Riverside Heights Civic Association & Crime Watch

Articles about Riverside Heights

Article by Sue Carlton printed in ST Pete Times 04-24-06

Almost every day, I pass by a small white church on Kentucky Avenue, not far from downtown Tampa.

The sign out front once advertised topical Bible verses and Sunday school hours. Tampa Primitive Baptist Church, it says.

For a while now, the church has been silent and empty. But long- timers in this old city neighborhood can still tell you stories of the church's former life.

Built in the 1940s, this was one of the chapels for soldiers at Drew Field, where Tampa International Airport is now. After the war, a Primitive Baptist association bought the church. Because there was no bridge, they had to float it across the Hillsborough River to move it.

Some mornings, I walk up the faded red steps to look through the glass panes of the locked oak doors and into the sanctuary. Even from outside, you can smell musty church smells of old wood and hymnals.

Once, brides and grooms ran down these steps, rice raining around them. Worshipers filled the church back then. During lengthy sermons, restless kids probably peered out the long sunlit windows on each side. Babies were baptized, hymns sung. Outside on the lawn, they ate suppers on long tables spread with linens.

That was a long time ago. Members of the church got older, and no young ones came to replace them. No one was left to fill the collection plates or trim the shrubs or fix the roof. In the end, only a few might make it to services.

"I'm 57, and I was the youngest person there," says David Keene, who went to the church since childhood. "Everybody grew up and went away."

Last year, they gave in and sold the old church for $100,000. The buyer took his plans for the property to the City Council.

For a while, nothing happened at the church. It sat peacefully empty.

One day I came around the corner to see workers with their tools and their giant metal trash bins beginning to fill with construction debris.

I looked inside and the pews were gone. Then the big stained glass pieces were too.

Days later, down came the mural of the River Jordan, painted long ago on the side of the baptismal tank, a backdrop for the pastor.

But the worst never happened. I never had to see the walls come down.

As it turns out, change and progress might be the very things that save this church, or at least keep it from disappearing forever.

Manuel Sanchez, a general contractor and engineer who bought the property, is putting two loft apartments inside the sanctuary. He has plans for three townhomes on the rest of the property.

The building will look much as it did back in the 1940s. The tall, curved archways that form the high ceiling, the exposed beams, the steeple will all stay. Sanchez is planning to reinstall the stained glass inside.

Walk with him through the church and he runs a hand along the old oak beams, talking about how solid they are. "It does have good karma," he says.

Sanchez is working with an architect who worked on a sprawling, century-old church that's been turned into to an apartment building called The Sanctuary in Tampa Heights.

It's a glorious, grand old structure of brick, stained glass and dark wooden church doors, now an arty sort of enclave. It's a kind of preservation in a weathered neighborhood, saving a building worth saving.

In another neighborhood nearby, change is coming to the little white church on the corner. It won't be a church anymore, but it will be more than a memory.

Sue Carlton can be reached at carlton@sptimes.com.

BY: Daniel J. Barshay contact at EnglandGal@aol.com #205-8721

It’s not a city you live in
so much as a neighborhood.


COMMAND CENTRAL


If you’re thinking of living in Tampa, consider Riverside Heights. It’s central. Downtown lies but a mile from us, as does Ybor City. We’re near everything but the beach. While we don’t have the long views of Bayshore Boulevard or any nightlife to speak of, we do have something even more valuable for a neighborhood.
We’re undiscovered.
What makes Riverside Heights is its contrast with a metropolis uniformly chopped up by service roads. Within our square mile we have a place that is intact, off-limits as it is to commercial concerns. As a consequence, the neighborhood is pretty much the same as it ever was, settled and unhurried.
It has an aura about it. It is block after block of houses but the community shows an equanimity that says it all. Listen, and hear the hum of the city that surrounds us – endless people in machines all passing in formation, but not here. Here birds sing.
Here we’re loose-limbed, low-key, low-density, yet minutes from epicenter. Greater Tampa is scattered everywhere for hundreds of square miles, yet we’re sitting
in equipoise right at its heart.

Casual but civil, Riverside Heights is time-honored homes with oversized lots. Cheek by jowl line up every variation you can imagine of the American Dream. This
place preserves that state of mind in the least populated part of town. As if this were Truman-era, not so crowded as it is now, like a time warp this place is a step back to
once upon a time when the world was not so harried.
We are the middle class. Neither rich nor poor, this neighborhood seems stuck exactly at midpoint. I think people might be at their nicest in this demographic. Sweet to me is Riverside, a stand of one hundred blocks built off the east bank of the meandering Hillsborough, a river so low it sees dolphin as well as gator.
The lazy stream turns 90 degrees at our bend.
Here’s a place so big it’s one mile from top (MLK Blvd) to bottom (Columbus Dr), though the gentility continues for several blocks in every direction across its four borders. Its eastern limit is Greenwood Cemetery and its associated greenspace, but Riverside Heights itself has three parks of its own as well as the landscaped Franciscan Center at river’s edge.
Our western limit is the tranquil little river that wends its way to the Bay. This earthy embodiment of naturalness is all that’s left of the world that preceded ours. Its slither is the lay of the land, its direction same as the Everglades. Waterfowl bejewel its beatific flow. It’s from this source Tampa’s water’s drawn.

The beauty is there is nothing but homes within our confines. No schools. Just a couple churches. Best is the utter absence of storefront of any kind. All this because the busy roads that crisscross the city cannot span our stream, which preserves some peace for those so inclined.
Well, yesterday’s dead end is today’s cul de sac.
All but noncommercial is two-way Boulevard, which heads straight up from Bayshore and ends in Rivercrest Park just a few blocks north of us. North Boulevard with its law firms identifying it is the gateway to Riverwalk.
I like Riverside Heights because there’s seldom a car in the road and nary a pedestrian. In fact, it’s 98% unsidewalked. This makes for more country vistas. Dividing each block are alleys used for trash collection. This softens margins and makes for old-time ambience. Some let the flora flourish; some hew to manicured lawns;
some personalize with accessories. The pace is stop-time. The only signs say STOP.
Don’t sweat it is the idea. Cookie-cutter, this ain’t. This is no development. Indeed, it’s wave on wave of slow-mo housebuilding going back a hundred years. Here’s the kick: though there be two thousand homes here, no two are alike. Some seem Victorian or are two-story. Some are Spanish or Italian, some Bauhaus or vintage Hollywood. Many are ranch or bungalow. Some are old and fading; some are radical rehabs; some are just going up now.
Weekdays ten to four, all you see is workers ministering to it all.
Trees everywhere. This could be an arboretum. Everywhere shrubbery and scrub. Five or six thousand square feet is standard, though some folk have double lots.
The whole panoply of Carib junglitude is evident in neglect but passion can be found here in the architecture and landscaping choices. Variety is our salient characteristic.
Too much space is the rule. We’re land-happy. If each block has twenty homes, that’s the opposite of dense. For central, that’s commodious.
I figure eight people per acre.
The nabe is generally so quiet the loudest sound is birdsong. The wildlife feel completely at home, so you encounter all kinds in your own yard. (I found a skink the
other day -- one of those legless lizards that look like snakes. Wriggly.) If you put a birdfeeder out, you get everything. Squirrel abound.
Neighbors are salt of the earth. There is such a range of human specimen here, this could be Austin or Savannah.
The point is lighten up. Need anything, it’s minutes. You have global markets to choose from, so not to feel trapped (as can happen in hinterland). What makes this
life good is to have a lot sufficient to find solace in plus a house nice enough to let you unwind or play host or access the universe with minimal hassle.
Unobvious Florida. It’s best when it’s itself. I can’t believe living well costs only this. Such luck happens to those who come here in the right frame of mind. Just
outside Center City is the best place to position yourself. Catch the wave. It’s coming at you. In your bones you know Tampa will happen someday.
Our modesty is our appeal. Low taxes. Low crime. Low profile. Steady increment has built us up. Like coral.

Here’s to the place I’ve come to appreciate, my crazyquilt neighborhood. Sure, residence is about the dwelling and its relative location within the civilization, but
no less important is immediate setting (everything, say, in the vicinity). Buffer calls for amplitude. In this case, the homogeneity of Riverside and its relative absence of
distinctive feature fosters a culture, an island kind of feeling, surrounded as it is by carz maxed out. We know madness lurks beyond, so we feel all the more safe here.
Yuppie Tampa is jogging up and down Bayshore. High rises are taking off, but not here! Here we are, old-fashion neighborhood. No flash. This is relaxed. The more the world beyond us changes, the more we remain the same.
That’s because we have it right.
Tried and true is Riverside Heights, literally the size of downtown Tampa but more equitably distributed with our ceiling a simple canopy of foliage. Our success is
zoning out business. We are the anti-city. Pure bedroom is us, and just a hop away. We’re the real deal where regular folk can regulate their lives as they see fit without having to run it by the Board.

Tampa Bay is all about water, yet land is where we live. If we’re to make a life here, we must pick our part of the grid and zero in on the be-here-now of it. We have to be able to get to and fro, which means risk our lives and waste time in jeopardy and privation.
My instinct has always been go central. I’ve lived in Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Rittenhouse Square, and I feel myself at ease in the eye of the storm, but hey this is
Tampa, which is totally automotive. This is spread out urban sprawl. Tampa is more into getting away from than getting together. Have yourself some grounds around you.
And avoid Spaghetti Junction.
Around and around, Tampa drives.
Sure, the city has Channelside and Old Hyde Park and International Village, but more often Tampa means other things that are less glam like its maddening traffic and
blight so hideous one cringes every time. There is in this vast enterprise too much urban glut, an overkill of signage and billboard wearing us down, so that islands of relative calm can be hard to find, especially in a place this big and congested.

I notice, for me, the sea remains always an hour away no matter where I live. That’s OK, it’s turning out, because one might want to settle at a respectful distance.
Our peninsula projects into tropical waters that are boiling up trouble even as we speak. Ocean breezes waft every which way, but I like being up a bit with regard to
elevation. I like to think this will still be land a century hence regardless of rising sea levels. Hurricaneproof, the Heights rear up defiant. We’re inland, in a way. Never hit.
Yes, the waters can surge but we shall survive on our brick streets as we have a hundred years. We’ll chance it.

We live on the wrong side of the tracks. In real estate prices, we’re undervalued because we’re off the shore. Old thinking still prevails. Actually, ours is the more practical side since we have altitude. Thus we are more self-determined than convention would indicate. Our variousness is the result. Foreign to these parts as most
of us are, we’re all more or less equivalent in this democratic mix. Our harmony keeps mayhem at bay.
I enjoy our interaction. It is not jarring, as I’ve seen when people are close up against one another. We’re laid-back; that’s the key, because we’re living on luck beneath fateful skies. We prune our palms and plant our bushes. There’s cheer here. If this is the deal, I say America works. Somehow this neighborhood succeeds with minimal effort on the part of its populace. Must be good governance. Each tends to his and the whole thing comes together into a kind of parklike environment constructed out of our commonness.
If you despair of the human race, come here and restore yourself. Riverside Heights is so understated it is languid. This kind of lifestyle is an American invention that
caught on. We’re prototype, the 20th Century idyll of the newsreel. Find the homebody within and putter in contentment instead of going high profile. This is uptown
mellow. We’ll be here after everything below is drowned.

If you’re thinking Sunshine State, the city of Tampa is physically central. In fact, Tampa Bay has beaten Miami as the larger urban entity. Ours has become the dominant metropolitan area on the Gulf.
There’s something to be said for location. Central commands the field. The thing is to find your own core. Heed that gut feeling.
You’d be home now if you lived in Riverside Heights.

Article by ALEXANDRA ZAYAS printed in ST Pete Times 10-14-05

The pocket change on the collection plate couldn't pay the light bill anymore, and the fate of Tampa Primitive Baptist Church grew dim as the church slowly died from asbestos and apathy.

A few faithful followers who personified their graying church whispered their final prayers before closing the church for the first time since the 1940s and selling it in January for $100,000.

But a project that goes before the City Council on Thursday could give the old church at Kentucky and Oakdale avenues a lofty afterlife.

Replacing the empty pews, peeling wallpaper and rickety roof could be two 1,800-square-foot loft apartments, plus three adjacent 2,000-square-foot townhomes.

"We want to restore it to how it was in 1942," said Manuel Sanchez, an engineer and general contractor who bought the property.

The project began when church members approached local architect John Tennison after reading about his work on the Sanctuary, a 100- year-old former Methodist church in Tampa Heights he converted to a 34-unit apartment building. They wanted to see if he could save what was left of the church.

"Our simple hope is the landmark status of it stays here, because the church sanctuary was here before the neighborhood was," said Don Gilbert, the church's pastor. If "you don't know what your roots are, you don't last long."

Tennison knew Sanchez from another project and asked him what he could do to salvage the white clapboard church. Sanchez decided to buy the property and plans began to take shape.

The project calls for replacing the termite-infested beams and designating the facade as historic. The church needs an electrical, plumbing, flooring and roofing makeover.

Developers plan to tear down a small, poorly constructed school building on the rear of the property to make room for the three townhouses, which will have windows and rooflines that resemble the restored church. The townhouses will be staggered on the property to avoid a wall effect and provide a clear view of the church.

This summer, Tennison presented plans to the Riverside Heights Civic Association.

"It was very well received. They even applauded after he presented," association president Sharon Keene said.

Keene and the association have collected more than 100 signatures in support of changing the zoning to planned development to allow for the townhouses.

"It's going to be such an asset to the neighborhood," she said about the project.

Neighbor Catherine Cottle doesn't agree.

The three proposed townhomes don't blend with the neighborhood of mostly single-family detached houses, she says.

She plans to attend the 6 p.m. hearing at City Hall to protest the townhomes but not the restoration of the church.

"People want it to be kept in the neighborhood as a church, and if the building itself is able to be saved, that would be a wonderful thing," she said.

Sanchez said he has already been approached by a few members of the old church who want to buy one of the lofts.

If the project is approved, construction could start in the next couple of months, Tennison said.

"I think it's a trend in Tampa that people are coming back to the old neighborhoods," Sanchez said. "They're tired of their long drives to suburbia and they're coming back."

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 226-3354 or at azayas@sptimes.com