Page 10 - Florida Sentinel 4-1-16 Edition

Local
Local Historian Begins Central Avenue Walking Tours
A local historian’s com- pany will begin conducting walking tours of Tampa’s His- toric Central Avenue District April 4, 2016.
The tours – for adults and youth -- will cover six blocks during two-hour sessions that begin near the historic St. Paul AME Church at Harrison and Marion Streets and end at the Robert W. Saunders Pub- lic Library and at Booker T. Washington Elementary School on Estelle Street.
Fred Hearns Tours LLC, a local business that began op- erating in 2007, has con-
ducted history bus tours for the past nine years.
“The walking tour is some- thing new that we will be of- fering,” said owner Fred Hearns. “It coincides with the opening of the newly ren- ovated Perry Harvey Park.”
In 2007, after a 32-year career with the City of Tampa, Hearns retired as director of the Department of Commu- nity Affairs and earned a mas- ter’s degree in Africana Studies from the University of South Florida.
“I realized that I had be- come passionate about the
Bobby L. Bowden and Hearns were advisors to President Bettye Johnson and the City of Tampa Black History Committee when it initiated the 2003 dedication of the Historic Central Avenue Mural on the east wall of the Kid Mason Recreation Center.
In 2009 Hearns’ com- pany began serving as local history consultant for the Tampa Housing Authority’s development of the musical theme for the Encore Project, which replaced Central Park Village. He later worked with Kimley-Horn Architects, who designed the new Perry Har- vey Park for the City of Tampa, the Bank of America and for the Tampa Housing Authority.
“In 2013 I took a lot of crit- icism, and some people tried to discredit me, for publicly advocating for removal of the skate bowl from the center of Perry Harvey Park,” Hearns said. “But today the skate park is on the north side of Scott Street. This skate park reloca- tion allows for the continuous flow of the historical elements of Central Avenue. That should be the highlight of our visitors’ attention. There was no skating on Central Av- enue! The skate park now is where it should be. It was the right thing to do”.
Hearns also was the local history consultant for En- core’s 100-foot, three-panel mural series that tells the story of African Americans in Tampa -- from before the Civil War to the present -- on the west wall of the Trio Building. The three-dimensional mu- rals face Perry Harvey Park, complimenting the statue of Perry Harvey and Tampa’s African American Timeline along the park’s eastern boundary.
Recently, Hearns volun- teered his local history con- sulting services to Landscape Architect Ekistics Design Stu- dio for the city’s upcoming re- design of Scott Street, from Orange Avenue to Seventh Avenue.
“Most Tampans aren’t aware that General Win- field Scott -- for whom the street is named -- was a 40- year veteran of the U. S. Army. He had the reputation of being sympathetic toward the enslaved Africans and Semi- nole Indians who lived in Cen- tral Florida before the Civil War. That is one of the stories we talk about on the walking tour.”
To schedule a walking tour for your group of ten or more people, or a bus tour for up to 50 people, call Fred Hearns Tours LLC, at (813) 545-3183 or go to fhearns@netzero. net. (See advertisement in this issue)
local history of African Amer- icans,” he said.
In 2006 former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio assigned him to chair her Perry Harvey Park Citizens Advisory Com- mittee and he worked with this group of Tampans for ten months. Committee co-chair, Sonja Harvey McCoy was joined by Dorothy Harvey Keel, Bernadine White King, Willie Robinson,
Andrea Harris, James Tokley, Rose Bilal, Mary Williams, Ruth Dewberry and Herman Monroe. These people chose the African Americans and busi- nesses that are honored in the park. The Tampa Housing Au- thority’s Leroy Moore served as an advisor for the committee.
Former City of Tampa Community Affairs Director
FRED HEARNS
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