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People of St. Pete: Jorge Vidal

With a keen eye and passion for art, Jorge Vidal for years has helped keep the walls of St. Petersburg’s museums and galleries fresh and fascinating.

These days you’ll find the vivacious Vidal at Florida CraftArt planning exhibits, organizing the annual Florida CraftArt Festival, and juggling a host of other tasks that keep the downtown art space running year round. Vidal took the reins as executive director at the venerable statewide non-profit in July. 

St. Pete Son

Vidal’s is a hometown art success story. His mother, a former docent at St. Petersburg’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), brought him and his youngest sister to the museum every Sunday when they were children. Today, he and his youngest sister work for arts organizations. 

As a child, he loved creating things. “I would spend hours folding paper and making just weird little objects that I found at home,” Vidal says. “I definitely realized that shift that happens when you are working on a project you are fulfilled by and that time stands still.”   

After graduating from St. Petersburg Catholic High School, Vidal studied visual arts at Eckerd College and interned at the MFA. By age 22, he had a good understanding of the components of an art exhibition.

Big Apple Bound

He loved St. Petersburg, but his then girlfriend was studying fashion design in New York City. He was shopping his resume to New York galleries and museums, when a friend who worked for the famous fashion designer Betsey Johnson asked him to temporarily fill in for her. “It was a very collegial atmosphere; celebrities were coming in and out the door, and there were parties we were going to all the time. So, it was a very exciting place.”

Within months, the temporary gig turned into a full-time job, and he became a sales executive with a rich territory. He also learned creative management. “Betsey really relied on what was happening on the streets, and young people had a voice in those meetings,” Vidal says. “It was an early management lesson. Something I try to work towards because we should be listening to each other.” 

If and Only If

After four years in New York, Vidal and his then-girlfriend returned to St. Petersburg. Having experience in fashion, they opened a small boutique, If and Only If, on Fourth Street N. The shop sold an eclectic collection of designer clothing, jewelry and gifts. “It was small, but we wanted to make it an experience,” Vidal says. “That was before social media. We were always poring over magazines to see what people were wearing. We’d go to the market and find people making weird great inspired stuff.”

Vidal, an effervescent raconteur, assisted customers who soon became his friends. Business bloomed, and the couple opened a second store, a gift shop, Bossanova in downtown.   

Meanwhile, Vidal had also developed a side business hanging installations and coordinating shows for area museums including the MFA, the Dali, Florida International Museum, and the Gulf Coast Museum. 

St. Pete Folly

In the midst of the Great Recession, Vidal and his now ex-wife closed their two shops, and he started working full-time in the arts. He has been the director of exhibitions and retail at the Morean Arts Center and was integral to the development of the Chihuly Collection galleries. 

He worked as the director and curator for the Duncan McClellan Gallery. At the MFA he was senior manager of special projects and curated successful exhibitions such as “Jewels of the Imagination,” which featured the jewelry art of Jean Schlumberger.

Now running the show at Florida CraftArt, he’s in the midst of the holiday retail event “Unwrapped: Handmade Holidays.” He also is preparing for a January exhibition with Tibetan monks who will create a Sacred Sand Mandala.

When he’s not working, Vidal enjoys the quirkiness of St. Petersburg with his family. “I have always felt we have a fantastic town and architecture like garden follies. We have a Fountain of Youth, a weird baseball past, Al Capone, all this weird history. And the other thing I love about it is that it’s home.”

From the Bench

Hello, Spring! We’ve been soaking up the gorgeous weather and taking in all the great events this time of year brings. We had the pleasure of seeing Cirque du Soleil’s Bazzar at the Trop — if you are considering going, don’t wait any longer! It was our first time seeing a Cirque du Soleil performance in a tent, and wow, it was spectacular. 

This month, we dig into the history beyond how St. Pete became “God’s Waiting Room”. Erica Sutherlin of @studio620 shares her story with us. You MUST check out her new line of bourbon. Also, this friendly and probably unwanted reminder; it’s tax season. Don’t stress if you’re running behind, Vernon and Vernon have you covered. Fifth Ave Pediatrics is taking the best care of kids, it’s where we bring our daughter. Read more about their practice and tips for keeping your kids healthy year-round. And for your furry kids, Maligators is here to help with training. 

The events keep coming, with the Spring Festival and Easter Egg Hunt at the Pier, Paddy Fest at Williams Park, and more. 

Enjoy!

Till next time,

Ashley & Tony

This issue is brought to you by advertisers and reader support. If you enjoy our stories and want to support independent media, visit greenbenchmonthly.com/support. For advertising info, [email protected].

All are welcome on this bench.

The history of the green benches is layered. For some, it is a reminder of a painful period of racism and segregation. To others, it is a symbol of welcomeness and hospitality. We carry this name to shine a light on our city’s history and in celebration of those who work tirelessly towards a more inclusive St. Pete. To read more about our story and the history of the green benches visit greenbenchmonthly.com/about.

Becoming God’s Waiting Room

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We’ve all heard the jokes. “God’s Waiting Room.” “World’s Largest Above-Ground Cemetery.” “Home of the newly wed and the nearly dead.”

St. Petersburg was once world famous as a haven for old people. Heck, they even made a movie about it, a blockbuster at that: Cocoon

But where did this image come from? 

Welcome to Gerontoville

The 1960 United States Census helps tell the story. It reveals a dense concentration of older citizens living in Census Tract 15, which stretched from Ninth Street (today’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street) to the bay, and from Fifth Ave. N to First Ave S; basically the downtown core. The age statistics in this tract of 3,000 residents were so striking that it earned the area yet another dubious nickname: Gerontoville. 

In Gerontoville in 1960, there were more residents over the age of 85 than there were under the age of 45. Nearly 60 percent of the 3,000 residents in the census tract were over 70 years of age, compared to the state average of 6 percent. One-third of them were widows, and an additional 321 were widowers. Only 558 of the 3,000 residents worked. All but one woman in her 50s and one baby were white. 

The residents of Gerontoville exclusively lived almost exclusively in old buildings. Nearly 90 percent of the rental units in the tract were built before 1940, and 651 of those units shared a common bath.

People sit in front of Liggett Drugs green benches on Central Avenue (1954). Photo by Burgert Bros. Courtesy, Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System.

An Aging Downtown

So, how did downtown St. Petersburg become Gerontoville?

From its earliest days as a resort city, St. Petersburg attracted an older demographic. Who else could afford to spend the winter months relaxing in Florida? Affluent, or at least comfortable, retirees flocked to St. Petersburg beginning in the 1910s. The population exploded in the 1920s, where the count of year-round residents grew from 14,000 to 40,000, a number that doubled in the winter months.

In the 1910s, most visitors stayed in hundreds of tourist apartment buildings or dozens of small hotels. During the 1920’s boom, several large masonry hotels were built in the city, bringing the hotel-room inventory from fewer than 500 to more than 3,000. Visitors played leisurely games of shuffleboard, ate their meals at one of a dozen downtown cafeterias, and whiled away the rest of their time sitting on the thousands of green benches that dotted the city sidewalks. 

During the 1950s St. Petersburg’s population boomed again, with a large influx of former soldiers returning to the place where they trained during World War II, their home purchases subsidized by the GI Bill. Others came because of the glut of new, affordable homes, made possible by air conditioning. (These younger homeowners were the “newly wed” in the old saw “the newly wed and the nearly dead.”) This presented an unanticipated problem for downtown: Most of those new residents were moving to the suburbs and shopping in new shopping centers built nearby. By the 1960s, downtown was dying.

Those empty tourist apartments and small hotels called out like a siren song to older retirees on fixed incomes. Many were converted to retirement homes. Air conditioning now meant they could be occupied year round, and the same things that attracted earlier, wealthier, tourists now entertained new residents. Shuffleboard, cafeterias, and the green benches made for a relaxing, and inexpensive, retirement. 

A Growing Reputation of Decrepitude 

Newly available public financing for subsidized housing contributed to the trend. Between 1961 and 1982, ten federally subsidized apartment towers for senior citizens were built downtown. Funded through a variety of government mechanisms, including Section 202 of the Housing Act of 1959 and FHA Sections 221 and 231, buildings like the John Knox Apartments, Peterborough Apartments, Graham-Rogall, and the Lutheran Apartments began sprouting up downtown, contributing to the city’s geriatric reputation.

National magazines began commenting on St. Petersburg’s image. In 1958, Life magazine wrote: “Lonely and bored, old people pass the time listlessly on a St. Petersburg, Florida sidewalk.” That same year, Holiday Magazine reflected on the green benches: “The old people sit, passengers in a motionless streetcar without destination.” The clincher, though, was when Swift’s Premium meats refused to place a full page ad in the St. Petersburg Times because an advertising executive in Chicago thought that the residents of St. Petersburg were too old to chew bacon!

From Green Benches to No Benches

City leaders decided they needed to change that image. Beginning in 1961, the green benches were taken out to be painted in pastel colors. Many never returned. Streets were turned one-way to facilitate traffic into the downtown, inadvertently making them less pedestrian friendly. Old buildings were demolished for parking lots. Cafeterias closed. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was an attempt to remodel downtown into Bay Plaza, a reimagined city center, to be created by demolishing much of the former Gerontoville. Nothing seemed to work. 

It wasn’t until the 2000s that the city saw a true renaissance. Former St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker has called the revival “a 25-year, overnight success story.” Its ingredients are the subject for another article, but they once again include wealthy retirees living downtown, now mixed with a healthy dose of young professionals in their 20s and 30s living in thousands of new apartments. But one has to wonder: Do all of the residents of the beautiful new condominiums and apartments in the downtown core know that they moved into Gerontoville?

People of St. Pete: Erica Sutherlin

St. Pete is celebrated for its fabulous weather, beautiful vistas, world- class food scene, and thriving cultural atmosphere but the people of St. Pete truly make this city something special. In appreciation, each month Green Bench shines a light on one of the many people that make St. Pete unique.

A Renaissance woman, Erica Sutherlin is a filmmaker, actor, poet, and bourbon entrepreneur.  As incoming artistic director of Studio@620, she shadows Bob Devin Jones, who retires in June, as she prepares to take the helm of the visual and performing arts hub on July 1.   

Local theatergoers may recognize her from stage roles such as Lady Macbeth in “Voodoo MacBeth,” performed at Studio@620 in 2017.  More recently, she played central roles at American Stage, where she was the director of community engagement and directed its largest production to date: “Ragtime – The Musical,” in 2023. She was also American Stage’s first black female director with her directorial debut, “Dutchman.”

For larger markets, she directed the Lifetime movie “Kirk Franklin’s A Gospel Christmas,” released in 2021. 

A Taste for Bourbon

In addition to her artistic endeavors, Sutherlin recently launched a new bourbon brand, Sinuous, in partnership with Dunamis Premium Spirits, in Zephyrhills. She’s working on getting Sinuous into a local liquor store and selling it online this spring.

Sutherlin hopes to use proceeds from the bourbon brand to make films that elevate women.  She says she was inspired by childhood memories of listening wide-eyed as adult family members sipped bourbon and shared lively stories. The liquor is a toast to the strong women who shaped her life including her mother and aunts. “I want to celebrate all those women, and say, ‘I see you. I salute you.’” 

A native of St. Louis, Sutherlin grew up the youngest of seven children. Sports and the arts were part of her upbringing. Her much older brother is a fashion designer and visual artist. She credits her parents for encouraging her to try new things. “They never told me no,” she says. “They just said, ‘If you do this thing, you have to do it for a year.’ ” 

She took dance and art classes as a child but didn’t dream of becoming an artist. In fact, she wanted to become an aeronautical engineer or a pilot. She planned to join the U.S. Air Force but needed a credit in the arts to graduate high school. She took a drama class. 

A Filmmaker is Born

“I was like, What is this world?” Sutherlin laughs and recalls her first drama class. “You mean I can just pretend I’m an engineer?”

Her drama teacher turned her on to Shakespeare by contextualizing his works in everyday life. “The way he broke it down opened it up inside of me,” Sutherlin said. “Then when I first read August Wilson’s ‘Fences,’ I was in love, and there was no turning back.”

Sutherlin earned her bachelor’s degree in theater and dance performance from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She returned to school in her late 30s and received her Master of Fine Arts degree in film and television production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. 

In Between Degrees

When she first came to visit around 2009, she told someone, “I will never live in St. Pete.” Six months later, she moved to the Sunshine City. “That’s when I learned never to say never.” 

She taught theater for nine years at Pinellas County Center for the Arts (PCCA) at Gibbs High School. Although she enjoyed teaching, she reached the limit of what she thought she could offer her students. A spiritual person, she said she felt directed late one night to apply to USC’s preeminent film school.

She was accepted and entered USC’s program in 2017 as the oldest member of her class. Her experience inspired her to work on a one-person show, a multimedia performance she plans to share at Studio@620. She has big plans for the nonprofit. “It will be a different studio,” she says, “because the leadership is different, but with the same heart.”

Vernon & Vernon CPAs: Accounting Services for Every Need

Discovering the nuances among accounting-service providers can sometimes be a challenging. When seeking proficient tax guidance, QuickBooks consultancy, estate and trust planning, or IRS representation, consider placing Vernon & Vernon CPAs at the forefront of your options. 

With a dedicated emphasis on strategic planning and advisory services, a significant portion of their clientele comprises medium-sized enterprises spanning various sectors. “Last year, we managed to save one of our clients over $215,000 in taxes,” co-founder Garth Vernon says. He emphasizes two primary objectives: minimizing your effective tax rate and ensuring meticulous documentation to facilitate smooth audits. The firm extends its services to individuals as well as small to large businesses.

A Legacy of Entrepreneurship 

Vernon’s entrepreneurial spirit ignited during his junior year in high school, when a tornado ravaged his hometown of Wichita Falls, Texas. He embarked on a venture with a friend, offering to salvage bricks from demolished houses, an endeavor that showcased his early business acumen. Vernon pursued entrepreneurship and accounting at Baylor University, then earned a master’s degree in taxation from the University of Texas, San Antonio.

Vernon commenced his professional career at Deloitte in Dallas, where fate led him to his future wife, Monica, during a corporate-training session. A wager on a Dallas football game ultimately steered them toward the St. Petersburg area, a locale Vernon had grown fond of. Transitioning to KPMG, his encounter with a client’s tax-department predicament inspired the inception of Vernon & Vernon in 1999, with Monica spearheading the endeavor. 

Forging Direct Connections with the IRS 

Navigating challenges with the IRS is a forte of Vernon & Vernon, thanks to their direct access to a practitioner hotline. Garth Vernon leverages this resource daily, often assisting clients in securing penalty waivers through the First Time Abatement policy, a lesser-known IRS provision.

Harnessing Technological Advancements for Optimal Efficiency

The firm prides itself on its tech-forward approach, having eschewed physical file rooms for over 15 years. Embracing artificial intelligence this year bolsters their scanning accuracy, while seamless integration with QuickBooks online streamlines client collaboration. Beyond mere obligations, the team at Vernon & Vernon consistently exceeds expectations, ensuring swift turnaround times and comprehensive support across a spectrum of accounting services.

Garth Vernon’s personal fulfillment stems from devising tax-saving strategies for clients while fostering an environment of exceptional service delivery infused with enjoyment. 

Vernon & Vernon’s offices are 424 22nd Ave N in St. Pete. For information, visit www.VernonVernon.com, call (727) 393-1922, or email [email protected]

Shuffleboard is Cool Again: The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club Celebrates Its 100th Anniversary

It’s a Friday night at the Shuffleboard Club, and players are unloading their coolers and carrying in pizza boxes for a fun night of shuffleboard. It’s no longer a game just for seniors; today the club has over 2,700 members, and 70% of them are under 50. “We have league nights, and it’s so much fun to see a team of twenty-somethings playing against a team who are all over 70,” Executive Director Christine Page reports. “Everyone has a great time and learns from each other.” 

Every Friday night, nonmembers are welcome to play at the club for $10 per person. All are welcome to bring their own food and drinks, and lively music adds to the vibe. 

A Proud History

The club started in 1924 with two courts at Mirror Lake Park  and grew to be the largest club in the world. It once boasted memberships totaling 5,000 people. By the 1980s, that had dropped off dramatically. In 2005, president Mary Eldridge teamed up with a local artists collective to offer free play on Friday nights, and the sport took off from there. 

Photo by Ryan Kern

Annual memberships cost $50 for individuals and $90 for families. Individual members can bring three additional people to fill out a court, and families can bring an additional six people to fill out two courts. Members are welcome to come and play with access to the equipment anytime between 5 a.m. and midnight every day. They attend members-only events, get discounts on merchandise, and are able to rent the club to host a party or wedding. There are Beginner Boot Camp classes and Skills Labs, all free to members and only $10 for non-members. 

Last October, the club hosted nearly 100 players from eight countries for the 40th World Shuffleboard Championship. In October of this year,  it will host a centennial tournament. 

Photo by Ryan Kern

Reaching Out to the Community

As its next century begins, one of the club’s main goals is to reach out to underrepresented parts of the St. Pete community. “We host school field trips and outings from the YMCA’s summer camps, and plan to visit recreation centers where we can give demonstrations,” Page says. 

“As St. Pete grows, a lot of changes are happening. It’s nice the club is still here and continues to be an important part of the culture of this city.“

The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club is at 559 Mirror Lake Drive N. For information, please visit stpeteshuffle.com or email info@stpeteshuffle.com.