In a shuffle of workers and exhibits, the St. Petersburg Museum of History prepares to occupy its new quarters.
By MARY JANE PARK
Published February 22, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - Workers at the St. Petersburg Museum of History are packing for a move into new quarters next month, but they won't have to travel far.
Office staff will be the first to relocate into the building's extended north side.
Will Michaels, the museum's executive director, expects the change to happen March 10, the target date for completion of a $930,000 expansion to add more exhibit space, an educational center and storage.
After that, other areas inside the building will be renovated, with the hope that all construction will be finished by June.
The new second floor will house the archives and collections departments. Downstairs additions include a new learning center and a larger lobby and gift shop.
An additional gallery will offer rotating exhibits, including one later this year that will focus on the city's grand hotels, their employees and guests.
The popular permanent St. Petersburg history exhibit, with a dugout cypress canoe from the 1500s, a rare officer's uniform from the Seminole Wars of the 1840s, a two-headed calf and a 3,500-year-old mummy, should be refurbished by July.
The latter two items are favorites of longtime residents and tourists, but whether they will remain on view has yet to be determined.
"I think that's still under discussion," Michaels said.
The expanded permanent exhibit will add focuses on St. Petersburg neighborhoods and ethnic groups.
The First Flight installation, with a replica of the Benoist airboat, should get an update as well. Michaels said the museum hopes to expand its aviation education program.
"At one time, St. Pete had five airports, including one at Weedon Island," Michaels said.
The museum is collaborating with Pinellas County schools, the Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center and the Pier Aquarium to begin an educational program for middle school children that will concentrate on archaeology, boating and aviation.
"A lot of people think only about exhibits" in a museum, Michaels said, although the history museum offers summer educational camps, workshops in genealogy and scrapbooking, old maps and telephone directories and an archive of some 8,000 photographs.
"It's a memory of St. Petersburg," he said. "The museum is not just about the past; it's also about the present and the future."
The museum, at 335 Second Ave. NE, has been on the approach to the Pier since 1922 and initially occupied space that previously was an aquarium, Michaels said. In the early 1950s, a new museum was built on the same spot. Its current manifestation arose from an expansion in the early 1990s.
A fundraising campaign and grant money are paying for the new construction.
Michaels acknowledged that the state has cut subsidies to museums and cultural institutions in recent years but said he will ask the Legislature for grants to bolster the operating budget and the aviation exhibit.
