A Glorious Church

A Glorious Church, built c.1926, drawing in graphite, 2013 

Before I packed my bags and headed back to my homeland of Philadelphia I decided that I would use the time that I had (It seemed so abundant!) to draw some places in Florida and write about their history. I did this for two reasons. Reason A is purely selfish: I love to draw and after 4 years of art school where conceptual art became a daily mental chore, I yearned for the time when I could just go outside and sketch. Reason B is that drawing really does help me think. Observing a place for an extended period of time is a good way to contemplate the function of a place in the past and present.

Well, I did not finish the number of drawings I wished, but I did finish one. It is an abandoned church currently known as "A Glorious Church," words that are remnants still posted above the entrance. Located in Tarpon Springs, this building was constructed c. 1926 by the First Baptist Church congregation right on the bayou. The congregation has long since moved, the church being taken over and its insides altered in a failed attempt to repurpose the structure. In trying to figure out what role this place plays in the history of the area I went on something of a tangent, namely, how a place's ‘image’ is built.

Tarpon Springs is a city known for the sponge industry and the Greek population that primarily ran the sponge industry. As a student at Tarpon Springs Middle School I never, ever heard any history of the city that did not begin with Greek immigrants. Typically the history of the city I received goes something like this, ‘Well, there were people here before the Greeks, but they were mostly northerners with summer homes. The city only boomed once the Greeks got here and built up the sponge industry.’ This is partly true, the city did boom after the Greeks came. Yet, there is much more to the city than the image projected by the cities tourism district. “A Glorious Church” does not fit into the city’s history as it is commonly told. And it has been abandoned with not much of a foreseeable future.

While this is sad it makes me think of all the other places that have been left behind. Tarpon Springs is home to the oldest African American cemetery in Pinellas County. Rose Cemetery, a place that was never mentioned in my schooling days, was established before the Greek population arrived. Now in Philadelphia surrounded by places that have been abandoned and repurposed, I find myself asking the same questions on a much larger scale. 

These websites need some serious love, but for small, local establishments, they do their best.

Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society 

Rose Cemetery Website