A few weeks ago I noticed that the Gasparilla pirate ship, with its bare-breasted broad on the bow, was not docked in its usual spot at the top of Bayshore; it was off being painted and cleaned for the coming invasion. But soon we'll hear the boom of its offshore cannons and once again do civic battle with our pseudo-history. Bleachers will fill with paying spectators, and most of the long stretch of public land will be divvied up for corporate parties and vendors. Adults will compete for baubles that will soon enough be landfill.
I've lived a few blocks from the parade for decades, and it has lost some of its luster for me (something to do with the drunks passing out on our lawn). Gasparilla's at least a pageant with a realistic spin — the rich are dressed up as the pirates. In a good year, without rain, the marching bands serenade the crowds. And the children not traumatized by cannon blasts appear to find the spectacle enchanting.
But it's the other 364 days of the year on this boulevard that I love: the longest continuous sidewalk in the world, our Champs-Elysées, the beachless waterfront with a view of Old Tampa Bay. And it's the quiet mornings I love the most.
The Regulars
In the last few years, I've tried to bike or walk in time to catch the sun sneaking up over Davis Islands, spreading its rosy rays across the silken waters of the bay. I've discovered a community of early-morning habitués who brace for their days in the Zen calm of these early hours, when even the dragsters on the boulevard are scarce. Often I see friends, like my colleague who power-walks listening to books on tape and who tries to get out in time to beat the sunrise so he can focus on his true love, the stars.
But most of my other companions are the unnamed, dozens of regulars like myself. I've traced their lives at the polite distance of a nod or a "Morning." We share a certain smug pride in being up so early, in the conspiracy of knowing that it's the best time of day. We also share a debt — to a pair of wealthy New Yorkers, a Democratic president and some far-sighted city officials.
I've only just recently learned the history of Bayshore, thanks to the indispensable book The Bayshore: Boulevard of Dreams by Charles A. and Mary J. Brown. According to the Browns, the first non-native people to fish along what became Bayshore were Cubans, who camped there overnight in the early 1800s. At the turn of the 20th century, Emelia and Chester Chapin, the aforementioned New Yorkers, were instrumental in developing the area. They built a mansion on what is now Chapin Avenue and held the majority of the stock in the company that built a rail line along Bayshore to Ballast Point, where there was a large Japanese-style pavilion for dancing.
The Browns also describe the 1921 hurricane, which destroyed much of the first seawall and paving. Though the strip was restored in the '20s, it is the work done by the Works Progress Administration from 1935-38 between the Platt Street Bridge and Howard Avenue that is most well known. While beautifying the Bayshore, the WPA under Franklin Delano Roosevelt provided much-needed jobs to Tampa's unemployed during the height of the Depression. When that work was completed, 30,000 people attended a gala reception to be entertained by the Florida Symphony Orchestra, the WPA 40 Voice Chorus and other musical groups.
Over the years, key decisions preserved this waterfront park. The Browns note, for example, that in 1936 the city aldermen outlawed garages and gas stations along Bayshore. The Tampa Tribune wrote at the time: "While some businessmen were outraged, the ordinance was a locally historic first step toward keeping at least one major thoroughfare free of commercial clutter."
And now Tampanians reap the benefits. Some of my fellow regulars have shed many pounds and inches from their runs, building tough calf muscles. In the process, many have worn down their aching knees, leaving them to jog with idiosyncratic gaits favoring the ailing cartilage and tendons. Others move in a mysterious way, jogging so slowly that they appear to float lightly above the sidewalk.
The rollerbladers and bikers enjoy a breezier, more thrilling experience as they weave around those traveling at a slower pace. (One dawn skater carries his own flashlight so he doesn't get struck by a biker.) The bikers, increasingly well turned out in shiny, padded, logo-laden togs, race past, confident they can glide by those on foot. Since many of the walkers are listening to music and zoning out, the racing bikers can be a threat, shooting by like errant poisoned arrows.
I take turns walking and biking, so I'm often reminded of the importance of perspective. When I'm walking, I wonder why the bikers pass so close to me and why the rollerbladers need to use the whole breadth of sidewalk for their long strides and swinging limbs. But when I bike, I grow weary of the meanderers on foot, especially the groups of friends walking or jogging three abreast, gumming up the works. I realize these people probably want us bikers to use the thin bike path on the road, but few of us want to be in such close proximity to the drivers. We remember the car that jumped the curb, killing at least one biker near the Davis bridge, and we prefer to take our chances on the sidewalk till we get to Davis Islands, where the roads feel roomier.
Recently, stenciled yellow lettering has appeared along the sidewalk, warning "Keep to the Right"— complete with an arrow pointing right. While it's good advice, it highlights the difficulty of orchestrating activities on a narrow, crowded sidewalk.
I consider the perspective of the many children in jogging strollers or in snug little enclosures attached to their parents' bikes. How fast the world moves for them already. Their view of the bay between the pillars of the balustrade must seem like the flickering frames of early moving pictures.
The Seasons
One brilliant March morning last spring, I crossed Rome toward Bayshore and was faced with an army of hundreds of clearly like-minded souls, marching single file past the balustrade. At first my heart leapt. Perhaps it was a peace march. But alas, no placards, no chanting. Tampa slept on, stretched out atop Central Command.
The silence of these marchers was eerie. Could it be a cult? Most held their arms lifted slightly from their sides, fingers stretched apart. Others were running with one hand along, but not quite touching, the other arm, as though they were blessing a limb. When I asked a thin young woman with some sort of star emblem on her shoulder what the occasion was, she said something that at first sounded like "Falun Gong." I'd seen a protest in Times Square last Christmas about Falun Gong, complete with costumed peasants and a military apparatchik. I imagined their cause had caught on here, of all places.
But since that seemed a bit too radical, I asked an elderly gentleman further down the line, and he said "a Qigong seminar." Ah, the ancient Chinese healing art! It was a sort of Lourdes come to the shores of Hyde Park. They were collecting Qi, or energy, on Tampa Bay. I moved against this southbound meditating tide, making my way north toward the Davis Islands bridge in my usual pilgrimage on what I deem the safer strip of Bayshore, the section with the most grass between me and the cars. I did not feel the Qi. But I was reminded how various and restorative Bayshore is, at all times of day, in all seasons.
Each season changes the boulevard. Sometimes summer hurricanes put it under water, and you can see canoeists, kayakers or even jet skiers navigating the flooded lanes. On a summer morning after one of our 2004 storms, an alligator paddled stealthily south near the seawall, on the bay side, checking out the stairs at Rome Avenue and perhaps considering the delectable ankles and meaty thighs passing by. He looked like an 8- or 9-footer. Alarmed, I called a colleague who's a biologist. He told me that hurricane water from the swollen Hillsborough River had made Tampa Bay suddenly less salty, but that the levels of salt would soon rise, forcing the gator back to his river home.
In the summer, folks hit the Bayshore very early, many by 5 a.m., before the heavy heat conspires against even the diehard enthusiasts. The muggy air rolling off the water can take a toll early in the day, too.
Then comes fall, our golden time, when winter is not far behind. The hope of cooler days lights up the natural world. All the poets' tributes to spring need to be tweaked toward fall in the tropics, where spring is only the harbinger of the suffocating blanket of humidity about to descend upon us in the summer.
This past fall the bay was winning a battle with the sidewalk, sucking out the sandy soil under the walkway and causing the slabs of concrete to crack and slip toward the water. When the city put some orange cones out to warn us, a regular apparently found them inadequate and highlighted the dangerous dip with a huge palm frond.
Still, slab by slab, the city workers did replace the cracked sections. Some people took the opportunity to write in the wet concrete: the usual names and initials, a Jewish star, and a swastika and the letters KKK. I tend to attribute a certain largesse and tolerance to those I see on the boulevard; the jarringly racist graffiti suggested otherwise.
The winter brings greater evidence of the homeless population. Bayshore is an outdoor bedroom for some, who with the first light gather their motley possessions and snake across the six lanes to melt into the underdeveloped crannies of downtown. I've seen the occasional nomad draped in his blanket looking like a Sudanese refugee, a silent victim of a modern diaspora. For a couple of winters, two men staked out the alcove where matching benches face each other, their fragrant feet popping out over the sidewalk while they dozed contentedly during cool mornings. No one bothered them, though most people edged around those ragged-socked feet at a safe distance.
Close to downtown lies the strip lined with the idle yachts of the rich. Its white, concrete benches are often occupied by people with no home — let alone a boat the size of a home. There I often pass gentlemen struggling to read the morning paper in dawn's weak light in the only living room they have. I've seen couples waking up on the yacht side of the balustrade, and sometimes I see a discarded pile of blankets stuffed between the pillars. One morning the distinct smell of someone washing wafted up as a man made due with a spigot, a bar of soap and a handkerchief.
For a while the homeless were camping in sleeping bags under the overpass to Davis Islands, making me feel like an intruder when I passed by on my bike. Soon after, the city installed a sprinkler system, neatly evicting those tenants.
The Wildlife
All of us share Bayshore with the wildlife — herons, egrets, seagulls, pelicans, the occasional manatee and dolphins. A pair of mallards patrol each morning and count on the generosity of a homeless man who feeds them bread when he has it.
Recently I spotted a young cormorant with what looked like a wad of Spanish moss in its beak. I watched it a while, thinking it was building a nest somewhere, but soon I realized it was struggling to rid itself of the sticky debris, scraping its beak along the concrete, trying to get some traction under its wing, all to no avail. After watching its agonies, I went about my walk, and when I returned a half hour later, it was still seeking relief.
But now the cormorant had company, a fellow on a bike who had stopped to watch it. We humans conferred. First the guy said he'd call 911 on his cell and get the police to help out, since that's what we pay our taxes for. I chose not to express my concern about this approach, but I pointed out that if the bird got scared and tried to fly it might get disoriented. The man decided to sneak up stealthily from behind and grab the bird. But it flew away easily, taking its troubles elsewhere.
Whenever I see someone pointing or leaning over the railing, I know to look for the dolphins, who sometimes come close to the balustrade to fish and (apparently) to entertain, by flailing around for their admirers. Other folks with pole nets and white plastic buckets snag blue crabs, which scratch around discontentedly trying to free themselves.
Last week I saw a man and a young boy in a small motorboat. Freeloading pelicans followed along as the man lifted his crab traps out of the bay, shook out the crabs, and tossed a few fish overboard. And occasionally people fish from the sidewalk, though they appear less lucky, and their hooks can be a hazard to the rest of us.
the legacy
This morning I was out in time to see the pre-dawn orange glow of a winter sunrise. The warm light hugged Davis Islands, Channelside and downtown, forgiving a multitude of architectural crimes, embracing our city and blessing the bay. And as I biked along Bayshore, I was reminded again of the provenance of this remarkable public space. Once upon a time, providing meaningful work for the unemployed and serving the public good could make a country proud.
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2007.