Coming Home To Say Farewell

By JOHN W. ALLMAN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Oct 7, 2007

TAMPA - They came for one last look, to reflect on a lifetime of memories made, to see old friends and faces from the past.

For 53 years, thousands of families called Central Park Village home.

For just as long, the Johnson brothers, Paul and Johnnie III, lived across the street in two houses their father bought, watching history unfold.

That history soon will be gone.

Paul and Johnnie didn't want to let an era come to a close without celebration, though. So on Saturday, they invited generations of family, friends and former residents to come over to East Scott Street and say goodbye.

The Tampa Housing Authority and Bank of America are partnering on a new mixed-income, mixed-use community called Encore, which will combine affordable and federally subsidized housing with market-rate condominiums and amenities such as a grocery store and possible hotel.

Most of the two-story apartment buildings already have been demolished. The ones across from the brothers' homes still stand, if only for a few weeks more.

The guests picked at one another and told stories. Stories that most of Tampa might otherwise never know.

This is where the gopher truck used to make its run, back when mothers and grandmothers still could buy gopher turtles for $1 apiece to feed a hungry household.

This is where they say they watched a Central Park teen-ager outrun Florida A&M University's fastest man on earth, the late Bob Hayes, while he was still in college.

This is where Martin Chambers was shot and killed in 1967, a turning point for Tampa's then-thriving black community.

The brothers set up tents and a television for football games. They put up "The Party's Here!" signs and hoisted tubs of cold beer and soda down the block.

And they cooked. And cooked.

Johnnie, 53, watched as his sister Geraldine Wilson of Miami took over his kitchen, prepping a secret fish recipe she got from a Jamaican neighbor. Outside on the front porch, his son, Johnnie Johnson Jr., cooked a steaming pot of gumbo full of whole crabs, corn on the cob, sausage and shrimp as big as a fist.

Next door, Paul, 51, left a whole pig on the grill to smoke all day.

"You ever hear the expression 'the last damn party'?" he asked. "This is the last damn party."

Cars lined up early. Few people arrived empty-handed. And everyone took the opportunity to reflect.

Leroy Johnson, Johnnie and Paul's cousin, spent 50 years at Central Park, moving there when he was 8 years old. He was recently relocated by the housing authority. The move hasn't been easy.

"When you grow up around people like that all them years, you grow attached to them. Then they scatter them," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "It's like separation of your family, your roots. You feel it. You kind of grieve about it, but you got to understand things change."

Wiley Kelly, 52, spent 12 years at Central Park, from 1963 to 1975. He remembers the parade before the annual Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman University football game. The route stretched along Central Avenue and Scott Street.

Kelly worries that Central Park's razing is one more step by the city to erase Tampa's black roots. The surrounding community, known as The Scrubs, was founded by freed slaves after the Civil War. It was a place for those seeking something of their own.

He fears that the new housing to come will be too pricey for all to enjoy.

"You can't sell Tampa only to people with money," he said. "Not everyone has money."

More and more people arrived, more than 50 by 5 p.m. David Thomas Jr., who grew up one street north in a line of shotgun houses former residents called the "Iron Curtain," asked people to grab hands and pray.

He offered thanks in the memory of Central Park and all the residents no longer living.

Then the eating began.

"This is something people don't do anymore. No one knows their neighbors," said Maxine Watson of Atlanta, who is the cousin of Paul's wife, Jackie. "That's what I admire about Paul."

It was a day as much for Central Park as for the faces the brothers had known all their lives.

Where others might see a blight about to be scrubbed clean, Saturday's crowd saw something beautiful that always had been and hopefully would be again.

"After this, ain't nobody going to be around. This is just a heritage to us. It's our childhood and it's gone," Paul Johnson said. "We're just going to let them know how we do it."

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