History's Front-Row Seat

By JOHN W. ALLMAN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Aug 19, 2007

TAMPA - You can see a lot, sitting on the front porch.

Just ask the Johnson brothers, Paul and Johnnie III, who have spent the past 50-plus years watching their neighborhood transform from a beacon of pride in the black community to a blighted eyesore to a rebirth of hope.

Paul, 51, and Johnnie, 53, grew up blocks from the bustling, predominantly black Central Avenue business corridor and across the street from the public housing units at Central Park Village.

They have seen the once-heralded housing complex at its best and its worst. Now they are about to see it razed and replaced with a brand-new neighborhood of homes, businesses and more.

"When the older generation died out, the younger generation came up," Johnnie said. "That's when everything changed."

In the late 1950s and early '60s, the two-story Central Park apartments were envied by those who didn't live on the 26-acre property.

The Johnson brothers remember the sky burning orange in 1967 as residents rioted after Tampa police shot and killed Martin Chambers, a 19-year-old black youth.

"All that," Paul said, pointing at the horizon, "was lit up … on fire."

They watched in the '70s as the street culture took hold and men modeled their lifestyles after movies such as "The Mack," a popular blaxploitation film about pimps.

In the '80s and '90s, the condition of the housing property declined. They saw a downturn in the respect people once had for their community. Police cruisers regularly patrolled for drug dealers, who made sales out in the open, and young adults roamed freely, without supervision, causing trouble.

Now, 53 years after opening, Central Park Village is shuttered and dark, awaiting demolition. A new neighborhood called Encore will break ground in early 2008.

Encore, being developed jointly by the Tampa Housing Authority and Bank of America, plans to incorporate the musical heritage of the neighborhood through street names and building names and themed destinations.

As this next Central Avenue chapter is written, the Johnsons will watch it unfold from the front porches of the two houses they own on East Scott Street.

Their father, Johnnie Jr., a club bouncer and railroad worker, bought the houses, which were built nearly 100 years ago. He grew up in the neighborhood that was known as The Scrubs when it was settled by freed slaves after the Civil War.

The houses are more than a piece of the neighborhood's history. They are the Johnson family's legacy, and the brothers don't plan on giving them up just yet.

"He used to tell me all the time, people might call these rickety shacks, but it's home," Johnnie Johnson III said. "My daddy said, 'Son, it ain't much, but someday you'll be sitting on a gold mine.'"

Changing Times

It was a different world in 1954 when Central Park Village was built.

The neighborhood between Ybor City and downtown Tampa was lined with row houses - one-story, narrow shotgun homes. Yards were filled with lush grass. Neighbors knew one another. Front doors went unlocked. Children showed respect when they spoke.

The Johnsons didn't have a refrigerator. They paid for daily deliveries of milk and ice, which was left in a metal ice box on the porch. They didn't have a television. They got all of their news from a small radio.

They walked everywhere - to Seventh Avenue in Ybor to the doughnut shop or down to the pharmacy on Central Avenue.

"I seen Marvin Gaye on Central Avenue before he got famous," Paul Johnson said, remembering a time when celebrities weren't just tabloid fodder and the paparazzi had yet to reach fever pitch. "He was just real. People didn't act then like they do now."

The public housing units were regarded as some of Tampa's finest at the time. But Johnnie Johnson Jr., their father, kept his children grounded - Paul, Johnnie, their sister and another brother. He instilled in them a desire to get an education and an appreciation for what was theirs.

Children came over during holidays because the family always had a houseful of freshly baked pies and cakes.

"They swore we were rich kids," Paul Johnson said, "but my dad was just a hard worker."

Things began to change in the 1960s. One of the worst moments was when Chambers was killed. The community erupted.

Paul Johnson was 11, and he remembers the chaos. People making Molotov cocktails. People shooting out streetlamps to make it dark. Police officers everywhere.

His father whipped him for joining the protest. The next day, Paul Johnson sneaked out again, this time to watch the looting on Central Avenue. He remembers taking a ham so his family could have a nice meal. His father whipped him again, he said.

Chambers' brother still visits the Johnsons, Paul said. They sit on the porch and reminisce.

"Most of the people that talk about this area, they should talk to the people that lived it," said Johnnie Johnson. "We know the history, because we lived it."

Bound By Fate

By the '80s, Central Park Village had developed a bad reputation for drugs and crime.

The Johnson brothers sat on the porch with their father, watching in disbelief.

Children ran wild with no supervision. If anyone tried to discipline them, the parents would argue and want to fight. Kids started having kids. Respect all but vanished.

Still, they said, stereotypes weren't all that Central Park had to offer. The housing property produced lawyers, doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement officers.

"A lot of people came out of these projects," Paul Johnson said. "Everybody who came from here wasn't a drug dealer."

The brothers got married, had children of their own, moved to other parts of Tampa and then moved back. Paul supervised the dining room at Tampa's tony University Club. Today, he is an air conditioning technician at Tampa Park Apartments. Johnnie, now retired, built Formica countertops at a supply company.

"God had his fate for us to be right here," Paul Johnson said.

Now their homes, which sit side by side, are filled with the bustle of visiting children and grandchildren. Paul has seven children and 15 grandchildren. Johnnie has four kids of his own.

The neighborhood is back to being quiet. The buildings at Central Park Village are empty and boarded up, the 1,300-plus residents relocated to make way for the new development.

Those residents, however, will have first-option to move back once apartments are available.

Plans call for a mixture of affordable units. There are 270 apartments earmarked either as public housing or accepting federal Section 8 subsidy vouchers at the first two buildings to be constructed - the Ella (named for Ella Fitzgerald) and the Tempo. Those buildings are expected to open in 2009.

The new neighborhood will include a black history museum, a refurbished Perry Harvey Sr. Park, new street names such as Ray Charles Boulevard, and possibly a grocery store and hotel.

Paul Johnson said he hopes the new neighbors are respectful. Johnnie Johnson said he worries that the new housing won't be affordable enough for most blacks to move back.

"There will be some," he said, "but they will have to have money."

The Last To Leave

Demolition at Central Park began July 31.

Crews are working to clear the buildings by a November deadline. Housing officials said once demolition is complete at Armwood Court, the former senior housing at Central Park, the effort will shift to the interior buildings.

That means the buildings across from the Johnsons' property won't be knocked down until sometime in October.

The brothers already are planning for the day.

Paul Johnson said he wants to host a barbecue and invite former residents to his house to watch the buildings fall. He said he will roast a pig on the grill and hand out sodas and beer.

And when the wrecking ball starts wrecking, they will sit - where else - on the front porch to watch Central Park disappear.

"A lot of people say, 'Paul, you and Johnnie the only ones left,'" Paul Johnson said. "I'm going to have people come around here older than I am. I think it will mean as much to them as me to see history pass. Because that's what will happen - history will be gone."

Reporter John W. Allman can be reached at (813) 259-7915 or jallman@tampatrib.com.