Postcard #138 (Pulse)

6/12/17 I drove by Pulse this morning, one year after the terrorist attack in Orlando

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The Spirit of St. Petersburg Lives in Brooklyn

“I’m a take your grandpa’s style, I’m a take your grandpa’s style.”
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis/Thrift Shop

I look this photo on Tuesday and it appears the club is doing some renovating

I don’t know if writer Jack Kerouac ever visited the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club when he lived at 5169 10th Ave. N. in St. Petersburg. But in the last year of his life he lived less than five miles away. (Two of the places Kerouac visited while living in St. Petersburg in ’68-’69 are still open for business; Haslam’s Bookstore and the Flamingo Bar.)

But if Kerouac were alive today he’d be 95, I think the co-founder of beat generation would smile as Hipsters take over St. Petersburg, where they bike, have a drink or two, and occasionally play shuffleboard.

I began reading about the resurgence of the quintessential elderly game of shuffleboard shortly after the economy sputtered in 2008 and young people were looking for cheap entertainment. It was a perfect fit for hipsters who like riding single speed bikes, buying actual records, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, and sometimes wearing long beards or handlebar moustaches popular 100 years ago.

And it was just a matter of time before St. Petersburg inspired a new trend. A few years ago after a trip to the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club, New Yorkers Jonathan Schnapp and Ashley Albert raised the money to open The Royal Palms Shuffleboard Court in Brooklyn.

“Snow fell at a punishing slant across the darkened warehouses along Union Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn. It couldn’t be further from the sunny retirement communities of Florida, but inside one former factory, the spirit of St. Petersburg lived on…Brooklyn and shuffleboard may not seem like an obvious fit, but they do share similarities. Shuffleboard is a sport with a low athletic buy-in and offers plenty of time to drink between turns.
Joshua David Steins/New York Times in 2014

Back to the future…

P.S. For years the Friends of Jack kerouac House have been trying to buy the house that Kerouac lived in while in St. Petersburg. I saw where the house was sold in January, but I don’t know if the friends group purchased it or not.

Scott W. Smith

 

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Postcard #127 (Avalon Hotel)

The Avalon Hotel is advertised as, “A boutique hotel in the heart of St Petersburg. A hip place to lay your head.” I don’t know if the inside is as cool as the outside, but it’s a touch of Art Deco South Beach in the Tampa Bay area.

Scott W. Smith

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Postcard #126 (Trinity Lutheran)

When I’m on the road I’m always attracted to the right lighting hit the right building, and that was the case of Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. Driving by it’s impossible to miss those beautifully framed red doors beaming in the late afternoon light. 

Scott W. Smith

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Postcard #124 (El Cap in St. Pete)

Yesterday I was in St. Petersburg, Florida and had lunch with a friend at The Moon Under Water which is a super restaurant with views of Tampa Bay. Before heading back to Orlando at night I had hamburger at El Cap also in St. Pete. They’ve been in business for 60+ years, but I was drawn in by their great retro sign.

Scott W. Smith

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‘This Cold Life’

Today I’m going to the premiere of the doc This Cold Life at the Florida Film Festival. It will be anything but cold today in Maitland/Orlando, Florida as the mid-90 degree temps are some of the hottest in the United States.

Much of This Cold Life was shot in Longyeabyen, Norway, “the world’s northernmost town.” Darren Mann directed the doc and is someone I did camera work for years ago for TV programs he shot in Minnesota and Iowa. I look forward to seeing him at the premiere and seeing a part of the world I don’t recall ever seeing before.

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La La Liberty City

“We’re two boys from Liberty City representing the 305.”
Tarrell Alvin McCraney
(305 is the area code in Miami)

“Liberty City, one of the poorest sections of Miami and almost entirely black, is geographically tiny, little more than the housing projects and the blocks surrounding them.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones/ New York Times

What’s more unlikely than an Oscar-winning screenwriter being from the Liberty City section of Miami? That’s easy— how about two Oscar-winning writers being from there. Barry Jenkins and Tarrell Alvin McCraney collected the Best Adapted Screenplay Award Sunday for their Moonlight script. Both are from the same housing project in Liberty City.

And to top it off, Moonlight had a surprise upset of La La Land to win Best Picture Oscar.

Allow me take you on a quick tour of greater Miami to explain what’s so special about being from Liberty City.

Less than ten miles east of Liberty City is Miami Beach with its beautiful Art Deco hotels, glamorous night clubs, and high-end cars. Here’s a map of homes in the South Beach and surrounding islands listed on Zillow that are listed for three million or more. (Make note of one listing for $65 million.)

A little over 10 miles to the south of Liberty City you’ll find Coral Gables. It’s home to the Miracle Mile, the University of Miami, and the beautiful and historic Biltmore Hotel.

And lastly on our little tour, just 10 miles to the west of Liberty City you’ll find the Trump National Hotel Miami, a country club where PGA tournaments have been held every year since 1962. Tiger Woods won four times there.

You get the picture. Liberty City is surrounded by some of the finest and upscale places in the United States. I won’t speak for Liberty City (or its next door neighbor, Overtown) in terms of today, but back in 1979 when Barry Jenkins was born Liberty City was  a just under six square miles low income and high crime zone.  (Tough but not as many guns on the street as there are today according to Jenkins.) In 1980 riots broke out there amidst racial tension over a police shooting and acquittal.

This is how Time magazine wrote of the area in 1981 article titled Paradise Lost?:

“Even in Liberty City, the black enclave in North Miami where 18 people died in last year’s riot, the Latin influence is apparent. White store owners who abandoned their businesses are being replaced by Latin landlords. ‘The only things blacks have in Miami are several hundred churches and funeral homes,” says Johnny Jones, a former Dade County school superintendent. ‘After a generation of being Southern slaves, blacks now face a future as Latin slaves. ’”

This is how this New York Times explains the Liberty City journey of both Jenkins and McCraney:

Both men were born to mothers who had their first children when they were teenagers. Both saw their mothers become H.I.V. positive after falling victim to the crack epidemic that overtook their community. Both were taken away from their mothers and bounced around; caregivers, related and not, took them in. They both knew what it was like to have the water turned off for lack of payment, to go to school without deodorant because there was no money to buy it.”

So, yeah, it’s an unlikely place for two Oscar-winners to be raised. And in a nutshell, that’s what the Screenwriting from Iowa…and Other Unlikely Places blog is all about. To give a little hope to the creative Outliers in unlikely places around the world.

Related links:
A Liberty City Oscar Watch Party Reacts to Moonlight win/ Miami Herald
Watch Moonlight Director Barry Jenkins Revisit His Hometown/Vanity Fair

Related posts:
The First Black Feature Filmmaker
Postcard #24 (Coral Gables)
Postcard #25 (Miami Beach)
Cocaine Cowboys & the Future of Film (Doc on Miami in the 70s & 80s)
25 Links Related to Black & Filmmaking (2017 Oscar-Edition)

Scott W. Smith

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