The Chihuly Collection is presented by the Morean Arts Center. For full details on the Chihuly Collection, as well as information on the many special opening events scheduled for this weekend, check out this link.

[For a larger, full-size view of the photo, please click on the picture.] 

And a new bakery!  For me, this is one of those areas where my response today is pretty much the same as it would have been when I was a child.  I am ecstatic!  I remember the days of bakeries scattered all over St. Pete when I was a kid.  Even the Publix grocery store bakeries were separate entities in the ‘old days’, branded as ‘The Danish Bakery’ and situated in separate shops next to Publix.  But most stand alone bakeries have become a thing of the past.  I know of only a handful in all of St. Petersburg.  And none downtown.  While I love The Cupcake Spot on Central Avenue, it’s not a full bakery – as good as Cuppy is at making cupcakes, sometimes I long for more.

So, when I saw these signs in the window of the shop space next to the new Cassis American Brasserie on Beach Drive, my heart skipped a beat and I felt a serious adrenalin rush!  Bakeries rule!  I am very excited and can’t wait for this bakery to open it’s doors!

Each of the lines runs every 15 minutes during operating hours.  And each costs only 25 cents to board and ride.  Once you get off, if you get back on later, it’s another quarter.  The trolleys are a very convenient and inexpensive way to get around downtown or to head down Central.  Most of the time, when I see these trolleys, they look well-populated, so this appears to be a service that holds great appeal to those who are tired of walking.

In addition to their regular routes, the trolleys also run from remote parking lots to a variety of special events in St. Petersburg.

For operating hours and more detail, check out the web site at LooperTrolley.com.

Downtown Looper (click on photo for larger image)

Post Card of Open Air Post Office (click on picture for larger image)

St. Petersburg has a very unique and beautiful post office in the heart of downtown.  It’s known as the Open Air Post Office because, as you can see in this late 1940′s or early 1950′s era postcard, the main areas of the post office are not enclosed.  If you were to walk through the arches that you see, you’d be in the area of hundreds of post office boxes, as well as mail drops.  Our Open Air Post Office is located at the southwest corner of Fourth Street North and First Avenue north, diagonally across the street from Williams Park.

This post office was completed and opened for business in September of 1917, so we are just a few years away from its centennial celebration!  And, interestingly enough, this was not the first open air post office in St. Petersburg.  Prior to the opening of this facility, there was a much smaller open air post office a block away.  That one was built in 1907, on the northeast corner of Central Avenue and Fourth Street.  But our growing city quickly outgrew that building, and in 1915, the post office had to move temporarily to the first floor of the City Hall of that day, located on Fourth Street South.  That same year, a congressional appropriation of $102,000 was granted for the construction of a new, large, full service post office that would be able to serve the needs of the city for years to come.

Although initial plans drawn up for the post office involved a building built several feet above street level, with lots of steps leading up to it, our local Postmaster didn’t like those plans, and he worked to design a building at street level, with no steps, and one that was open on all sides and would allow postal patrons to have access to their post office boxes 24 hours a day.  The result of his plans is history – a gorgeous Mediterranean Revival building with rich architectural detail and a grand feel to it.  And, perhaps more importantly, a structure that has stood the test of time – this building is still operating as an active post office today.  In 1975, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

To provide a little comparison, I scanned an old post card of the Open Air Post Office and that’s the picture that you see above.  Then, a few days ago, I took my own photo of the building, and that’s the shot you see below.  As you can see, it looks pretty much the same!  And you might also notice the Snell Arcade/Rutland building – the tall structure just behind the post office – it also stands proud today, as beautiful as ever.  This post office is worth a first hand look, so if you have a few minutes sometime and are near downtown St. Petersburg, park your car and walk through it and enjoy feeling a bit of history around you.  This is one of those cases where you really can say, “They don’t make ‘em like this any more… 

The Open Air Post Office, October 2009 (click on photo for larger image)

Open Air Post Office - Within the Arches (click on photo for larger image)

Central Coffee Shoppe in St Petersburg (click on photo for larger image)

I don’t do a lot of posts about restaurants, partly because I’m not uniquely qualified to be a restaurant critic and partly because I really don’t want this blog to be all about commercial establishments.  But, once in awhile, I will post about a place if it strikes just the right chord with me.  And the Central Coffee Shoppe, at 530 Central Avenue in downtown St. Petersburg, is just such a place.

This is Everyman’s breakfast and lunch place.  All ages, all types of people love to eat here.  You’ll see Millenials, Gen Xers, Baby Boomers, and Long Retireds.  Folks wearing crisp shirts and ties sitting alongside of others who are adorned with intricate tattoos.  Doesn’t matter – they’re all here for the same reasons:  Great food, casual, easygoing atmosphere, excellent service, friendly staff, and a sort of a feeling that you could be stopping at a friend’s place for a quick bite.

Central Coffee Shoppe is a family owned, family run restaurant.    It was started in July of 1976, and was passed on to a new generation, the original owner’s daughters, a few years ago.  Today, when you walk in, you’ll find sisters running the place, taking orders, delivering food, pouring coffee, and making sure everyone is happy.  And this morning, when I heard our server referred to as ”Mom” by one of the sisters, I saw that it really is a family affair!  And, perhaps amazingly, they all seem very happy to be working with each other! 

To appreciate Central Coffee Shoppe properly, you just need to do one thing:  stop by and eat!  But if you want a little preview before you go, I will tell you that it’s a lot like the best of the old-time diners, complete with Marilyn Monroe posters adorning all the walls, along with a Clark Gable and a James Dean and a few other random stars thrown in for good measure.  There’s a great Central Coffee Shoppe neon sign above the grill to give you the sort of atmosphere that just feels right for such a place.  Not sure how long the sign’s been there, but I’m betting that the day it was first installed, everyone stood back and looked upon it in awe! 

The food is just what you hope for when you walk into a diner or any other home-cooking kind of restaurant – fast, plentiful, delicious, and very reasonably priced!  We’ve gone more for breakfasts than for lunches, so I’m more familiar with the breakfast menu, and I can tell you that I almost always get an omelette, because they taste exactly the way I want them to.  But they have everything else that you might want, too, like pancakes and French toast and great, crisp bacon.  If you’d like to see the menu, you can find it on their web site at this link.

Next time you feel like going out for a great breakfast (or lunch), head downtown and stop by and see for yourself what I’m talking about – you won’t be disappointed!  You’ll feel as though you walked into St. Petersburg’s Cheers, except that it’s got food and coffee instead of cocktails and beer.  Oh, and by the way, the coffee is just delicious!

Central Coffee Shoppe Sign (click on photo for larger image)

St. Petersburg has a LOT of public art installations scattered around the city and I still discover new ones every now and then.  This post is about a new public art installation that I saw for the first time last weekend.  I realize that this is a subjective opinion, but it’s my blog so I get to post my opinion: The sculpture is absolutely stunning!

This sculpture is called “O Wave”.  Not “O-Wave”, as I’ve seen in some places, but just “O Wave”.  It was created by artist/sculptor Gordon Huether, and it was commissioned by JMC Communities, the developers of the new luxury condominium, Ovation, in downtown St. Petersburg.  The sculpture is a sixteen foot tall curving arc made of stainless steel and dichroic glass.  The glass reflects and refracts and generally plays with the light, and it changes according to the angle that you view it from. 

The artist, in a recent statement about the new sculpture, said, “With curves that evoke nearby waters and Ovation’s own undulating lines, glass that simultaneously transmits and reflects light, and reflective surfaces that capture ambient activity of nearby trees, sky and passersby, the fixed sculpture takes on a distinct animated character, creating a passively kinetic sculpture.”

I am posting two photos, just to give a little feel of the different look that it takes on.  Please click on the photos to bring up a full-size version for a better look.  But for the best look, head downtown and see this beautiful work for yourself!  You’ll find it on Beach Drive, at the corner of Second Avenue North.  

O Wave (click on photo for larger image)

Another View (click on picture for larger image)

Lots of options for downtown luxury living now!  If the mood strikes and you’d like more information, feel free to contact me – my information is in the right hand column… 

Downtown Condos (click on picture for larger image)