Anna Maria Island in Florida

27 February 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Anna Maria City Pier Historical Marker © The Grid/cc-by-sa-4.0

Anna Maria City Pier Historical Marker © The Grid/cc-by-sa-4.0

Anna Maria Island is a barrier island on the coast of Manatee County, Florida, in the United States. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf of Mexico, on the south by Longboat Pass (which separates it from Longboat Key), on the east by Anna Maria Sound, and on the north by Tampa Bay. Anna Maria Island is approximately 7 miles (11 km) long north to south.   read more…

Saint Petersburg in the Tampa Bay

25 August 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  16 minutes

Downtown_Saint_Petersburg © John O'Neill/cc-by-sa-3.0

Downtown Saint Petersburg © John O’Neill/cc-by-sa-3.0

St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County in Florida. The population is at 261,000, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the largest in the state that is not a county seat (the city of Clearwater is the seat of Pinellas County). St. Petersburg is the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. Together with Clearwater, these cities comprise the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area, the second-largest in Florida with a population of around 2.8 million. St. Petersburg is located on a peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, and is connected to mainland Florida to the north. St. Petersburg was founded in 1888 by John C. Williams, who purchased the land, and by Peter Demens, who brought the railroad industry into the area. As a part of a coin toss bet, the winner, Peter Demens, named the land after Saint Petersburg in Russia, while Williams opted to name the first hotel built which was named the Detroit Hotel, both named after their home towns respectively. St. Petersburg was incorporated as a town on February 29, 1892 and re-incorporated as a city on June 6, 1903.   read more…

Tampa on the west coast of Florida

21 August 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  14 minutes

Henry B. Plant Museum © James E. Scholz/cc-by-sa-4.0

Henry B. Plant Museum © James E. Scholz/cc-by-sa-4.0

Tampa is a major city in, and the county seat of, Hillsborough County. It is located on the west coast of Florida on Tampa Bay, near the Gulf of Mexico, and is the largest city in the Tampa Bay Area. The city has a population of 377,000. Today, Tampa is part of the metropolitan area most commonly referred to as the “Tampa Bay Area”. For U.S. Census purposes, Tampa is part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The four-county area is composed of roughly 2.9 million residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state, and the fourth largest in the Southeastern United States, behind Miami, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. Tampa displays a wide variety of architectural designs and styles. Most of Tampa’s high rises demonstrate post-modern architecture. The design for the renovated Tampa Museum of Art displays post-modern architecture, while the city hall and the Tampa Theatre belong to Art Deco architecture. The Tampa mayor Pam Iorio made the redevelopment of Tampa’s downtown, especially residential development, a priority. Several residential and mixed-development high-rises have been constructed. Another of Mayor Iorio’s initiatives was the Tampa Riverwalk, a mixed-use path along the Hillsborough River in downtown. Channelside was recently approved to undergo major renovations by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik along with other investors. Several museums are part of the plan, including new homes for the Tampa Bay History Center, the Glazer Children’s Museum, and the Tampa Museum of Art.   read more…

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