{"id":355328,"date":"2026-07-28T20:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/355328\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T20:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:33:07","slug":"historically-st-pete-the-incredible-story-of-downtown-st-petes-99-year-old-ymca-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/355328\/","title":{"rendered":"Historically St. Pete: The incredible story of downtown St. Pete\u2019s 99-year-old YMCA building"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Built across Fifth Street from the newly completed Florida Power Building, the YMCA was an architectural beauty from the moment it opened. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">As striking as its exterior was \u2014 and remains \u2014 it was the activities and amenities within its walls that made the building the city\u2019s most popular recreational facility for decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The YMCA housed a full-size gymnasium that accommodated basketball, judo, boxing, gymnastics, wrestling, volleyball, and badminton. It also featured locker rooms, a weightlifting area, and an indoor running track.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Beneath these facilities, in the basement, was one of the largest indoor swimming pools in the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">It also provided reading rooms, dining facilities, and 54 dormitory rooms for men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Team athletics were also a big part of the YMCA. In 1956, the St. Pete Y gymnastics team won the national championship in New Orleans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Built across Fifth Street from the newly completed Florida Power Building, the YMCA was an architectural beauty from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-355328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}