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Things are happening in Downtown Clearwater

The Rays' Hummer

There’s a lot more to major league baseball than what goes on on the field.

Take the Tampa Bay Rays, for example.  The Rays are a young team, having been formed just 11 years ago. They made it to the World Series last year, but not before nine seasons of last-place baseball. The product on the field simple wasn’t enough to draw fans to the park, so the Rays spent lots of time and money developing community-based efforts that would, hopefully, spark interest in the team.

I saw an example of that effort not long ago in downtown Clearwater.

There is a regular monthly event in downtown Clearwater called Fourth Friday. On the fourth Friday of every month, late in the day, vendors start setting up on Cleveland Street, which has been roped off for just that purpose. People turn out to walk along Cleveland street, buy food and other items from vendors, and just generally enjoy Clearwater’s much-improved downtown.

On the day I was there, the Tampa Bay Rays had their special Hummer there, along with a stage set up to host the Ray’s pre-game and post-game radio shows on WDAE, the Sports Animal. The Rays were actually playing the Florida Marlins in Miami that night, but the live radio programs that opened and closed the game would be coming live from downtown Clearwater.

As workers set up the stage, young Rays employees were busy handing out white Rays t-shirts and other team goodies.

The Rays are always looking for more fans. And Clearwater is always looking for more people to come downtown and enjoy what is offered there.

Tags: baseball, Clearwater, downtown

Downtown Tarpon Springs lamp posts

Lamp post in downtown Tarpon Springs

Time for another lamp post.

Just to refresh your memory, I posted a picture of a lamp post from downtown Dunedin not too long ago. It was a pretty fancy one, and it went well with the overall charm of the downtown area of Dunedin, which has been fancied up quite a bit in recent years.

Next up was a lamp post from Disney World’s Boardwalk area. Not a real local lamp post, to be sure, but a nice one that illustrated how antique-looking lamp posts can be used to lend an authetic touch to a restored downtown area.

This one was taken in downtown Tarpon Springs just this morning.

Apparently Tarpon Springs one-ups the other local downtowns by adding fresh flowers to their lamp posts. Other local communities may do the same thing, but I haven’t seen any.

You can see more of the Tarpon Springs downtown area here.

Tags: downtown, lamp posts, Tarpon Springs

Downtown Clearwater

Around 25 years ago, the city of Biddeford, Maine decided to try to bring some attention to its old downtown area.

Biddeford was an old mill town, and its brick mill buildings no longer housed the textile companies and other businesses that had depended on the water power that was provided by the adjacant river. In its heyday, enough money flowed through Biddeford to pay for a pretty nice downtown commercial area, with brick office and retail buildings as well as attractive municipal buildings.

Those buildings had once featured very nice architectural details, but many of them had been covered up or removed as the buildings had gone through a series of renovations.

The old Peninsular Telephone Co. building in Clearwater

But those renovations seldom extended up to the upper floors and the rooflines. If you looked up there, you could see some very fancy and attractive brick designs, windows and eaves. The city wanted to draw attention to those high-up fancy old touches and details rather than the decidely unattractive street-level renovations.

So they came up with this slogan: “Look Up, Biddeford!” They used that slogan on the cover of brochures and posters that featured details of Biddeford’s best top-story architectural work.

All of which is a long way of getting around to an old brick building in downtown Clearwater that houses a Dunkin’ Donuts shop. If you walk down Cleveland Street you may only notice the donut shop facade, but if you walk on the other side of the street and happen to look up, you will see a very beautiful three-story brick building with some nice architectural touches not unlike the ones 1,500 miles to the north in Biddeford.

I was in downtown Clearwater late Friday and I spent a little time admiring the building. In the middle of the brick facade above the second-story front windows is a granite square with a single carved word: “Telephone.” That got my curiousity stirred up, so I did some research when I got home.

This Cleveland Street building was built in the early 1920s for the Peninsular Telephone Co., Pinellas County’s first real telephone company which was granted a franchise to operate in Clearwater 1901. The company was actually formed in Bradenton by a couple of brothers who got into the telephone business when they installed a telephone in their grocery store so customers could phone in their food orders.

That idea worked so well that they opened other food stores, all with telephones. Soon, they found that the telephone business had more profit potential than the grocery business. before long, they were operating telephone companies in a number of Florida Counties.

In this particular building, Peninsular Telephone ran a commercial office in the rear of the first floor, while the switchboards and phone operators toiled away on the second floor. A Rexall drug store occupied the front of the first floor.

Later, Peninsular Telephone sold out to General Telephone, which became GTE, which became Verizon.

Later, the 9,000-square-foot building fell into disrepair, as did all of the downtown Clearwater area. At some point, the beautiful windows and brick work were covered with a slick slathering of stucco. For a number of years, the first floor was occupied by a commercial blood bank facility which paid for blood donations, mostly from local homeless people.

Around 2003, the stucco was stripped away and the building was restored. It now is a proud component of downtown Clearwater’s re-emergence.

Tags: Clearwater, downtown, telephone building

Palm Harbor Citrus Festival

We just got back from spending a little time at the Palm Harbor Citrus Festival, the latest effort to pump up the Old Palm Harbor downtown section, located right off Alt. 19.

This is the first year of the Citrus Festival, which celebrates Palm Harbor’s history as a major citrus growing region.  Actually, that history doesen’t really hark back that far — Palm Harbor was still hosting large tracts of citrus growing land right up through the 1970s and 1980s. Earlier than that, citrus fruit is what built and sustained  this northern part of Pinellas County.

We got to the Festival a bit early on Saturday morning, so there weren’t too many people milling around. But exhibitors were setting up their booths, and carnival workers  were just showing up to get their rides going. There were a number of food booths, including one interesting-looking barbecue outfit that just might draw me back there at mid-day for lunch.

The Downtown Palm Harbor merchants really do a good job of trying to pump up their region. They do a great and very well-know arts show arounf the holiday season, and the annual Taste of Palm Harbor event is very popular. They even sponsor an annual motorcycle event.

You can see more pictures of the Citrus Festival at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethfrederick/sets/72157617209915435/

Tags: citrus festival, downtown, Palm Harbor