Introduction to St. Petersburg, Florida
Founded in 1876, St. Petersburg is part of the Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan statistical area.
Access to higher learning is available in St. Petersburg at Eckerd College, a private liberal arts school and at campuses of University of South Florida, a public university, and St. Petersburg College, a local community college.
St. Petersburg weather can be characterized as a year round tropical climate. July and August are the hottest months of the year with average daily temperatures reaching 90 degrees. January is the coolest month, with average daily temperatures of 69 degrees.
St. Petersburg Arts and Entertainment
St. Petersburg has many arts and entertainment attractions. Some of the more significant attractions include:
- The American Stage.
- Baywalk (an entertainment and shopping area in downtown St. Pete).
- The Dr. Carter G Woodson African-American Museum.
- The Florida Holocaust Museum.
- The Florida International Museum.
- Great Explorations, The Children's Museum.
- The Historic Coliseum Ballroom.
- The Museum of Fine Arts.
- The Salvador Dal Museum.
- The St. Petersburg Museum of History.
- The Sunken Gardens.
- The Mahaffey Theater.
- The Palladium Theater.
- The Pier (A waterfront landmark).
- The St. Petersburg Little Theater.
- The Ted Williams Baseball Museum.
- Tropicana Field (Home of the Devil Rays).
St. Petersburg's tropical weather make it an ideal home to many outdoor festivals every year. The city hosts more than 1,000 annual events and festivals including American Stage in the Park, the Art Arbor Nature Crafts Festival, the Cajun/Zydeco Crawfish Festival, Earth Day’s Green Thumb Festival and more. These annual ongoing music and art festivals fill the seven-miles of preserved downtown waterfront recreation areas and pack the city's streets and waterfront with seasonal parades. The city is also home to the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, an Indycar series car race.
Residents of St. Petersburg also have easy access to all of the arts and entertainment offerings of Tampa Bay, just across the bay.
For the sports minded, St. Petersburg is home to Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Devil Rays who play downtown at Tropicana Field. Nearby Tampa Bay is also home to the Arena Football League's (AFL) Tampa Bay Storm, the National Hockey League's (NHL) Tampa Bay Lightning and the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
