JULY/AUGUST 2021 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 101
The January/February 2001 cover of the magazine
featured the painting You Are What You Read,
by artist Jim Warren.
The September/October 2001 cover of the
magazine was an image taken by celebrity
photographer Dick Zimmerman.
It is hard to believe, especially for us, that Tampa
Bay Magazine is middle-aged. When we began
the venture in 1986, we thought a regional
magazine might be an effective way to unify the
area into a region called Tampa Bay. We believed by
promoting Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater
as one metropolitan area, the three cities and
adjoining areas would benefit. Little did we realize
that eventually four professional sports teams –
the Buccaneers, the Rays, the Lightning and the
Rowdies – would take on the name Tampa Bay. Yet
the greatest affirmation was when the St. Petersburg
Times changed its name to the Tampa Bay Times.
It may have taken 35 years, but the Tampa Bay
area is now the second largest Area of Dominate
Influence (ADI) south of Atlanta, only slightly
behind the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. Our
estimated 2020 population of over 3.2 million
represents an increase of more than 16% since 2010,
and we are growing rapidly every day. We have
watched and recorded our area while it grew and
morphed into the community it is today.
Many things have stayed the same, but over the
years, the gradual changes have been remarkable.
Thirty-five years ago, Tampa’s Channelside (now
Sparkman Wharf) was a dream. So were the
Riverwalk and the Performing Arts Center (now
the Straz Center). Dunedin was a dusty two-block
long Main Street, and Beach Drive in St. Petersburg
was desolate with the Vinoy being abandoned, and
the one high-rise condominium virtually empty.
As Margaret and I sit here in our twilight years,
we look forward to coming to work every day.
During COVID-19, we never missed a deadline
and pivoted the editorial copy to accommodate the
times, the quarantine and its impact on lifestyles
and the economy. Sections such as Social Seens
and Celebrity Travelers temporarily disappeared,
but we continued to find new and different articles
and features to keep our more than 350,000 readers
engaged. In fact, during the pandemic, readership
went up, as people had more time to relax and
enjoy simple pleasures such as reading the pages of
the publication.