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Heroes Plaza Shaping Up To Be Heart Of Tampa

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By STEVE OTTO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 4, 2008

I was feeling for Santiago Corrada. The mayor's administrator for neighborhoods was trying to spread out those oversize construction-site plans for a park on the hood of the mayor's mean green hybrid Toyota about the same time angry dark clouds began blowing across the channel into Cotanchobee Park. And the rain began to spit.

To add to his woes, some guy in a hard hat came clomping through the mud of the construction site to tell the mayor she had to move her car because the big trucks loaded with building material were coming, and it was move it or lose it.

We were standing in the looming shadows of the new Tampa Bay History Center, scheduled to open in December.

On this same piece of land, workers are busy moving dirt and working on what will open one month later in January and be called Heroes Plaza.
Corrada was trying to show me on the diagrams where a series of nine glass images are to be placed in a plaza that will be a memorial to those who have served in every conflict.

The plaza is part of a broader design for the park that will run between the Forum and the new history center.

You know, most cities have a central gathering place. I was thinking that Tampa's was going to be the new plaza in front of the arts complex going up on Ashley Drive. And it may be, but what the city is doing here on part of the new Riverwalk, along with the arrival of the history center, will make it a place for lots of events.

I liked a couple of things about the proposed glass images. One is that they will be very accessible and understandable to the public. They won't be abstract monoliths that nobody understands.

The other is the city didn't go out on some nationwide search to create the design. They left it to the parks department. "I did have Karen Palus, our Parks and Recreation director, talk to the county veterans memorial people out on Highway 301. They gave us some good input into the design," Corrada said.

Bert Hansen was the guy in the hard hat warning the mayor to move her car. He's with WG Mills, the company doing the park. He took a long look at the glass images on the drawings. It turns out he is veteran of Vietnam.

"I'll come back on opening day," he said softly. "A lot of the people on our crews are veterans. I think you will have a bunch of us show up."

Your Ottographs

The bulk of your letters contained comments on a column on the raid in Tampa by the mayor of Louisville and some of his minions looking to recruit people into moving to Kentucky. There are apparently a few former Louisvillians (or whatever they're called) living in these parts.

One such is Jan Crado. I don't know if Jan is a Mr. or a Ms., but he/she definitely still has more than a little Kentucky left deep inside.

He\she went through a long, long list of reasons why Louisville is superior to the Big Guava. I won't bore you with the whole thing.

He/she did claim that the people of Louisville "are friendlier. In Tampa one is only greeted on the street by the Wal-Mart greeter and they get paid to do it."

He/she went on to suggest Louisville had us in education, dining, medical care, leisure, sports and weather.

"You may write off my comments as being merely perception," he/she wrote. "But my perception also is that Tampa has degraded over the years and if I could make my decision again, I would have stayed in Louisville."

By the way, the University of South Florida Bulls will travel to Louisville on Oct. 25 to play that university at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, named I assume, after one of Louisville's more exclusive restaurants.

Longtime reader Teacher Joe noted a column about unwanted solicitors at the door on weekends. He offers his solution.

"I can't solve all your problems," he writes, "but I've managed to avoid those guys with clipboards and evangelical types. On the walk leading to my front porch there is a tape outline of a body and a clipboard lying nearby."

'Forever Plaid'

Finally, we don't do reviews as such here, but if you are one of the apparently nine people left in town who have not seen the long-running show "Forever Plaid," at the Jaeb through Aug. 17, you are missing 90 minutes of nonstop joy. Trust me on this one. The intimate Jaeb Theater in the Performing Arts Center is the perfect venue for this perfectly done trip back to the final days of music.

Keyword: Ottographs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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