SKYWATCH Friday Season 4 Episode 30

One of my favorite scenes: the minarets of the University of Tampa shot from across the Hillsborough River as the sun begins to set.

Visit Skywatch Friday to see the beauty and wonders of the world's most magnificent skies. It's always an amazing show and all brought to you by Skywatchers from all over the planet.

JFK: It Was 46 Years Ago Today

46 years ago, on November 18, 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy arrived in Tampa for a day of public events and speeches. Just four days later, on this date, President Kennedy would ride in his last motorcade as it moved through the streets of Dallas, Texas. His assassination shocked and saddened our nation and people throughout the world. To those in Tampa who had just experienced the excitement and vigor of our young president, his visit still fresh in their minds, it was numbing and especially hard to believe.

In 1964, by unanimous vote of Tampa City Council, the road which was originally Lafayette Street and later Grand Central Avenue, was renamed John F. Kennedy Boulevard. Part of his visit that November day to Tampa took him on Grand Central Avenue, past the spot where I took this photo. The sculptor Bernard Zuckerman created this statue in honor of Kennedy. It stands in a small plaza designed by architect Cesar Alfonso on the campus of the University of Tampa and faces the boulevard that was renamed in honor of the slain president.

DOORWAY to History and Higher Education

This is one of three massive and ornate doorways that lead from the West Veranda into the original lobby of the Tampa Bay Hotel. Henry B. Plant’s railroad cars would pull up to the steps on the veranda and arriving guests would be greeted by the luxury and ornate splendor of the Moorish-styled hotel. Looking today very much as it did when the Victorian-era resort hotel opened in 1891, the lobby is used day and night by students of the University of Tampa, which has a 99-year lease on the building from the City of Tampa.

During the Spanish-American War in 1898, Colonel Teddy Roosevelt was a guest of the hotel while preparing his Rough Riders for their embarkation for Cuba. Other illustrious guests during the lead-up to war with Spain were Major General Joseph Wheeler, General Nelson A. Miles, Colonel Leonard Wood, General Fitzhugh Lee, General William R. Shafter, Richard Harding Davis, and other newspaper correspondents from the United States and Europe. The Henry B. Plant Museum occupies part of the building and preserves and showcases the hotel's historic place in our city's and nations' history.

The private four-year university began to use the empty and unused hotel in 1933, and has graduated thousands of students over the years. Along with the famous and not so famous, thousands of current students, from almost every state in the US and several foreign countries, will go on to make history in the years ahead. All have passed through this doorway. First when it was a main entrance to the hotel, and now as a part of the university, this doorway has welcomed men and women from all over the world and from every station in life: the rich and the illustrious; famous journalists; decorated military officers; and sports figures whose names are enshrined at Cooperstown. Tampa's elite party here regularly and many worthy non-profit organizations have benefited from social events held here with some frequency. Alumni of the university include Pete Peterson, U.S. Air Force pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, former U.S. Representative and U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam; former Secretary of the Interior of Mexico Juan Camilo Mouriño; actress and wrestler Joan Laurer; author Dennis James Kennedy; and Major League Baseball players and Baseball Hall of Famers Tino Martinez and Lou Pinella. Major sports figures in baseball and football passed through this doorway. Florida’s House of Representatives and Senate, along with Tampa’s city hall, all have had UT graduates among their distinguished membership. Even former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich attended UT for two years. Author Connie May Fowler and Robert “Bob” Martinez, former mayor of the city of Tampa, Florida governor and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H. W. Bush, all graduated from UT.

Other notable hotel guests included John L. Sullivan, Stuyvesant Fish, William Jennings Bryan, Sarah Bernhardt, Clara Barton, Stephen Crane, the Prince of Wales and the Queen of the United Kingdom. Babe Ruth even stayed at the Tampa Bay Hotel. Throughout its years as a private university, the rich and the famous who visited have included politicians including two visits by Senator John S. McCain in his 2008 campaign for the presidency.

Today, most students pass through this doorway on their way to class and never once imagine the historic events and personages that have gone before them. But, very likely, many of them will return one day as proud, accomplished, or even famous, alumni.


The September theme for City Daily Photo bloggers from all over the world is DOORWAYS. Be sure and visit the other sites to see how creative and imaginative my fellow CDP bloggers are:

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Minarets of the Tampa Bay Hotel

The Henry B. Plant Museum is located within Plant's original Tampa Bay Hotel, now a part of the University of Tampa. Quoting the museum's website, "If you’re railroad magnate Henry Bradley Plant, in the midst of the sand swamps that would be Tampa, you construct the most astonishingly magnificent hotel of its day, then fill it with treasures from around the world. With its splendid Moorish architecture, opulent furnishings, and spectacular tropical gardens, Plant’s Tampa Bay Hotel attracted a host of celebrated guests, from Teddy Roosevelt to Sarah Bernhardt to Babe Ruth. A visit to the Henry B. Plant Museum and the authentically restored rooms of the Tampa Bay Hotel will transport you back to a time of indulgent ten-course meals, waltzing on the veranda and alligator hunting by moonlight.…" And they enjoyed magnificent sunsets as well.

SkyWatch Friday #55

Tampa's brilliant sky and sunset reflecting on the Hillsborough River after a storm. The rain is still falling softly and gently onto the water's surface.



Visit Skywatch Friday to see the beauty and wonders of the world's most magnificent skies. It's always an amazing show.

Tampa Bay Hotel: Henry B. Plant's 19th century Florida resort retains its Victorian gilt and grandeur after more than a century

My monochrome post on July 6th of the minarets of the Tampa Bay Hotel and the family history and photographs shared by Lois of Tallahassee Daily Photo prompted me to show an entirely different view of the original hotel that is not visible in the photo of the minarets. This scene is taken facing the West Veranda entrance to the original hotel lobby. Guests would arrive here by train rather than on the other side facing the Hillsborough River. The tennis courts and horse racing track were also on this side but are long gone. The Florida State Fairgrounds took the track years ago and and now the campus of the growing University of Tampa has expanded well beyond those original hotel grounds. (We are proud of the university, one of the best private schools in the country.) The other photo - do click to enlarge - is taken from this side (the black and white was from the east) and the bottom shot is of the breathtaking domed ceiling of the hotel's Fletcher Lounge. This is where guests would dine. It is an incredible space and looks just as it did when the hotel opened in 1891. A dinner was held in this room in 1998 to commemorate and celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Spanish-American War. We were greeted by re-enactors portraying Colonel Teddy Roosevelt and Mr. and Mrs. Henry Plant They were entertaining, very authentic and helped to transport us back in time. They used an original hotel menu to recreate an exquisite meal. This is where Lois' grandparents would have dined. The menu and many other items from the hotel are in the collection of the Henry B. Plant Museum. The men were given gifts of Tampa cigars and the women beautiful Spanish fans. I hoped to show you what incredible architecture and decoration greeted hotel guests when they arrived more than a century ago. The place still delivers on its promise after more than a hundred years. (But it doesn't have rooms for honeymooners any longer.)

Marvel at the minarets of the amazing Tampa Bay Hotel: A study in black and white

The most recognizable icons on Tampa's skyline are the magnificent minarets of the Tampa Bay Hotel. A gentleman named Henry Bradley Plant is solely responsible for dreaming the almost unimaginable. Tampa was a very small town in the 1890s. The population was only about 700 in 1880 while Ybor City, just east of Tampa, was already a larger town, more affluent and a major player in the cigar industry. Thousands of men and women were employed in every aspect of the manufacturing and selling of cigars. After Ybor City was incorporated into Tampa in 1887, Tampa grew to over 5,500 residents. And most made their living from cigars. Into this small town came Henry Plant. A wealthy man who had made his fortune with hotels, railroads and steamships, he planned to build a hotel that would lure visitors and guests who would travel on his railroad from points north. Tampa would be at the terminus and they would step from their train car onto the west veranda and into the lobby of his grandiose hotel. Plant succeeded in bringing a level of luxury to his tropical resort unlike any in the state. (It is still awe inspiring today.) The hotel rose along the banks of the Hillsborough River, right across from the town of Tampa. The hotel's Moorish architecture was as startling and magical in the 1890s as it is today. Open only from December to April each year, the hotel's staff entertained their wealthy guests with every kind of diversion from game hunting, fishing, and boating on the river and bay to horse racing and tennis. The minarets atop the hotel were distinctive and memorable a century ago as they greeted the trains and passengers who must have stood in the lobby in disbelief. Today, the Tampa Bay Hotel, recognized as a United States National Historic Landmark, is part of the University of Tampa and is carefully preserved and maintained to provide a view of our city's and nation's history during the turn-of-the-century Victorian era. Headquarters to the United States Army during the Spanish American War in 1898, the Tampa Bay Hotel welcomed many famous guests over the years. If your curiosity has been tweaked, please visit the Henry B. Plant Museum website. It's a great story. And the minarets, which so proudly represent Tampa, still amaze everyone who sees them on our skyline. (And, yes, you can go up inside them but I'm told it is very hot and humid. ) Please visit Monochrome Weekly for other images of our world as seen in black, white and subtle shades of gray.