Williams Park has long been at the heart of downtown St. Petersburg, with a unique history that dates to the very planning of the city. The block-sized piece of land was donated by city founder John Williams, and it shows up on the first city plat in 1888.  

The area opened under the name “City Park” but was, like much of Florida at the time, overrun with palmettos and scrub brush. According to Making of St. Petersburg, by Will Michaels, though John Williams died in 1892, his widow, Sarah, continued to work with volunteers to get the park underway. In 1893, the Park Improvement Association formed and, with the aid of women from the local churches, sponsored a Park Day.… Read More

Deris and Gabriel Fernandez came to America from Venezuela about four years ago. I was volunteering at the Tomlinson Adult Learning Center and first heard about the couple after they began taking English as a Second Language (ESOL) classes at the center. When the pandemic hit, the school couldn’t hold classes and we connected to practice English via weekly Zoom calls. I wrote a story about my experience helping them with conversational English in January of 2021 for the Northeast Journal. Two years later, I was curious about how they were progressing and reconnected with them. We met for coffee at The Blend Old Northeast and again at my home a few weeks later.… Read More

It took a master falconer from Georgia to open my eyes to the natural gem just four miles from my home in the Old Northeast. It was one of those glorious winter days that makes you realize why everyone moves to Florida; a deep freeze had struck much of the nation, while St. Pete enjoyed blue skies and low 70-degree temperatures. Our family decided to go to Raptor Fest at the Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, an event we’d heard rave reviews of over the years, but never attended. After strolling past volunteers holding all manner of curious birds, we hurried to a set of grandstands set up for a “free flight” demonstration.… Read More

If you build it, they will come. No, not baseball-playing ghosts. Pollinators! Bees, butterflies, birds…the list goes on, and includes mosquitoes (they don’t all bite!), bats (who suffer from seriously bad PR), and countless other four-footed and two-winged creatures that can fight climate change. That’s right: If you want to fight climate change, find a way to attract pollinators to your garden. 

Healthy soil traps carbon, which helps moderate climate change. Worried about sea level rise? Every native pollinator plant in your landscape provides a metaphorical sandbag against the rising waters. Of course, it will take plenty of pollinators to reverse things, but every purple coneflower helps. … Read More

The story of the preservation of our city’s historic 1920s-era Vinoy Park Hotel is well documented. Not so well known is how preservation of the Vinoy led to the preservation of many other historic places throughout the city and continues to do so.

In 1945 the Vinoy Hotel was acquired from its founder Amyer Vinoy Laughner by hotelier Charles Alberding of Chicago. Maintenance of the hotel had deteriorated over the years, and Alberding tried to bring it back to its former glory without success. Beginning in 1972, Alberding began leasing the hotel to interested investors. In 1984 a partnership composed of B.… Read More

Now we come upon the months of love and luck – of the Irish! We’ve got a sampling of some of the new and original art to discover in St. Pete in the new year.  

Galleries

ArtLofts: Valentwe’en 2023: Kiss of Death. 10 5th Street South, second floor. Opening reception February 11, 5-9 pm; 12-4 pm Saturdays and by appointment through February 28. Brandybstark132@gmail.com.

This marks the 8th annual holiday combining concepts of second Halloween with gothic romance. This year, the show features those sexy, powerful, and predatory paranormal creatures: vampires! The opening reception is during Second Saturday Artwalk.… Read More

The Northeast Journal’s longtime contributor and resident historian, Will Michaels, was honored by the Tony Jannus Society at their annual banquet, Saturday, November 12 at the Vinoy Hotel.

The Special Award was presented to Will, president of the nonprofit Flight 2014, Inc, in recognition of his instrumental efforts to bring the Benoist Airboat back to St. Petersburg through a life-size monument at the St. Pete Pier, near the exact spot of Tony Jannus’ famous flight in 1914. Will is one of five people to receive this prestigious award since the society was founded.

In addition to preserving the legacy of Tony Jannus, the Tony Jannus Society also offers financial assistance to college students pursuing studies in aviation and conducts an annual essay contest for high school students to encourage careers in aviation.… Read More

Strolling around the Old Northeast, you’ll see a wide variety of ferns. But some ferns might surprise you from one day to the next – or even one moment to the next. One is the pleopeltis polypodioides or “resurrection fern.” The other, mimosa pudica, looks like a fern, but is actually a perennial weed. Both exhibit strange behaviors. 

The resurrection fern is unique for a number of reasons. First, it’s an epiphyte, or air plant, which means it grows not in the soil, but on the sides of trees and houses. It gets its name because during dry periods, this plant will wilt and turn brown, losing up to 97% of its water.… Read More

It started with an angel. No, not a real angel –  a folk angel. More accurately, a folk-art angel.

Emily Kleine met Tash Elwyn at Emory University. “We had no money,” Emily recalls. “He was a cold caller for Ray Jay, and I worked for a nonprofit [Atlanta Preservation Center].” Emily was headed toward the world of historic preservation – in St. Petersburg, she’s known for her work with Preserve the ‘Burg – and Tash was still wet-behind-the-ears in the finance world (he’s still with Raymond James, now as vice president).

The one thing they knew about each other? “We liked art,” Emily said.… Read More

As my husband and daughter ride their bikes to the closest SunRunner stop every Tuesday evening (read more here), I find myself lamenting the loss of St. Petersburg’s streetcar system, a line of which once ran from Coffee Pot Bayou to downtown, along Locust Street, passing our house on 17th Ave NE. I frequently come across references to the trolley, or streetcar line (terms used interchangeably here in St. Pete and elsewhere), when I’m researching historic homes in newspaper archives. Proximity to the line was a popular selling point for houses, and phrases like, “three blocks from car line” abound in old real estate advertisements.… Read More