60 years ago…
July 29, 1946 – Workers begin to raze the old wooden office building at the Clyde Mallory Steamship Lines at the foot of Franklin Street to make way for a modern concrete and steel building after the line resumes shipping operations. The building, according to Mallory representative H.R. Felix, was one of the first commercial structures erected on the Tampa waterfront.
Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.
A couple of Channelside businesses are having a little spat. It seems that the dinner and a drink set doesn’t want the likes of a drinks-only neighbor. Let’s forget the fact that part of that dinner set (Howl at the Moon) doesn’t serve food. Are Banana Joes and Slingshots really attracting the “wrong kind of crowd” for Stumps and Tinatapas? Or are the Velvet Room and Margarita Mama’s just taking business away from Splittsville and Howl at the Moon?
Where does the movie theater stand on this issue? How about White House Gear? And the Hooter girls are awful quiet too. Also, why aren’t these guys paying me for linking to their businesses?
Anyway, the question for these business owners should be: What will help draw more people that will spend money? When considering all of the above, I think TBT’s Susan Thurston nails it: Shut up, fix the parking and advertise.
Have a nice weekend.
The “official” memorial event for Mike O’Neill, organized and hosted by his good friend Ed Lowery and “sponsored” by Mike’s family, who will be in attendance. Funeral and/or cremation services will be out of town and attended by family and very close friends alone, so this is your one and only chance to pay your respects to our departed friend.
According to Ed, the live music lineup will definitely include Flat Stanley (featuring Mike’s former drummer and longtime friend Fred Stolz) and The 39 Steps (who Mike loved, and with Ed behind the kit). Other performers will be announced soon, along with times and cost. The proceeds will go to Mike’s family.
Mike’s coworker Jeff Houck (side salad) sent me the info early last week.
Also, Tampa Bay Muse moved their O’Neill Tribute page.
Thursday I tried to guess the route of the proposed beltway. I should have waited a day. While I was busy wasting time and energy with that, T-HEA released the exact planned route. The Tribune published the map at the top of today’s story.
An email/press release from the Hillsborough County Communications Department (I couldn’t find it online):
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY NEWS
July 27, 2006
Largest Millage Rollback in the History of HIllsborough County
For the past eleven years a total of 1.3 mills in property tax reduction has occurred in Hillsborough County. Now in its twelfth year, the Board of County Commissioners voted today to reduce the tax rate even further by .3735 mills.
County Commissioners will hold Final Budget Hearings on September 12 and 21. During these public hearings Commissioners will adopt the Final 2007 Budget.
You already know that this small rate cut combined with the increased property values means you will actually pay MORE in taxes this year. But the County doesn’t want to tell you that. This way, commissioners can say they cut taxes.
They could have cut them more, you know. The County Commission left enough money in the budget to further insulate Cheval residents from the likes of you. The county voted to spend $1,000,000 to build a noise buffering wall along the exclusive gated community. In a county of over a million, I’m sure it will do these couple thousand homeowners some good to be further fenced in.
I’d gladly pay a few bucks if we can permanently padlock them inside the gate.
50 years ago…
July 28, 1956 – The Ybor City Election Board deems Tony Pizzo a “persona-non-grata candidato” and rules that he cannot run again for election as Alcalde (mayor) of Ybor City. The Tampa Morning-Tribune reported that these actions, and indeed all such “shenanigans,” were taken by the Ybor City “unofficial official election board,” not the official board made up of judges. The unofficial board felt that no man should serve two terms as Alcalde. Abispo Verde, a.k.a. the Green Hornet of Ybor City, wrote in sadness about the departure of Pizzo, a beloved figure in the community:
“He always do right, he never be phony
The people’s Alcalde, our own Mr. Tony.
May rainstorm and hurricane, tempest and shower
Drop oceans of blessings on our little flower.”
Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.
Prologue: When I wrote about our trip to Orlando using public transportation, I was pretty tired. I had not even uploaded the photos from the trip. So, I’m gonna fill in a bit more and link you to the now-uploaded images. All the links below just go to the corresponding photos, so if you want, simply open a new window or tab with the photos from our train trip from Tampa to Orlando. Some of the photos have explanations, some don’t. That’s just the way it goes with us amateurs. But they should line up in time order, so you can read here and look there, if you want.
Also, there are a bunch of photos from Sea World, if you want to look at those.
We got to Tampa’s Union Station early. When checking our bag, there were a handful of people there waiting for the southbound. Coming from New York, the Southbound Silver Star (Route #91) was running about 5 hours late. Number 91 was so late, the travelers had to take a bus to Winter Haven – to save time, Amtrak didn’t make the train take the spur all the way to Tampa. According to the very friendly and helpful desk guy (Mr. Mendez I think), the southbound is often that late (this will come into play later, don’t you know).
Still, there were far more passengers at the station than I expected – even with two routes.
Our train - the northbound Silver Star (Route #92) was only about 30 minutes late. Just enough time to look around the platforms and notice the roof falling apart.
The #92 finally showed up, and as mentioned before, gave us a smooth, easy ride to Orlando. They have an old rail stop downtown too. I don’t believe that one has been refurbished.
You already know we took the city bus (Lynx) to I-Drive and our hotel. The next day we made it to Sea World, where we saw stingrays, seals, and (of course) Shamu. Oh, how the FirstGrader loved it! Then it was time to go home.
Since we had previously learned the southbound is often hours late (told you!), we called the night before to make sure we didn’t have to be at the station by 9:30am. On Saturday night, Julie* told us the train was running 2 hours behind. Excellent – we could sleep in. By Sunday morning, the train lost another two hours. We wouldn’t have to show up at the station until afternoon. So wifey made me go and I went shopping with the FirstGrader (I’ll spare you the details).
We made it back to the hotel with an hour and a half to catch the train, and had the front desk call a taxi for us. A half-hour later, the cab pulled up and brought us downtown a lot quicker than the bus ever could. The taxi was ten times the price, but a much more pleasant ride (in a Continental, no less). The ride was so quick and pleasant, I forgot to take pictures.
Once at the station, we learned the train was delayed so much that we would need to get off in Winter Haven and catch a bus for the remainder of the trip to Tampa. Knowing the transfer would be a nightmare, we checked our luggage (one bag). We had plenty of time to eat at the café across the street, and head back in time to watch a freight train roll by. We knew our train was close when we saw the checked baggage cart pass us (one bag).
Anyway, we got to see the Winter Haven train station up close. There were so many passengers heading to Tampa and other West Coast destinations, they needed two busses. We got on our MARTZ bus, waved goodbye to Winter Haven, and eventually, safely made it back to Tampa’s Union Station.
The first grader asked if maybe we could drive next time. I’m pretty sure we will.
* NOTE: Julie is Amtrak’s automated voice recognition phone answering computer girl. I must say - I have not ever experienced a better conversation with a computer. Julie’s voice is agreeable, the system is easy to use, and most importantly, the voice recognition seemed very accurate. I almost recommend you call just to check it out (800.872.7245 – start by saying “train status,” and ask about route 91, it’s likely late). If the way of the phone call world is going all automatic, Amtrak has a great model.
John has already warned us about the possible traffic issue tomorrow. In addition the Times has posted a quick heads up that we “might” see some traffic problems around downtown Tampa tomorrow morning. It seems the Hillsborough County Schools are bringing in 20,000 folks for a rally at the St Pete Times Forum.
People became pretty sensitive to scheduling issues at the Forum after the mess that Zig Ziglar’s motivational seminar in February caused (incidently Tampa wasn’t the only city to enjoy a few extra minutes in traffic due to Zig, Pittsburgh got a little of the love too).
The Shriner’s convention came off without any traffic issues that I heard about though so maybe we’ll be alright. Unfortunatley, unlike the Shriner’s convention, all 20,000 are expected to show up at rush hour which was the problem with Ziglar’s fiasco in the first place.
Good luck and be careful if you are heading downtown in the morning!
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