With Saturday’s forecast of sunshine and a pleasing temperature in the low 70s, one couldn’t ask for a nicer day for taking a trip to the Saturday Market and an historic walking tour through downtown St. Pete. I joined St. Petersburg Preservation and its new tour guides, former St. Pete Evening Independent and Times reporter Jon Wilson and Florida Humanities Council program coordinator Monica Rowland Kile for the “Original” Downtown Historic Walking Tour.
The tour started at 10 a.m. at the front of the Detroit Hotel on the corner of Central Avenue and 2nd Street. The tour is free for members and a $5 donation is asked from non-members. The tour typically ends about 12:15, leaving time afterwards for you to visit and lunch at the incredibly delicious Saturday Market. For Market information, including a description of food vendors, visit their website at
www.saturdaymorningmarket.com.
The tour started with a history of how our city started, followed by a pleasant stroll around downtown where we learned about and saw some of the best of our Mediterranean Revival styled buildings, learned about the 1920s boom, saw some of our community’s historic churches, and got the story on how the infamous green benches became a downtown icon only to be removed in a quest for a younger community image. The tour stopped inside a renovated historic home not typically open to the public, and visited the Snell Arcade and the Historic Pennsylvania Hotel lobby.
If you couldn’t make this tour, the Original Downtown Tour is given the second Saturday of the month, and the Westward Ho From The Waterfront Tour is given the last Saturday of the month, through April. All tours start in front of the Detroit Hotel at 10 A.M. More information is available on their website, www.stpetersburgpreservation.org. Check back on their website, as they are working on new tour events that will be coming this spring!
