Thanks for Your Support
Members are important to us! We think being an SPP member is not only a great way to support keeping St. Petersburg special but its also a great deal with free walking tours and reduced fees to many special SPP events. Thank you to our many members.
If you are not a member but would like to become one, just
click here to join and you too can say you are a card carrying SPP member!
Click here
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SPP Needs You!
Place matters but how does one go about protecting special places? One way is to make your voice heard so that the mayor & city council say yes to keeping St. Pete special and no to bad development!
Thus, SPP is creating our new Advocacy Action Team, or as our president Emily Elwyn likes to say...the "butts in the seats" team!
We have learned by sitting thru countless council hearings the key to success: having people in the seats & speaking up. The hardest thing for a decision maker to do is to say no to a room- full of people saying yes!
Join the SPP team - there is only one qualification: a willingness to put your butt in a seat and to attend just once or twice a year a public hearing. SPP will notify you of the public hearing date and provide you with background info on the issue. You show up to the hearing, fill out a public speaking card indicating your support for the preservation position and that's it - if you would be willing to briefly speak at the hearing all the better!
Preservation issues are usually decided either at a Preservation Commission meeting (starting at 3 pm) or at an evening City Council hearing (starting at 6 pm). How many times an issue will arise will vary but if you can attend a hearing at least once or twice a year it will make a difference!
Just click here to tell us that you want to become an Advocacy Action Team member and a butt in the seats! We will be excited to hear from you! We will also be scheduling a training session that we hope you will be able to attend.
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Florida Trust Statewide Conference Coming to St.Petersburg in May!
The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation's annual conference, entitled "Preservation Reinvented for Art and Enterprise" will be in the 'Burg May 18-20. The conference offers a great opportunity to learn more about preservation by attending some of the many workshops. There are also a number of tour options to choose from that have been organized by SPP or you can choose to attend the Trust's statewide awards progr
am.
The opening reception will be at the Shuffleboard Club, the Awards Reception at the Coliseum and the downtown Hiltion will be the conference hotel. The conference promises to be something you won't want to miss! Click here for conference details and registration info.
Volunteers are needed to make this conference a success! Just click here to send a message if you are interested in helping.
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Upcoming Events!
Artists of Historic Kenwood Studio Tour - March 18/19
Historic Kenwood is one of just two Artist Enclave districts in the city - meaning its a neighborhood where artists live & work! This weekend many of the artists, including ceramicists, painters, jewelers, sculptors & more will have their work on display at their home studio. You are invited for a free visit to meet the artists who make the work! Click here for more info, including a map of the open studios.
Tour a Downtown
Historic Church
Did you know downtown's
First United Methodist Church (
corner 2nd Ave N & 3rd St.), known for its stained glass windows, is a
designated local landmark, & offers Wednesday tours? The tour on the first Wednesday of the month includes an organ concert. Tours start at 11am followed by the noon organ concert.
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On the First Friday of every month Steve Quillian, with Wood Window Makeover in Tampa, opens up his shop to the public to help you to learn how to restore wood windows. Learn the simple steps to restoring windows. Just click here to register for his next free workshop!
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Give Day, a nationwide event, offers an opportunity to learn more about the hundreds of local nonprofits and to support causes you care about. More than $2 million was raised for nearly 600 Tampa Bay nonprofits in 2016. We hope you will participate this year on May 2 to give where you live and include SPP in the organizations you support!
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Sunken Gardens - A Roadside Attraction Still Fun Today - April 5!
Make your reservation for SPP's next "Keep St. Pete Special" program as it is coming up soon, on Wednesday evening April 5, at a place that is clearly special to the 'Burg - Sunken Gardens! And space is limited!
Sunken Gardens has a long
history, being one of Florida's few remaining "roadside" attractions. The Mediterranean Revival styled entry building that also houses
Great Explorations was built in 1926 as the Sanitary Public Market Building. George Turner started tours of his gardens in the '30's, charging only a nickel! In the '40's the building was renovated by well known architect
William Harvard, Sr., becoming the local coca cola bottling plant. By the '90s roadside attractions were out of favor and the demise of the Gardens was a distinct possibility. Luckily, many were not ready to see the Gardens sold for development and in 1999 city voters agreed to purchase Sunken Gardens. Today, it continues to entertain and to educate residents and tourists as a city facility.
 Join SPP for a fun & informative evening, including the "nickel" garden tour and an update on recent, ongoing and future plans for restoring and maintaining Sunken Gardens. And you will get to see the
Flamingo flock! Last spring, after a community fund-raising effort, twenty young flamingos joined George & Lucy - the only remaining pair of the original Sunken Gardens flamingo flock.
Reception with cash (donation) bar will precede the program along with some good cheer and fun!
What: Sunken Gardens - "A Roadside Attraction Still Fun Today"
Date: Wednesday, March 5th
Time: 5:30 pm reception with cash bar;
6:30 pm program/tour
Where: Sunken Gardens,
1825 4th St. N, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Cost: $5 for SPP members; $15 for non-members; Membership specials (new or renewing) - $30 individual or $50 household
Thanks to our generous Keep St. Pete Special program series sponsor,
Estelia Mesimer.
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May Movies in the Park
Announcement Party - April 6!
Yes, it's almost time again for
St. Petersburg Preservation's May Movies in the Park!!! And that means, first, our fun & funky Movie & Music Announcement Party! The fun takes place on Thursday, April 6 in the courtyard at downtown's
The Ale & The Witch. And the party is FREE! Thanks go to the Witch & owner Brett Andress for donating a portion of the evening's proceeds to help support Movies in the Park, so be sure to enjoy those wonderful American craft beers!
Don't forget to start brushing up on your movie trivia! As we always do at the party, SPP will offer movie trivia questions as hints to what will be shown on the big outdoor screen in May. Guess a movie & win a prize!
In addition to the movie titles, you will also find out which bands will play each movie night and you will be among the first to see the new Movie
 poster by our favorite local artist,
Carrie Jadus. Movie posters & movie poster note cards (great gifts) will be available for a special Movie Party price.
Mark your calendar for Aprl 6 and ask your friends to come too. Be among the first to be able to start posting on your FB page the movie choices! Don't forget, the party is FREE and live music in the courtyard at the Witch will follow.
What: Movies in the Park Announcement Party
Date: Thursday, April 6; party starts at 6 pm
Where: The Ale & the Witch courtyard: 111 2nd Ave. NE
Reservations not required
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SPP Walking Tours
There is Bound to be One (or Two) for You!
It's hard to believe but spring will soon be behind us and so too will be SPP's Saturday morning walking tour season! With hot weather coming, Saturday tours end April 29. Some fun & special tours are coming up. Don't forget, walking tours are free to SPP members, another great reason to
join! In May, SPP will begin offering monthly evening walking tours.
SPP's upcoming "regular" tours include the
"Original" Downtown Tour on April 1,
The Waterfront Tour on April 8 and Westward Ho to Historic Kenwood tours on
March 25 and
April 22.
Upcoming "special" tours include
Downtown South of Central on March 18 (tour will include a stop inside Bill Harvard designed "Marbleside").
Historic Crescent Heights on April 1 (at 1 pm). Historic Gulfport will be featured on
March 18 and
April 15 (Gulfport tours starts at 3 pm). A fun tour we offer just once or twice season is the
Downtown Tour with a Literary Twist and it is coming up again on April 15. On this tour SPP teams with
Keep St. Pete Lit as local writers join the tour to offer some creative comments on our city!
The next
Downtown Lunchtime Tour is scheduled for April (tours start at noon).
Reservations are encouraged as some tours fill. Tour starting locations and times can be found on the SPP website calendar. SPP is happy to schedule a private tour for your group, just send us a message and we will arrange a special tour for your group or family.
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Landmark Updates
18th Avenue Northeast
With SPP's assistance, a group of homeowners in the 700 block of 18th Ave. NE are seeking to have their neighborhood designated as a small local historic district. The block, between Elm & Walnut Streets, includes 10 homes. The
application will be heard by City Council this Thursday, March 16 at 6 pm.
Three of the homes in the block are Schooley-Murphy homes. Samuel Schooley & Perry Murphy were a pair of builders who were well known during the '20's boom for the quality and fashionable homes they built. Two of the homes are shown in city surveys as being eligible for individual landmark listing.
Council's last consideration of a district application was First Block, disappointingly rejected on a 4-4 vote. You can help make sure the 18th Ave. landmark effort is successful by
sending your message to city council, telling them yes to Keeping St. Pete Special and yes to landmarking 18th Ave. NE.
5th Avenue North
Properties
Success - thanks to all who submitted comments! On Feb. 16, 2017, City Council voted 6-1 to designate as a landmark the Burnside/Duckering home at 136 5th Ave. N. The 1914 home is an architecturally significant prairie style structure and was first owned by Virginia Burnside and her husband. In 1920 she became the first women elected to the 'Burg's city council and the first female elected to a local commission south of the Mason Dixon line, at a time when women were still waiting for the 19th Amendment to be ratified that would give them the right to vote! Click here to read more.
First Block - Jannus Block
Little has happened since city council's rejection in October on a 4-4 vote for historic district designation for the block. We are still waiting for Mayor Kriseman to announce how he intends to protect the block.
If you haven't sent your message of support for keeping the history of the block, you can do so by clicking here.
Thank You For Helping to
Keep St. Pete Special!
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