jackson house on national register
The Jackson House was recently put on the National Register of Historic Places. What a great and deserved honor for the place and its owners. Here’s what we wrote about the Jackson House in 2004:
Downtown Tampa’s last rooming house, at 851 Zack St., provided rooms for Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, Cab Calloway, James Brown, the Ink Spots, and other black musicians traveling through Tampa during the segregation era. They played in bars and nightclubs in the Central Avenue business district, a community created by blacks that thrived from 1900 to 1960. Years ago, Tampa bulldozed its entire black business district, also known as “the Scrub.”
This year, Creative Weekly did a great profile on the place, and The Tribune has a nice writeup of Jackson House landing on the National Register.
To find out more about the place, check out this 2003 interview with owner Sarah Jackson-Robinson.
Tags: downtown, history, names, tampa
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September 19th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I just drove by the house yesterday and I think it has a condemnation sign on the front door. The house looked to be in pretty sad shape.
Remember that being on the National Register in and by itself does lend properties protection from demolition. One needs a “local” designation for that, and those have architectural review boards, like in Hyde Park, Ybor City, etc..
National Register status is largely about prestige.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:13 am
So glad it’s gained some protection. The house does need a lot of work but it’s an irreplaceable landmark that Tampa should acknowledge and promote.