of how long the musician practiced, how many nights they may not have slept, how many years they have worked on their skill… we just enjoy the now.… Read More

Yes, I do have a mango tree. I do share the fruit with anyone who wants it, especially anyone who will climb up and pick the highest mangoes. I even share with the squirrels, not that I have any choice. But, really, there are more mangoes than our family and our neighbors and the squirrels can eat.

And, truthfully, some go to waste. How awful! That’s just one tree. According to research, an estimated half of all produce grown in this country goes to waste. And yet, one in six people (locally and nationally) are ‘food insecure,’ meaning they don’t know from where their next meal will come!… Read More

So many metaphors, so little space. Which one best describes Mirror Lake and its surrounding park? Is it the calm eye of the storm of our town’s rapid expansion? Or does the proximity of the old St. Pete High School, the Tomlinson Learning Center (with the wise owl statues guarding its front gates), the graceful Lyceum Theatre, and our classic Carnegie library make this area the brains of our town? Or perhaps it’s the spring fed lake itself that makes it the original life-giving heart for our town. However you look at it, this gem of a park played an important role in our city’s history, but it was the supply of fresh water that first made it so essential.… Read More

A new chapter is about to open in the story of Bruce Watters Jewelers. Bruce Watters is about to move, but not far. In fact, this legendary St. Petersburg business has never moved far over the course of the last 109 years from its original location near Central Avenue and 2nd Street in downtown St. Petersburg. Bruce Watters is the city’s oldest business. Distinguished for its high-quality diamonds, jewelry, and watches, it is the place where generations have bought their engagement rings, wedding bands, anniversary gifts, holiday presents, and Valentines remembrances. It is the city’s most prestigious jewelry business. It is the place where four generations of the Watters family have practiced their profession, and from which they have given back to our community.… Read More

This May, the Florida Magic Convention celebrated its 50th anniversary in Orlando. Neighbors from the Old Northeast and surrounding areas attended as guests on behalf of the Tampa Bay Magic Club. Among those present was one neighbor who enjoyed a professional career in magic, as one of Canada’s first female magicians (and one of the most successful female magicians to date): Celeste Evans.

Evans once thrilled audiences with her performances of dove magic – audiences which included Caroline Kennedy, Indira Gandhi, packed houses in Las Vegas, party guests at the Playboy mansion, U.S. troops in Vietnam, Alaska, Iceland, Germany, Malta, and Libya, and audiences of all ages on six continents.… Read More

Come to the Sunshine City!” Images on postcards, billboards, and in newspapers of the bathing beauties on St. Petersburg’s beaches circled the United States. Sunshine, happiness, relaxation, and ultimate paradise stung Northerners worse than the snow against their face. The harsh reality that they were shoveling snow – unlike the Southerners who were shoveling sand – could not be avoided. While battling the winter, they began to place themselves in the images they saw. Through the early 1900s, St. Petersburg had a large marketing push to lure tourists to the area. They targeted people living in the north, framing the area with a youthful energetic image.… Read More

The Old Northeast feels like a small, friendly neighborhood to me because so many people in the neighborhood are friendly. I regularly take walks and run into neighbors I do not know by name but readily greet and, more often than not, end up chatting with for a few minutes.

A few years back, while walking and looking down at the street, a random thought made me wonder how many bricks there are in the Old Northeast roads. I started doing the math, thinking there must be hundreds of thousands, but it didn’t take long to realize we have millions of bricks in our neighborhood.… Read More