Point A to Point B: The Downtown St. Petersburg Edition

Let me digress for a moment:  I love The Globe Coffee Lounge in downtown St. Petersburg.  It is a funky, friendly café with an eclectic menu and a diverse clientele.  The owner, JoEllen Shilke, is smart and vibrant and a strong supporter of local arts.  I think every community needs more JoEllens and more Globes.

So when Julie and I went to an event at the Globe this week, I decided to make that my next experiment with Tampa Bay Area transit.  I rode PSTA (Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority); one bus, no transfer needed.  Downtown is easily accessible by bus as many of PSTA's routes pass through there.

(Point A to Point B: My route)

The distance from my house to the Globe is 8 miles.  The entire trip, including wait time, took me 58 minutes; compared to Google's estimate of 47 minutes.  (I could have reduced my wait time by 10 minutes but since I'm not familiar with PSTA's on-time record I decided to play it safe and get to the bus stop a little early.)  Exactly 6 minutes of that time was walking from my house to the bus stop; that matches Google's estimate of the walking time.  Driving from Point A to Point B is 20-30 minutes, depending on traffic.

(The view from the bus)

• I wrote previously about my belief that we do not sufficiently fund transit in the Tampa Bay Area.  I think PSTA does very good work with the resources available to them.  On this particular trip the bus was clean, comfortable and on time.

• I'm not wild about PSTA's route maps.  They show a few landmarks but the maps do not show routes in the context of streets, or even with a conventional north-south orientation.  I don't feel these maps are very welcoming to new transit users.

• On the other hand, I do like PSTA's web site.  I find it easy to navigate.  You can purchase tickets online with a $2 handling fee.  Fare and route information are all easy to find.  And Google trip planner is incorporated into the home page.

• A coalition of organizations, including PSTA, operates trolleys that cover downtown St. Petersburg.  The fare is only $0.25.  However, these trolleys only operate until 5PM Sunday through Thursday (later on Friday and Saturday); this is of limited use to people who work a conventional weekday schedule and want to visit downtown in the evening.

• Be careful to look at every suggested route when using Google trip planner.  In my case, Google offered three suggested routes and the third route was the most efficient.

(The Globe)

Where to see a movie in a small town

Well Saturday night about eight o'clock

I know what I'm gonna do

I'm gonna pick my baby up

And take her to the picture show

The Drifters

When I was a child, I didn't realize the Castle Theater was such a unique place.  The Castle is a real movie theater, at the time the only theater in my hometown of New Castle, Indiana (there is a drive-in just outside of town).  It opened in 1935, before the days of metroplex shoeboxes where the sound from one microtheater leaks into the next.  I saw some of my favorite movies there, including the original Star Wars in 1977.  As I've written before, I've only returned to New Castle three times in the last twenty-one years.  On the last visit Julie and I saw American Wedding at the Castle.  The movie was forgettable, but Julie was impressed by the Castle and I couldn't help feeling proud that my hometown could sustain such a nice theater.

Except, it almost couldn't.  The Castle closed in January.  It was a real shock to many of us who grew up there.  The good news is the Castle is scheduled to open in March under new ownership.  I admire the new owners but I don't envy them; operating the only movie screen in a small city can't be easy.

I lived one terrible year in Stockton, in the Central Valley of California.  One of the few things I liked about Stockton was the Empire Theater, another historic movie theater.  They often showed classic films and I saw The Godfather there.  Some folks suggested the classic film route for the Castle.  I like the idea, but I don't know if New Castle has the population (18,339 in 2008) to sustain such a niche business.

Part of what defines a place is the kind of businesses it attracts and retains.  Cheap consumer electronics and a global trend toward urbanization haven't been kind to small towns and their movie theaters.  Movies are one of the things America has always done well and many of our fondest memories are what movies we saw, the theaters we saw them in, and who we saw them with.  A night at the movies is local entertainment that is culturally unifying whether we're in a theater in Newton, Iowa, or Middletown, Connecticut, or New Castle, Indiana.  Every small town theater that closes causes a disconnect bigger than the business itself.

The good news is that the Castle Theater will open again.  Maybe this is not a great thing in the grand scheme of economics.  But I'm relieved because in a world that changes more rapidly all the time, the theater's presence is a constant that links several generations.  And I hope for the best when the Castle reopens, because while the movies are still good, the movie theaters have really gone downhill.  And the Castle is a great theater.