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Greenwood Avenue name still deeply rooted in minds

It springs to the tongue in Clearwater, even when people want to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

By ADRIENNE P. SAMUELS
Published January 31, 2005

CLEARWATER - The street had been known by another name for as long as anyone could remember.

Greenwood Avenue. Named so, longtime residents say, for the bright tangle of palmettos and tangerine trees that once surrounded the area.

And the name stuck until a group of people decided that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue would be a better moniker, a way to commemorate a Civil Rights hero.

That was more than three years ago, yet it's no surprise that folks occasionally stutter and stumble when describing the street where they work, play and live.

No disrespect is intended, but it's hard to retrain the community's consciousness, even for a good cause.

"It'll probably take some time," said Edna LaPread, an attendant at Young's Funeral Home on S Martin Luther King Avenue. She has lived in Clearwater for about 40 years. "I'm not completely used to it. If I talk about it, I'll say MLK slash Greenwood."

King was first honored by the renaming of a Clearwater street back in 1986, when the name was affixed to a tiny, three-block stretch of road now called Douglas Avenue. The old Greenwood Avenue was officially renamed in 2001, after the Clearwater NAACP fought to place King's name on a more significant traffic artery.

The new King Avenue is a north-south road running from Fairmont Street in north Clearwater to the city's southern limit near Belleair Road. It is between, and runs parallel to, Missouri and Myrtle avenues and is home to everything from doctors' offices and single-family homes to barbecue joints and car part stores.

The communities surrounding this street sometimes feel they have been given a bad name, and some residents blame the newspapers, or the city, for hyping up the bad stuff instead of the good.

Working on King instead of Greenwood is a way to improve a sometimes erroneous image, said Eva Barber, owner of Eva's Beauty Shop on Carlton Street and north King.

"I call it King," said Barber, who is celebrating 50 years of being in business. "Oh my Lord, it was a pleasure to switch over."

Barber knows people who still call it by an old name, and she wishes they would come around.

"We waited seven years for this," she said. "We've changed from the old to the new."

But at a coin laundry on the other end of King Avenue, a different type of conversation went on.

"It's still Greenwood," said Melva-Lynn Hayes, 39, drying clothes at the Coin Laundry on Woodlawn and S King. "Nothing's changed about it. It's still dead a-- Greenwood. They wanted to use Greenwood, put (King's name) on the worst street they could put it on."

For Redonna Johnson, 31, the street's name changes depending upon whom she's talking to.

"If I'm talking to someone who I don't know, or is kind of skeptical about Greenwood, I'll use MLK," said Johnson, who works at Miss Ellen's Kitchen at 1485 Martin Luther King Ave. S.

At the office of Dr. Louis Paolillo, insurance coordinator Susan Burnam said that two online map services haven't fully made the switch.

The Web site maps.yahoo.com calls it Greenwood, not King. And Mapquest will respond to searches for a specific King address, but its map still calls the street Greenwood.

"If patients get confused, we tell them to find Jeffords," Burnam said.

Over at Aneco Electrical, at 400 S Martin Luther King Ave., Susan Herman was celebrating her retirement as office manager and unofficial direction-giver.

"A lot of old people stop to say they're lost," Herman said. "I still get mail addressed to Greenwood, but it's people not in our area using outdated maps."

The name would likely catch on more quickly if the King Day parade was larger, suggested Bink Gulley, 42, while sitting outside the Blue Chip Bar on Tangerine and King.

Nolberto Amor, 52, was sitting outside, too, watching a card game.

"It didn't take it long to sink in," said Amor. "The old-timers got Greenwood, but the young people got King because of the history. I'm a mix between them - I like Martin Luther King."

--Adrienne Samuels can be reached at 445-4157 or samuels@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 31, 2005, 00:38:15]