Elise Frank School of Art, 1510 Grand Central Avenue : Tampa, Fla.

Courtesy, Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System

About this photograph

Photograph Order Number

PA 12891

Negative Number

76889

Date

May 15, 1959

Creator

Burgert Brothers

Publisher

Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

Date of Photographic Print

1993 printing

Source (original item)

1 photograph : b&w ; 21 x 26 cm. +1 negative (21 x 26 cm.)

Format

JPEG2000

General Notes

Neg. no. 76889; taken May 15, 1959.;

Subjects

Tampa in the 1950s

The 1950s turned Tampa into a car city. The city proper only grew about 15% in the 1940s (roughly 125,000 people in 1950), but the county was bursting — so in 1953 Tampa annexed 60-plus square miles, Sulphur Springs and Palma Ceia included, more than doubling to nearly 275,000 by 1960. The last streetcar ran in 1946; now everybody drove to air-conditioned supermarkets and open-air shopping centers like Britton Plaza (1956), past big roadside signs. TV arrived (WFLA and WTVT, 1955), the kids got Lowry Park Zoo (1957) and Busch Gardens (1959, back when it was a brewery garden). Downtown started looking tired, the city created an Urban Renewal Agency in 1958, and planned interstates through Ybor City and Central Avenue hinted at the displacement to come. The 1950s photographs show Tampa remaking itself around the automobile — new suburbs, modern storefronts and signage, and a downtown about to be rethought.

Sources: Tampa at Midcentury: 1950 (University of South Florida Libraries); From Annexation to Urban Renewal: Urban Development in Tampa during the 1950s and 1960s (Tampa Bay History / University of South Florida); Tampa's historic streetcars (Tampa Bay History Center); Rebuilding a highway reconnects a divided historic community — Tampa, Florida (Advisory Council on Historic Preservation)