The new St. Petersburg pier is 23 miles away from Creative Loafing’s Tampa Heights office. Sometimes, from the seat where I’m supposed to do the job of trying to help an alt-weekly adapt to new challenges without losing sight of its mission to serve underheard voices, The ‘Burg (do you all still call it that?) feels eons away. Especially when unpermitted pro-police street murals are popping up just a few blocks down from your mailbox.
The community keeps us in touch, however, and without them—plus this 32-year-old newspaper’s Pinellas-based contributors—St. Pete would feel even more distant.
Over the last few weeks, St. Petersburg protesters have given us tips on what’s happening within their movement. CL’s Jenna Rimensnyder has been all over food news and restaurant openings. Musicians from the 727 never stopped telling us about their new projects. And while we always take officials’ statements with a grain of salt, the city police force’s public information officers are always accommodating and non-combative (both our offices have jobs to do, after all). It even feels like Mayor Rick Kriseman’s spokesperson, Benjamin Kirby has made a little nook for CL in his text message and email inboxes (CL’s questions are rarely the kind any public relations office wants to get, either).
I’m thinking about St. Petersburg right now because it’s mentioned a lot in this issue. It’s in a story about whether or not St. Pete will see its own version of Tampa’s “Back the Blue” mural (one of the last posts from our departing summer intern Chloe Greenberg, who I wish we could hire). The pier’s Echelman sculpture is on the cover, too, not just because it addresses the city’s troubled racial history, but because new CL contributor Kyle Pierson dares to ask if there’s a way the Sunshine City can do more to acknowledge the struggle to integrate Spa Beach (p. 19).
What really got me mulling about St. Petersburg, however, was Dr. Thomas Hallock’s take on the future of the old Gas Plant site, which was razed in the 1980s to make room for “a domed stadium—for a baseball team that did not even exist.” Hallock—an English professor from USF St. Pete—is one of my favorite writers; his “City Wilds” column makes its return to CL this week, and I’m thrilled about it because uncomfortable conversations should be had. There should be a counterpoint, and there should be room for Black local leaders to reply to Kriseman’s Tampa Bay Times op-ed where the mayor called the future development of the Trop "an unparalleled, generational opportunity." Hallock makes a good case for why “The history of this place hurts.”
And it’s OK to talk about things that hurt because the community deserves a chance at finding some healing. Hallock and Pierson’s pieces offer some ideas on making amends, but we all know that the entire Bay area—and the country at large—has a long way to go on that front. In a way, I hope some of the stories in here are a tiny little part of that conversation. CL’s office might not be in St. Petersburg, but we can feel the sunshine over here—even if its warmth has to spend time trying to fight through clouds every now and then.
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This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2020.