A USF archaeological team is unearthing a downtown Tampa park where a black neighborhood thrived for more than a century.
By TAMARA LUSH
Published June 11, 2003
TAMPA - Brent Weisman adjusted the brim of his canvas hat and pointed at a 4-foot-deep hole in the ground.
"Here's where they burned trash," he said. The charred earth is pockmarked with broken bottles. He crouched and touched something resembling a stick.
"And this is probably a pig bone."
Dinner. Trash. Store-bought goods. All evidence of a lost civilization, right in downtown Tampa.
Weisman, a bearded, rugged-looking professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida, is the leader of the architectural dig.
For the past two weeks he and 12 of his students are scooping and sifting through Perry Harvey Sr. Park, a few blocks northeast of the city's commercial center. The work is expected to continue for another week, then resume next year.
The grassy site is where Tampa's earliest black residents lived, worked and played, starting in the 1800s. And in every shard of glass, every rusted nail, Weisman will glean clues about a near-forgotten neighborhood.
The park sits on what was once a thriving center for black Tampa residents, a commercial and residential center razed for urban renewal purposes in the mid 1970s, during former Mayor Dick Greco's first administration.
"It was like our Harlem," said Fred Hearns, 54, co-chairman of the city's Black History Committee.
What is now the park was once the bustling Central Avenue, where hotels, homes, movie theaters and other businesses catered to the black community - especially during times of segregation, when blacks weren't allowed in the whites-only establishments.
Weisman's archaeologists have found relics dating to the late 1800s, such as bottles, marbles and even an 1878 dime. Each artifact is carefully labeled and put in plastic bags, to be taken back to the USF lab.
Eventually all of the items will be turned over to the city.
People in the nearby Central Park apartments were surprised when Weisman and his students showed up, he said.
Now, most adults go about their business - on Tuesday, several people sat on their front steps and occasionally looked toward the archaeologists.
But the dig has been a kid magnet.
Jarvis Owens, 10, has been following the progress and stops to chat each time he walks through the park.
"The stuff here is from probably 100 years ago," he estimated. He then asked a USF student with a shovel about the status of an old marble.
"Did you dig it out yet?" he said.
The crew used old maps of the neighborhood to determine where they would use their shovels. They picked several spots to unearth: the saloon, homes and a horse stable.
The saloon site has been a treasure trove of archaeological goodies. Weisman has found the building's original foundation and several bottles. He has also found the skeleton of the original streets.
It took five years for Weisman to obtain a $50,000 grant to work on the project. When he received the money and began to dig, his project accidentally became part of a broader Central Avenue revival this summer.
Just this month, the city's Black History Committee announced that it will record the oral histories of people with stories or memories of Central Avenue.
And on Tuesday night, a mural dedicated to Central Avenue's famous founders, business people and residents was unveiled. It overlooks the archaeological dig, the park and the old Central Avenue.
"Everything you needed was there," Hearns said. "People felt comfortable there."
