the daily flashkube

The first set I did of the park consisted mostly of images depicting the new Tampa Museum of Art and the unfinished Glazer Children’s Museum. When my wife pointed this out I scoffed. But when a project manager at the architecture firm for TMA emailed me about my wonderful photographs of their museum, I knew she was right. (Pardon the ego slip.) I ended up changing the title of that post to “Riverfront Park and Museums.” (Hey, we all make mistakes.) So, as promised, here are the photographs I made on Monday morning of the park grounds. If they look a little HDRish it’s because I’m still getting used to the low dynamic range of the Olympus E-P1. Although I shoot in raw, the images have less range and data to work with than raw files from my Nikon D300.

On a related note, I was called a “normal ass citizen” by skater and fellow Skypoint resident Rob Meronek. Thanks for the link on your blog Rob and it’s nice to meet you too. (By the way, there is a photo of you holding your camera in Stalker Steve’s post. What the fuck happened to the front of your grip?) Anyway, check out Rob at skateparkoftampa.com and if you didn’t see my post of the grand opening, you can find it here.

UPDATE: A photograph of the playground was accidentally omitted from this post when originally published. It is now the 6th image below.

The people came.

They came in number.

The modest mayor stood…

…and smiled.

She spoke passionately to the people.

She removed those holding skateboards.

She cut ribbon.

The band played…

…and they sang…

…and the people danced.

This post is intentionally tongue in cheek. I wish I had time to switch to my wide lens when the police threw out the skateboarder during Iorio’s speech. Janet Zink did a great little piece for the St. Petersburg Times called “Tampa’s Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park opens to mostly rave reviews” that mentions the incident.

Not everyone was pleased with their experience, though. During the park’s first day open to the public, police officers had their first confrontation with skateboarders, pressuring a group of fewer than a dozen to leave the festivities.

The confrontation occurred just after Iorio was telling the crowd: “This park is for everyone.”

“Except for skateboarders!” hollered 26-year-old Seamus Gallagher.

“Except for skateboarders,” echoed Iorio.

I found this video showing a confrontation between skateboarders and police earlier in the day. It then jumps ahead to Janet Zink interviewing one of the group after the mayor’s speech. (Incidentally, the guy rapping with the long hair at the end lives in my building. I saw him today in the elevator and asked him about the incident. He said they get ticketed all the time just for using their boards as transportation.)

The battle between skateboarders and police has been going on since the invention of the wheel. I think maybe both sides have been at each other so long that these clashes are like breathing. The uploader of the video, meronek, had this to say in his description:

Imagine breaking down a huge wall with caveman tool. The first few times you hit, it’s a small chip or maybe even just a scratch. Keep hitting and eventually the chips get bigger and chunks of the wall start to come down. At the Curtis Hixon Park Grand Opening, I’d like to think we put some large chips in the wall. We showed up with skateboards, got the usual harassment from police, and made our little statement. During all this, Mayor Pam Iorio mentioned in her speech that the Park is for everyone except skateboarders. The news your dad reads added one extra word to the title of the story about the grand opening, “Tampa’s Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park opens to mostly rave reviews.” The Mayor’s words and that word “mostly” in the title of the news story is the dent we put in the wall. And, we had a damn good time doing it as you can see in a few minutes of footage below.

Iorio’s speech will likely appear on the CTTV website in the near future. I wonder if they will leave it unedited.