Central Avenue Legacies: A Walking Tour of Historic Black Tampa

Abstract

The walking tour was a major part of the public program we organized about Central Avenue. The principal challenge in conducting such an excursion was the almost total absence of the physical structures that had comprised this district. Unlike the weekly guided tours of nearby Ybor City (Tampa's historic cigar-making district), where a costumed tour guide conducts visitors around brick streets lined with old buildings explaining the lives of the people who lived in the neighborhood, Central Avenue had been so completely destroyed that all that remained was a featureless grassy landscape. In one sense, this void was intrinsic to the meaning we hoped to convey. We wanted to transform perceptions of this emptiness into public understanding of what had once been in that place and, equally important, what had caused its obliteration. We decided to attempt a metaphorical reconstruction, guided by the very real memories of people who had lived this history. The overall format of the public program was planned to begin with the walking tour and conclude with a panel discussion inside one of the only remaining buildings in the area.