We're having breakfast at one of our favorite spots this morning — The Seahorse in Pass-a-Grille, St. Pete Beach. Great diner food. The tables have postcards, news clippings, and other items under a layer of epoxy. I noticed this gem, which was right in front of me, after reading an article about Gene Shalit getting hit by a car down the street...in 1994.

The Aquatarium was an aquarium and performance center that literally occupied the ground on which our condo stands now. I went there as a kid with my grandparents.

Gene Shalit was ok, btw. Broken leg.

tags: stpetebeach passagrille aquatarium

photo posted by matt in Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Another photo, from the Florida Memory Project.

Required notice: This work is from the Florida Memory Project hosted at the State Archive of Florida, and is released to the public domain in the United States under the terms of Section 257.35(6), Florida Statutes.

tags: florida stpetebeach aquatarium

photo posted by matt in Monday, March 29, 2021

To complete the walk down memory lane, here's a shot from our balcony, looking straight down Beach Plaza. In the picture of the Aquatarium above, this is from inside the parking lot looking through the entrance to the parking lot at the bottom right of the photo, down the street.

tags: florida stpetebeach aquatarium

photo posted by matt in Monday, March 29, 2021

The story of the Florida Aquatarium is short and sad, but I'm sure people all over the world have fond memories of that place. I've always viewed it as an "in between" attraction—bigger than a roadside attraction, but not quite the destination attraction that Disney ushered in.

I think my grandparents took me there once as a kid, likely after it had become Shark World based on the dates and my age at the time. Weirdly, my dominant memory is of the distinctive radial parking lot.

Renee has memories of walking along the sea wall you see in the picture posted above.

The Aquatarium is old school, beach town Florida, for sure. I miss the simplicity of it a bit, and I say that as I sit on our balcony in the air above that old parking lot in the photo above.

tags: stpetebeach florida aquatarium

postposted by matt in Monday, March 29, 2021

Bill De Young's article on St. Pete Catalyst has the most detail on the Aquatarium I've been able to find online.

tags: stpetebeach florida aquatarium

posted by matt in Monday, March 29, 2021

Wikipedia has some details on the history of the Aquatarium, too.

tags: stpetebeach florida aquatarium

posted by matt in Monday, March 29, 2021

This article gives a brief history of the Aquatarium, and includes a couple of decent photos.

tags: stpetebeach florida aquatarium

posted by matt in Monday, March 29, 2021

There aren't many good photos available of the old Florida Aquatarium that used to sit on the property our condo is on now. I've found a couple over the years but not many. Tonight, we stopped in the "library" in the condo to find some good beach reads and I noticed this photo hanging in the corner. It's been there all along, I'm sure, but I've never noticed it before. I love it!

tags: florida stpetebeach aquatarium

photo posted by matt in Monday, March 29, 2021