One of Florida’s great 19th century hotels, the Tampa Bay Hotel (1891; 511 rooms for $3 million), fell on hard times during the Great Depression and was converted to use by what today is the University of Tampa, a private 11,000-student school. A portion of the structure is preserved as the Henry B. Plant Museum, named for the railroad tycoon who built the hotel.
Instead of elbowing their way off Spirit, the elite guests of the hotel would step out of their private railcars just a few feet from the front door of the hotel. The original front entrance dog sculpture has been preserved and also the museum shows an early word processor:
The museum explains that immigrants destroyed career opportunities for Black Americans in the 19th century, just as Harvard economists found was true in the 21st century (see “Effects of Immigration on African-American Employment and Incarceration” (NBER 2007)):
In the 1890s, Black dining room supervisors and servers faced increasing job competition from European immigrants. Efforts to combat this challenge revealed competing understandings of Black manhood.
It looks as though $1-$2/day was a good wage in 1903:
Because my almost-12-year-old companion is passionate about art museums, our next stop was the main Tampa Museum of Art. He was delighted to find The Bucs at Fifty, a photo exhibit:
He also enjoyed a Man with the Golden Gun-style car/plane. Original from 1974:
The museum displays a 2016 work:
The curators fail to credit James Bond:
I still can’t figure out how it is possible for a tax-exempt nonprofit organization to advertise a policy of race-based discrimination:
In 2022, The Tampa Museum of Art launched an initiative to purchase a work of art by a Black or African American artist in tandem with its annual Juneteenth Cultural Celebration. The Museum selected Ya La’Ford as its 2024 Juneteenth artist.
Roughly half of the money spent by a nonprofit is government money (foregone tax revenue because charitable deductions are tax-deductible). How is it legal for a museum to say “We’re going to buy works of art only from people who are of one specific race that we consider superior”? Here’s the artwork that was purchased under the race-based scheme:
While on the beautiful Riverwalk, a 2.6-mile path, we saw a dolphin in the Hillsborough River. We stopped briefly at Armature Works before heading back towards the airport. On the way we stopped at a 49ers v. Buccaneers game in which fans were encouraged to drive sound levels above 100 dBA SPL (maybe closer to 90 dBA most of the time, still well about the 85 dBA OSHA limit for factory work without hearing protection) and a hearing loss company is one of the in-stadium advertisers:
The best customers for hearing aids are probably those who sit near the pirate ship and are thus subject to perhaps 100 cannon blasts per game.
iPhone 17 Pro Max super wide lens:
Related:
Being forever priced out of owning a house, the lion kingdom may return to Tampa. Renters over 55 are gods in Tampon.
June 2025: While asking rents are falling in most U.S. cities, Tampa Bay renters are paying more than they did last year, according to Redfin.
The real estate company said it analyzed asking rents in 44 major U.S. core-based statistical areas and saw rents decline in 28 areas.
However, the Tampa Bay area saw the second-largest increase.
— https://www.wfla.com/news/hillsborough-county/rent-in-tampa-bay-sees-second-largest-increase-in-the-u-s-redfin/
lion: If you want a low-ish cost of living and plenty of friends who are 55+, the Villages is a much better choice than Tampa! Also, vastly reduced hurricane risk!