Old Hyde Park Art Center Celebrates 50 Years as Art Center, Holding Huge Art Sale

Who:               Tampa Regional Artists (TRA)

What:              Celebration with food, hors d'oeuvres and entertainment featuring an impressive variety of art for sale created by the Tampa Regional Artists’ members

When:             November 22, 2019 from 6 pm – 9 pm

Where:           705 W. Swann, Tampa

Why:               Tampa Regional Artists’ building, called the Old Hyde Park Art Center, is celebrating its 50th year as an Art Center.  The public is encouraged to attend our Anniversary Celebration on November 22, 2019 from 6 to 9 PM, as well as to do holiday shopping at our art sale from November 19 to December 15.  We will have extended hours the weekend of November 23 and 24, from 10 to 5 PM.

Background:The Old Hyde Park Art Center has a long history as a civic structure and is one of the oldest extent structures in Hillsborough County.  It represents a type of civic structure that a city of Tampa’s size would have built at the turn of the century, and provides us with an example of the non-residential buildings that would have been in our neighborhood at that time.  It also illustrates the transition that Tampa undertook from town to city at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Note that while Tampa would have had a number of this type of vernacular civic structures during the late 19th and early 20th century, they have generally been lost over time.  The Old Hyde Park Art Center still exists due to its unique history as a re-purposed structure.

The building that is today known as the Old Hyde Park Art Center was originally built sometime in the very early 20th century and was located at Platt Street and Magnolia.  It was the original grammar school in the Hyde Park District, predating Gorrie Elementary (which was built in 1915).  As such, it is representative of the type of schools available in a town of that era.  When the first brick structure was built on the site of Gorrie Elementary, the wooden building today known as the Old Hyde Park Art Center was used as a lunchroom and library.  It was the site of the first hot lunches served to schoolchildren in Hillsborough County, as well as the first kindergarten.  

In the 1920, it was moved to its current location and served as the public library until 1968.  In 1969, it was purchased to TRA, and opened as the Old Hyde Park Art Center on October 19, 1969.  In 1982, TRA paid off the mortgage to the city of Tampa on its purchase of the Art Center building.