Another Florida Landmark on Endangered List: Hialeah Park

Hialeah Park has earned a dubious distinction -- it has been named to the National Trust of Historic Preservation's 2007 list of Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places. Hialeah Park is fourth on the list.

What can be done? For starters, the National Trust provides links to an online petition opposing demolition or inappropriate redevelopment of the racetrack and a form letter to send to City of Hialeah officials opposing the proposed development.

For more background on Hialeah Park's history, here's a link to my November 2006 blog entry, "The Sun is Setting on Hialeah's Race Track," which includes links to other resources.

Americana Motor Inn

Preservation Online reports that the Fort Lauderdale city council turned down a developer's request to demolish the Americana Motor Inn, most recently a Best Western, and currently vacant. The Americana's distinctive seven-pointed roof would have been replaced by a 12-story hotel (The Sails) near the Port of Ft. Lauderdale.

The hotel is an outstanding example of modern architecture in South Florida. Designed by Charles McKirahan and Arthur Rude in the early 1960s, the motel features a hyperbolic paraboloid concrete shell roof, which was intended to invoke images of ocean waves.

HOME Ft. Lauderdale featured the Americana Motor Inn in its November 2005 issue as one of the 10 most architecturally significant structures in Fort Lauderdale.

"Americana at Risk" (The Slatin Report)

Docomomo/US Florida

Old Memorial Highway

On the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, at the Old Memorial Highway Trailhead, is a historical marker, of sorts. A large sign straddles a surviving chunk of the original Memorial Highway pavement.

Historically, the highway ran from Tampa to the Pinellas County line. According to this sign: "Dedicated on January 1, 1921, the highway honored Tampa and Hillsborough County citizens who died in World War I. As part of the original projet, the Tampa Rotary Club planted oak trees on both sides of the road and erected monuments along the roadway to the war heroes."

The bottom left photograph on the sign shows the young oak trees lining the highway. And here's how Old Memorial Highway looks today, facing west from the trail marker.

The photo on the bottom right of the trail sign shows the World War I monument that stood at the intersection of Memorial Highway and Howard Avenue, until it became a traffic hazard and was moved to the American Legion Cemetery. Another similar marker stands on a small island in a sea of traffic at the intersection of Kennedy Boulevard and the modern start point of Memorial Highway (this is on the west side of Westshore Mall in Tampa).

The old highway was paved with asphalt blocks, which created a durable but bumpy surface. Asphalt blocks were a fairly common paving material in the early twentieth century, when they were made in local factories and transported to the construction site. (In St. Petersburg, some streets in the Old Northeast neighborhood were asphalt block.)

The Upper Tampa Bay Trail is maintained by the Hillsborough County Parks, Recreation, and Conservation Department. The Old Memorial Highway Trailhead offers shady parking and picnic tables, along with easy access to the trail. This trailhead is located on the southern end of Montague Street, south of Braulio Alonso High School.

Using Sanborn Maps to Find History of Your House

Researching the history of your house can be a jigsaw puzzle or a scavenger hunt. But like a a good detective knows his sources, a house historian knows the likely places to find a lead. Sanborn Insurance Maps are one of those sources. Created by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, these incredibly detailed maps lead the way to historic treasures.

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Company created these maps to help evaluate fire risk and existing construction. Not every aspect of a house or building was be recorded (for example, the company did not care what color the house was painted), but what was included is tremendously useful. You can expect to find:

* the footprint or shape of the building
* use (house, apartment, store, restaurant, factory)
* the street name and address (especially useful if lots have been renumbered)
* how many stories it had
* location, number, size, and shape of porches
* the basic construction material (frame, concrete block, tile, etc.)
* setback from the street
* width of the street
* location of water tanks, wells, cisterns, or fire hydrants
* additions
* nearby buildings
* nearby public utilities (water mains, train tracks, streetcar lines)

Since the company wanted to keep current records on the structures they were insuring, the maps were meticuously updated every few years. These updates help narrow timeframes for when a building might have been built, or when a room was added, information that is very useful for determining what is original, historic, or modern in a particular house.

Sanborn maps were created for cities all over the United States, including Florida. These maps, however, focus on the properties within city limits or particular factories. Your particular house may not be included, or may only be on maps from certain years. Although Sanborn maps are valuable resources in urban areas, rural houses are rarely found. Another possible problem comes from how these maps were updated. The Sanborn company created these maps for their own business use, not as a future archive of historic structures. The maps themselves are in large atlases, and when they were updated, snips of paper were glued on top of the old map, obscuring the drawings below.

Original Sanborn maps can be found in local public and university libraries, as well as in some governmental offices. However, due to the size, age, and importance of these documents, access may be limited. For these same reasons, as well as copyright issues, photocopies of the originals are usually prohibited.

But don't despair. Those same public and university libraries and historical societies often have microfilm copies of the maps, which although they are in black and white, have most of the same information and you can print copies. Some libraries provide online access to their cardholders, and the University of Florida has color images of many Florida Sanborn maps available to anyone on line.

Sanborn maps are an important piece of the puzzle for finding your house's history.

Seven Wonders

Greece had its Colossus and Babylon had its Hanging Gardens, but Florida has . . . .

The Sun-Sentinel is asking readers to nominate their choices for the Seven Wonders of Florida. You can submit photos and/or a short essay to support your nomination. The hardest part may be picking just seven, but later this summer we can all vote on which of the finalists make the list.

Waterspouts in Florida

The Florida Keys have more waterspouts each year than anywhere else, hundreds of them. Some people subscribe to the theory that Bermuda Triangle disappearances are the result of waterspouts. Personally, I've never seen a waterspout, but they are essentially tornadoes over water, and I have seen a tornado so I can guess what they look like. Also, I can see video clips and photographs at Florida Lightning.com, Eye in the Tropics, and the NOAA photo library (scroll down to see Florida pictures).

Gilded Age Resort Hotels

The Belleview Biltmore is just one of Florida's great Gilded Age resort hotels still standing today.

In St. Augustine, Henry Flagler's Hotel Ponce de Leon is now part of the Flagler College campus.

His Alcazar Hotel is the Lightner Musuem.

The Casa Monica is a hotel again, after years of service as the St. Johns County Courthouse.

The Breakers in Palm Beach is still in business, although the original hotel building burned, and the current structure dates to the 1920s rather than the Gilded Age.

Henry Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, like the Ponce de Leon, is part of a college campus (University of Tampa), although part of one wing is the Henry B. Plant Museum.

In The Architecture of Leisure, Susan Braden traces the role of the two Henry's, Flagler and Plant, in creating Florida's winter luxury resorts: "These two wealthy New York businessmen ... effectively transported urban cultural ideas to Florida, transforming a sparsely inhabited, scraggily beautiful near-wilderness into what they promoted as the 'American Riveria.'" Braden's thought-provoking book explores not only why Flagler and Plant built the hotels, but the thinking behind the exotic architecture, and what this all said about the society and culture of the time.

Belleview Biltmore

Today's St. Petersburg Times has an article about the current status of the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in the Town of Belleview, just south of Clearwater. In the recent past, the 110-year-old hotel, which is possibly the world's largest inhabited wooden structure, has faced the real possibility of demolition. The issue became so critical that the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2005 list of most endangered historic places included the Belleview Biltmore.

I was at the Biltmore last month, and took a couple of pictures of the reroofing project underway (see above). That's a daunting task, with what must be acres of green shingles!

If you're interested in spending a night or a weekend enjoying the hotel's peaceful ambience or golfing on a historic Donald Ross-designed course, check the hotel's website for contact information. The website also has a very nicely done timeline of the Biltmore's history, starting with its construction in the late 1890s for original owner, Henry B. Plant.

Additional information and images are also available on the website of Save the Biltmore, a group dedicated to the preservation of the Belleview Biltmore.

The Horses of Proud Spirit by Melanie Sue Bowles

Today I'm reading The Horses of Proud Spirit, by Melanie Sue Bowles. Bowles's memoir is not about Florida per se, but is set in Florida and peopled by Floridians, good and bad. In this book, Bowles shows how she went from being unable to ride, to saving horses other people thought were hopeless. Each chapter is the story of a horse, and how that horse came to the Proud Spirit Horse Sanctuary near Myakka City (that's in Manatee County). Since writing this book, Melanie and Jim Bowles have moved the Proud Spirit Horse Sanctuary to Arkansas, where they continue to save horses, one at a time.

The book has been made into an Emmy-winning documentary by WEDU, Tampa's public television station.

Published by Florida's own Pineapple Press in 2003, The Horses of Proud Spirit is 200 pages, hardcover, with black and white photographs. If you buy the book through Bowles' website, part of the proceeds go to the horse sanctuary.

Florida History and Culture in the News

"Pink Flamingo to Spread its Wings Again" (St. Petersburg Times, June 1, 2007) (For background information, "Farewell, My Fine Feathered Friend")

"Historic Island Hotel Captures the Real Cedar Key" (St. Petersburg Times, June 3, 2007)

"Sanibel 'Spider': Walker Guest House was the Modernist's Favorite Design" (The News-Press, May 27, 2007)

"Lake O Artifacts Emerging from Drought-Bared Bed" (TC Palm June 1, 2007)