The waters of the Hillsborough River gently lap at the shore, a soothing sound. Stands of trees suggest an urban enclave, an oasis of sorts. A grass carpet covers the riverbanks, lush, green and inviting.

Heeding the call is but one man, dressed in dirty clothes, seemingly homeless.

Overhead, watching from their plane windows as they descend to Tampa International Airport, passengers have the sense that they will land not on runway but on water. From the air, Tampa seems almost to float in it, dotted by countless lakes and ponds, cradled by its bays, sliced up the middle by its river.

But touching down, it's land they see. The sun-splashed, sparkling water recedes.

Counting its bayfront and river, its lakes, ponds, canals and marshes, Hillsborough County has an estimated 500 miles of shoreline. In a place that often seems disjointed and at odds with itself, as previous stories in this series have shown, the water serves as one of our few defining characteristics, a siren that has intoxicated us and drawn us near.

``For the past 100 years or longer we've been utterly fascinated by the beach and the water,'' says Gary Mormino, a historian and professor at the University of South Florida. ``Some argue it's a prenatal urge, an attempt to return to the comfort of the womb.

``It's cool, it's sensual, and especially when it comes to the beach, it's even slightly naughty.''

For decades and in droves, we have succumbed to the call.

Yet, in Tampa, many of us seem inexplicably cut off from the water, untouched by its stunning beauty.

John Ovink, born and raised in the Netherlands, was charmed by Tampa, deciding after traveling the world that he would make his home here, a place he calls ``the hippie town that never grew up.''

But he would learn that Tampa holds a great secret.

``It took me awhile to realize that there was a river here,'' he says. ``The river is extremely well hidden.''

If we've ignored our waters and taken them for granted, dumping our waste in them and building structures that block their striking vistas, a new sensibility seems to be taking hold.

A ``blueways'' plan is emerging that maps out routes for kayakers and canoeists to paddle the hidden nooks and crannies of our shores. A downtown riverwalk is in the works that will link parks, some lush and green and unused, some still in the imagination. Tampa's shipping channels, long looked upon as nothing more than unlovely passageways between the docks and the sea, are beginning to evoke a dream of something better, a place where people will gather, live and play. And we finally are building waterfront structures with windows to take in the view.

Tampa teeters at a critical cusp in its history. The decisions we make now - about growth, transportation, leadership, the economy - will profoundly influence life here for generations to come. And so we also must choose whether we will sustain and nurture our connection to the water that still calls us near.

If all the talk comes to something, if all the planning succeeds, the result could be a waterfront - along the river and around the port - that dramatically enhances our quality of life, attracts others and adds sparkle to Tampa's reputation.

But do nothing, some warn, and we will have missed another opportunity - something we have done often enough - that may not come our way again.

Finding Role Models

For role models, Tampa can look to other cities - some with much less water access and much less natural beauty - that nonetheless spotted the potential decades ago and began developing whatever waterfront they possessed as tourist attractions, vehicles for economic development and points of civic pride.

Baltimore took a crime-ridden, rat-infested harbor and crafted a stunning waterfront area beginning in the 1960s. Tourists flock to its Inner Harbor, which features a trendsetting aquarium and reproductions of old sailing ships. City leaders estimate its economic effect at $500 million a year.

Meanwhile, cities such as Chattanooga, Tenn., and Jacksonville have revitalized their downtown riverfronts with tourist attractions, riverwalks and waterside living. Virtually every one of these cities claims a tax revenue benefit in the tens of millions of dollars and a broader economic effect of hundreds of millions.

But for a long time, Tampa just didn't seem to get it.

``The most mystifying thing is how little regard the city has had for its water over the last 100 years,'' Mormino says. ``They had this wonderful resource, and they just ignored it.''

Part of the explanation lies in the city's history as a brawny, blue-collar town that needed its bay and river for business, transporting phosphate from its nearby mines and receiving raw materials for its burgeoning industries.

Through the years, Tampa as a working-class town treated its waterways as its tools - useful, serviceable, dependable. If they became battered, dirty and ugly in the process, no matter, as long as they got the job done.

St. Petersburg could have its white beaches for playing; Tampa's water worked for a living.

Virgil Jacobs personifies the quiet dignity of that part of our heritage. For 40 years, he has toiled in the salty air of Tampa's shipyards, starting as a laborer at $1.28 an hour in 1964.

``I cleaned the tanks, cleaned the ships, cleaned the docks,'' he says.

His devotion to a task, his disregard for the backbreaking nature of his labor and his respect for an honest day's work kept him moving up through the ranks. In 1972, he became the revered dockmaster at Tampa Bay Shipbuilding and Repair Co.

``When I took the job, they told me I would have to work holidays, work weekends, work when everybody else was gone,'' he says. ``I promised them I would. I'm a man of my word. I promised them I wouldn't leave, that I would stay as long as I needed to feel good that the job was done right.''

Now in his late 60s, Jacobs promises to stay on as long as he can. When a health concern made getting around the sprawling shipyard difficult, his boss bought him his own golf cart.

Born and raised in dry- docked Oklahoma, Jacobs was sent to Tampa as a young man by his union when his work as a plasterer dried up.

``I did not like the place,'' he says of his first impression of the shipyard. ``Too hot, too dirty. Even now, you see no grass, no pretty flowers. Just dusty.''

Indeed, the shipyard is a grungy, noisy place, home to cranes hauling heavy metal, sweating men, rickety fences and rusty debris pulled from ships that mean business.

As dockmaster, Jacobs is charged with assessing the exact dimensions of the undersides of huge vessels and building a dry-dock cradle for each. One miscalculation can mean disaster.

``When a ship is coming in at night, I always wake up when it's due with a nightmare - the dockmaster's nightmare,'' he says. ``It's my job to worry about the safety of the ship, the safety of the dock, the safety of the crew. I've never had a ship to turn over. God has blessed me.''

Business Trumped Pleasure

Working men such as Jacobs have been drawn here for more than a century by the promise of steady work fueled by Tampa's proximity to the water. The irony of the area's waterways, Mormino says, is that for many years it was Tampa, not St. Petersburg, that was considered lucky because of its topography.

``For so long, Hillsborough was the place that seemed blessed,'' he says. ``It had a good port, a good river. Pinellas had nothing but worthless sand.''

Only in the past several decades has beachfront property become Florida's glittering lure to those from afar.

Sam Mirabella grew up in the working-class milieu of Tampa, and he adopted its values. For him, the water not only was the source of his family's livelihood but a constant companion. He swam in it, fished in it, explored it in boats.

Today, he shares his love of the water with his grandchildren, passing along the family heritage of fishing. For them, it is sport. For generations of the Mirabella family, it was life.

Mirabella's inextricable link to the sea began before he was born, when his grandparents immigrated here in the late 1800s. Sebastian and Conchetta Mirabella of Catania, Sicily, soon set about selling fish from a wagon to hungry Tampa dockworkers. In 1895, the couple built a fish house fronting the Hillsborough River alongside the Platt Street Bridge.

The Mirabella Fish Co. would support the family for decades.

``Dad and Mama were very young when their families came here,'' says Mirabella, who grew up just two blocks from the river. ``We were raised on fish and spaghetti.''

By the time his father's parents arrived in Tampa, the port was a busy, rough-hewn place short of creature comforts, shipping out phosphate, palmetto logs, turpentine and cedar. Unloaded were beans, bullets and tobacco for the growing cigar industry in Ybor City.

Railroad offices and gritty warehouses sprang up along the riverbanks; the dirt that was turned for them was dumped into the water. Wastes - citric acid from discarded orange peels, sulfur, human excrement - added to the malodorous stew.

``Tampa absolutely surrendered to business,'' Mormino says.

The Mirabella fish house grew with the city, adding three fishing boats and riverside picnic tables where downtown workers in the 1930s and '40s enjoyed lunches of fresh snapper, grouper and deviled crab. The fishermen who harvested the seafood from the Bay and Gulf typically held some back, Mirabella recalls, to give to the poor who clustered at the port.

As a boy, Mirabella liked to swim in the river near the Cass Street Bridge.

``I never tried to swim across it, though,'' he says, his persona still as crusty as the town of his boyhood. ``Can't say the same for the rats.''

The days when rats ruled the river may have been its low point. The water was filthy, the shoreline a wasteland. The rats were everywhere. ``Rats along the river grew as big as cats,'' says Marie Mirabella, Sam's wife. ``There were rats galore. You can bet they're still there. River rats never give up.''

Pristine Beginnings

Long before rats and industry claimed it, the place where the Hillsborough River flowed into Hillsborough Bay was bucolic, pristine, and rich in wildlife and vegetation. Native people gathered in primitive settlements not far from the shore, harvested shellfish, and made nets and spears to catch turtles, bass and mullet. They lived in palm-thatched shelters built on piles of discarded seashells.

Change began when Spanish explorers arrived during the 1500s, bringing with them Old World diseases that soon wiped out the natives. Next came settlers - a trickle, initially, that broadened into a stream after the U.S. Army built Fort Brooke in 1824.

It wasn't until the 1950s, during the administrations of former Mayors Nick Nuccio and Julian Lane, that Tampa began trying to undo the unchecked industrial growth that eventually followed.

The first obstacle was persuading the owners of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad to sell their land on the riverfront. Stung by complaints about phosphate trains disrupting downtown traffic, the railroad bosses refused to negotiate at first. But then W. Thomas Rice became president of the ACL.

``Yeah, Nick got ol' man Rice to make a deal,'' Mirabella recalls, with a chuckle. ``But everybody called it `The Great Train Robbery.' ''

The railroad sold the city an 18-acre tract stretching from Kennedy Boulevard north to Cass Street for $4.4 million. The land was cleared, the old warehouses leveled. Old- timers still shudder when recalling the frantic exodus of millions of river rats driven from their nooks and crannies.

``Now, there was a time when Tampa had a blank slate,'' Mormino says. ``If ever there was a moment to do something with the river, that was the time.''

But the opportunity was lost.

In the early 1960s, ground was broken for the $6 million Curtis Hixon Convention Center, heralded by civic leaders as the riverfront bellwether of Tampa's progress and forward-thinking prowess.

``To be fair, they tried to do something good there with the convention center,'' Mormino says. ``But it was Danish modern, just horrible. They also built two parking garages on the river.''

Other buildings followed that were almost as plain and uninspiring: the Holiday Inn Ashley Plaza, the IBM building at Kennedy Boulevard and Ashley Drive, the library at Cass and Ashley.

Elsewhere, along some of the most picturesque spots on the river, public housing was erected.

Mirabella, who served on the Tampa City Council for 12 of those years, is proud of the work done to improve the waterfront.

``We cleaned it up,'' he says.

Not Following Examples

It took a city half a continent away - San Antonio, Texas - to show Tampa how much more a river could be.

San Antonio already had the Alamo, well established as a tourist draw. But its river was an eyesore - shallow, muddy, seedy and a magnet for all kinds of crime. The city's leaders hired the designers of Disney World to revive it.

They built a riverwalk first, then began requiring riverside buildings to conform to certain design standards. Next came extensive landscaping and a riverfront hotel.

By the 1970s, San Antonio's Paseo Del Rio had become a honeymoon destination of choice for newlyweds who sipped frozen drinks to the beat of mariachi bands, sharing the river view with families munching enchiladas after a day at the Alamo. The city bustled, night and day.

One Tampa delegation after another went to look at it, thinking we should do something similar. But the idea went nowhere.

Reflecting the viewpoint of the time, Mirabella today doesn't quite understand what they found so appealing.

``Our river just isn't that nice,'' he says. ``It's sure not like San Antonio's.''

Bill Poe, Tampa's mayor from 1974 to 1979, remembers the buzz about the Paseo Del Rio.

``It was a hot thing to do, everybody would go look at it,'' he recalls. ``I never saw it.''

But that decade was not a time for weaving dreams.

``In the '70s, the economy was bad,'' Poe says. ``Interest rates were 16 percent. Unemployment here in Tampa was 11 percent.''

The no-frills focus had to be on what the city needed to pull through.

Poe did oversee the construction of the Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park near downtown, with the aim, he says, of giving those living in the nearby public housing project someplace to go. It often goes unused.

``Part of that is my fault,'' he says. ``I tried to do it like a yacht club. I wanted to do something special for the projects. The stupidest thing I ever did was put in a shuffleboard court. I'm not sure why the hell we put that in there.

``But I still think the idea of having a first-class place for the projects folks to go was a good one.''

The city also collected more than 1,700 wooden planks bearing the names of donors and used them to build a walkway across the river from the University of Tampa's Plant Park.

It was torn down a decade later.

``I still have the one with my name on it somewhere,'' Poe says.

Meanwhile, if it occurred to anyone in this period that the port also might hold promise, there is no record of it. Nothing drew the eye there. It was a world of crowded docks, rusting freighters and squat tugs. A visionary might have been inspired by it. But in those days in Tampa, dreamers were as scarce as money.

So the port continued to work. The promise of the river went unfulfilled. And once again, opportunity passed us by.

Beer-Can Criticism

As controversies go, Poe's shuffleboard court was nothing compared with the 31-story cylindrical structure that looms over the river at Kennedy Boulevard and Ashley Drive downtown. For 20 years now, it has been one of Tampa's most contentious waterfront projects.

It has had more than one official name in that time - most recently, 400 North Ashley. But it will forever be known by the derogatory moniker ``the beer-can building.''

Plans for it were announced with fanfare in 1984. Soon, however, then-Mayor Bob Martinez was resoundingly criticized for privately negotiating the sale of the publicly owned riverfront property to a bank, NCNB Corp. of Charlotte, N.C.

Its elongated beer-can shape, its difficult parking and its squatting pose on prized waterfront land led to more criticism. The addition of a busy yellow, black and white aluminum sculpture out front stoked the derision. When the sculptor left it unnamed, inviting the public to make of it what they would, it quickly became known as ``The Exploding Chicken.''

``If ever there was a mistake, it's the NCNB building,'' Mormino says. ``It's totally out of scale there.''

Other downtown buildings along the water also would take little advantage of it. Blake High School overlooks one of the river's loveliest stretches, but unless its students are blessed with X-ray vision to see through the brick walls, they wouldn't know it. Some rooms in The Tampa Museum of Art have no windows. In meeting rooms at the Tampa Convention Center, built on Franklin Street in 1990, only 2,000 square feet out of 600,000 have a waterfront view.

The News Center, home of The Tampa Tribune and WFLA, News Channel 8, offers lovely views of the river, with a fourth-floor terrace looking down on it. But the complex blocks the water views and access for passers-by.

``The Trib,'' Mormino says, ``has done a terrible job of taking advantage of the water.''

But change is coming. Some already is here.

That riverwalk through downtown, hashed over and bandied about for three decades, has been deemed the top priority of Mayor Pam Iorio.

The Tampa Port Authority, after launching the shopping and entertainment district known as Channelside, is talking with developers about other projects on neighboring land it owns.

New lofts and high-rises overlooking the bay and the river are in the works.

Reviving Parks

Iorio envisions a walkway along the eastern side of the river, linking Tampa Heights with the waterfront. It would connect to existing riverwalk sections beside Hixon Park, the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, the Tampa Convention Center and the Tampa Marriott Waterside.

The project, expected to cost $7.5 million to $12 million, would be carved out of future city budgets one segment at a time over the next five years.

Two new parks also are planned, one of them on the former site of the Mirabella family's fish house.

Some inviting parks already exist along the river. But until they are linked by the riverwalk or other trails, they are islands - virtually hidden, difficult to reach and thus seldom visited.

Waterworks Park, behind the new Stetson Law School branch and until recently an overgrown mess, has been cleared. But it has no parking and is difficult to find - except by the homeless. Iorio envisions a canoe launch there.

Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park, on the former site of Fort Brooke and near the Marriott, has an impressive design and detailed monuments describing the area's history. But its playground sits unused. Unless children happen to be staying at the hotel, they have no way to walk to it, and their parents are unlikely to try to navigate the parking and traffic hassles to get there. The park showed promise this year, however, attracting throngs for an Asian festival and ``Dragon Boat'' races.

Riverfront Park, long ignored, is getting a second wind. The West Tampa branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs will move there in June. And the city is leasing land at the park, at North Boulevard and Laurel Street, to a foundation that will build the Tampa Water Sports Center, offering rowing, canoeing, kayaking and water safety programs. Completion is two years away.

Riverfront rocked on Sundays throughout the summer with a boisterous outdoor party attracting thousands.

At first, a small core met for a weekly barbecue, says organizer John Young, who grew up nearby. But the city frowned on that use of the park. This year, police showed up with beanbag guns while helicopters circled overhead.

``They want everybody to use the parks except us black people,'' Young says. ``We don't need the police standing around like babysitters.''

So he and his friends complained before the city council. Perhaps remembering riverfront gatherings that ended in gang fights in the late 1970s, however, city officials said they have an obligation to ensure public safety and continued to keep a presence.

Building Connections

The city also is developing a massive ``greenways'' plan to connect people and parks, especially along the waterfront. Among these are proposals for new trails and improvements at McKay Bay, the Hillsborough River, Bayshore Boulevard and south Tampa.

``We imagine a child on a bike getting on a trail, riding to a public park or the library, not getting on a school bus or having to depend on a parent to take them to soccer practice,'' says Mary Ellen Duke, who started in January in a new position as the city's greenways and trails coordinator.

Other access to Tampa's waters is in private hands. Unlike St. Petersburg, which has turned its side of the bay into a mix of parks, restaurants and entertainment venues, Tampa's access to Old Tampa Bay on its west side primarily is limited to those who own houses or rent apartments there.

Additionally, seven miles of prime shoreline wrapping around the southern tip of Tampa is enclosed within the high-security confines of MacDill Air Force Base, accessible only by those with military identification. Most of that waterfront is undeveloped, although a small beach and marina are available for military personnel.

Virtually the only nod to a sandy shore in Tampa is Ben T. Davis Beach, which was created when the Courtney Campbell Parkway was dredged and turned into a private toll road in 1934. Originally intended as a beach for blacks when they were banned from using ``whites only'' beaches, it now has a reputation as party central for locals without the money for a condo or hotel room on Clearwater Beach.

Some worry that a series of planned high-dollar waterfront condos along the river and bay in Tampa will further distance from the water those without the big bucks for a penthouse view.

Ovink, the former Netherlander who decided to make Tampa his home after traveling the world, offers a philosophical take.

``I think it's good when people with a lot of money move into waterfront property. Why? Because they are the ones with a lot of clout. When the river is filthy and the same Styrofoam cup keeps floating back and forth in front of their condo, the city will listen when they complain.''

Ovink, who serves as chairman of the River Roundtable, a coalition of river advocates and government representatives, says progress has been made in efforts to clean up the river and bay.

``It's true that Tampa has always been a working town,'' he says. ``Beauty comes after basic needs are satisfied. Maybe that's where we are now.''

A Bright Spot

If parts of Tampa's waterfront seem forever lost to many of us, one area has seen dramatic change. It's a stretch bisected by Garrison Channel, the downtown waterway that parallels the westernmost end of Channelside Drive.

To its north is the Channel District - anchored by The Florida Aquarium, cruise terminals, and the retail and entertainment venture called The Shops at Channelside.

Across the way is Harbour Island, once a smelly spoil ground that's now crowded with tony homes and exudes an almost European ambience.

A little to the west is Bayshore Boulevard, whose residents still maintain its carefully cultivated and preserved beauty.

To help this part of town take off, former Mayor Dick Greco about 10 years ago began attracting big-name developers to the swath of land running along the city's edge from the Hillsborough River eastward to the port, then northward to Ybor City.

Meanwhile, the port authority moved unsightly warehouses and shipbuilding companies from the downtown waterfront, clearing the way for more tourist-friendly venues.

Garrison Channel isn't the area's most beautiful point of contact between land and water. But the decision-makers figured its potential could be realized quickly and easily.

The genesis of the district can be traced to 1945, after the port's emergence as a World War II shipbuilding center. When the war ended and shipbuilding slumped, the port began to decay. The port authority was born to rebuild the area.

In the years since, the authority has come to rely less on shipbuilding and increasingly is wooing the cruise and container cargo shipping industries. During the past 10 years, cruise ships have become a major source of revenue - $28.8 million in 2003.

What is emerging from all this is a shopping and sightseeing magnet, moored to a part of Tampa's waterside deep enough for the cruise ships to dock, surrounded by what the city hopeswill become a trendsetting neighborhood of lofts, artists' studios, cafes and other attractions.

Jeff Hunsaker is betting on the area's ultimate success - not with a hulking tanker or flashy cruise ship but with an ephemeral concoction of sugar, cream and ``mix-ins.'' The entrepreneur left a job in Napa Valley's wine industry to start a Cold Stone Creamery ice cream franchise at The Shops at Channelside.

``We're really counting on all that development, all those condos,'' he says. ``To be honest, we're kind of slow during the week, although we're really busy on the weekend. But I think we're going to take off in a couple of years.''

The port authority has a 10- year plan calling for the construction of a new cruise terminal, as well as improving existing cruise terminal facilities for a ferry service to Mexico.

It's also anticipating a tripling of the size of its cruise business over the next few years and a 30 percent increase in its cargo business.

Change And Consequences

There will be consequences, of course. One may be a land squeeze between 2008 and 2011.

Traditional maritime businesses, such as shipbuilding and repair services, are concerned that their uglier, less tourist-friendly workplaces will be bumped in favor of commercial and residential projects. They have drawn themselves into a 65-company alliance to protect their interests.

Dockmaster Jacobs is uneasy about those who would like to shoo the likes of him and his work from Tampa's waterways to make room for tourists, for views uncluttered by the type of muscular work that has built and defined the city for so long.

``For a while there, I thought the cruise ships were going to run us off,'' he says. ``But we need a shipyard. My life is here. This is all I know - shipyard.''

Hunsaker, however, longs for more dockside tourists with coins in their pockets and a hankering for ice cream.

``There's so much excitement when people stop by here on their way to a cruise,'' he says. ``The water brings that festive atmosphere.''

Unlike many downtown workers, whose only view of the water is a hasty glance off a bridge while dodging traffic, Hunsaker savors his proximity to the water.

``Sometimes, on the way to work, I'm not in the best of moods. I'm cranky,'' he says. ``Then I see that water, and it really brings me around.''

If Jacobs has established a comfortable marriage with the water, if Hunsaker is filled with a growing infatuation with it, Ovink is a man in love.

The Netherlander and his wife share a small cottage on the river; they were married on its waters aboard a borrowed pontoon boat.

``I have seen a drastic change in the way we view our waterfront,'' he says. ``I believe the riverwalk is finally going to happen. I believe the wildlife already is coming back - the ibis, the egret, the manatee.

``I think, finally, people are really beginning to say, `This is our river! This is our heart.' ''

If the Hillsborough River is Tampa's heart, its sparkling bays, rivers, ponds and canals are its life blood, nurturing its industries and inspiring its dreams.

As a historian, Mormino has pondered the city's often paradoxical way of looking at its waterways and the ways we have - and have not - capitalized on them. He also knows that, like a flashing minnow caught in a child's hand, that potential easily could slip through our fingers again.

``I think we're witnessing a titanic shift in the way we see our waters,'' he says. ``I cannot wait to see where it ends. But sometimes I wonder if we're already too late.''

Researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Reporter Donna Koehn can be reached at (813) 259-8264.