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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 8, 2009

I think the Tampa Theatre and I came into being the same year. Maybe I haven't held up as well, but it still gives me a thrill to go there and sit in the audience waiting for that glorious organ to come rising up from the stage, with the most wonderful music filling the hall. For a few moments, I'm a kid again, and we're singing to the bouncing ball on the screen. Oh, I never got over the thrill of it.

I was absolutely fascinated with the little toilet in the last stall of the ladies' room. I remember thinking you'd have to be very rich to afford a miniature one like that. Today I voted for the Tampa as having the best restroom.

My aunt's husband, O. G. Finley, managed the Tampa for a time, and his brother "Fink" is the official ghost that roams the Tampa. My cousin, Edith Harvley, cashiered there in the 1930s, so I have much stored up in my memory book of this priceless theater. Thank you for the pictures (June 3), especially of the men's room, which, of course, I never got to see.

W. GILBERT

Tampa

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