Tampa Bay History Volume 25 Issue 1 Article 5 1-1-2011 Bucs, Rats, Downtown, and the Crosstown: Tampa in 1976 Travis Puterbaugh Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/tampabayhistory Recommended Citation Puterbaugh, Travis (2011) "Bucs, Rats, Downtown, and the Crosstown: Tampa in 1976," Tampa Bay History: Vol. 25 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/tampabayhistory/vol25/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Open Access Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Tampa Bay History by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Puterbaugh: Bucs, Rats, Downtown, and the Crosstown: Tampa in 1976 Tampa in 1976 43 Bucs, Rats, Downtown, and the Crosstown: Tampa in 1976 by Travis Puterbaugh In 1926, De Rhette Greene moved to Houston, Texas, from Tampa, Florida. Although he recalled Tampa as a charming and magical place, when Greene returned to Tampa fifty years later, he was shocked and appalled at how the city of his youth had changed. Franklin Street had been transformed into an outdoor shopping mall in a “pitiful and futile” attempt to revitalize the downtown core. Just across the Hillsborough River, the once beautiful sanctuary Plant Park had been “desecrated” by the addition of modern buildings. An “ugly, tacky and tasteless” suburban sprawl had all but destroyed the rural pleasures of Hillsborough County. Greene did like one thing, however, about modern Tampa. He called the Tampa International Airport the most beautiful and “functionally efficient” airport he had ever visited.