TAMPA, Fla. — As St. Petersburg looks at redeveloping the area around Tropicana Field, special attention is being paid to the area and the once-thriving Gas Plant neighborhood.
This Black History Month, we’re celebrating the Gas Plant district of South St. Petersburg and the vibrant businesses, restaurant, offices and entertainment venues that once stood where the Trop and surrounding parking lots and area are now.
On this episode of To The Point Already, Spectrum Bay News 9's Rick Elmhorst and Roy De Jesus talk with Bay News 9 reporter Saundra Weathers and Gwendolyn Reese, the president of St. Petersburg’s African-American Heritage Association, about the Gas Plant neighborhood and how it continues to be relevant to this day.
Reese was born and raised in the district, which grew out of and around 5th Avenue South. The dynamic area thrived through the 1960s before being razed in the 1980s to make way for the baseball stadium.
“There was hardly anything we could want that we couldn’t get in our immediate neighborhood,” Reese said of the Gas Plant neighborhood.
Reese, 72, warmly remembered her community but also reflected on the dichotomy of the times in this southern city.
“We couldn’t sit down and eat in the downtown restaurants,” she said. “We couldn’t use the downtown restrooms. It was only in our neighborhood where we felt safe whether you were a child or an adult. And where we felt respected and valued. That’s why we spent so much of our money in our own neighborhood.”
Reese said her neighborhood, her upbringing and a singular moment set her future in motion.
When she couldn’t understand why as a young girl she couldn’t see a movie at the Florida Theatre on Central Avenue because the movie house did not allow Negroes to attend, it sparked something.
“At an early age I understood racism,” Reese said. “I did not know what is was, but I knew it was not right. And so in my own little way, I started resisting it.
“And that it why I do what I do today.”
ABOUT THE SHOW
Spectrum Bay News 9 anchor Rick Elmhorst sits down with the people that represent you, the people fighting for change and the people with fascinating stories to ask the hard questions.