BY MIRANDA BORCHARDT AND BRIANNA ENDERS
NNB Reporters
MIDTOWN — Teresa Williams stood on the balcony of the historic Swain Apartments looking out onto The Deuces, 22nd Street South.
Before the interstate, the desolate street was a hub of activity.
“They say it used to be hopping back then,” she said.
The interstate was built through the community in the late 1960s, forcing residents to relocate, “it became a dead area,” Williams said.
Williams is the property manager of the business and apartments at the corner of 22nd Street and 15th Avenue South. She inherited this responsibility from her parents, William and Annette Howard, the current owners who are no longer able to maintain the buildings due to health conditions.
Annette, a member of the 22nd Street Redevelopment Corporation, suffered a stroke in 2010.
“(The community group’s) goal was to revitalize, make it functional, utilize it better,” Williams said.
The commercial building was originally constructed in 1954 by Dr. Robert James Swain, a progressive dentist. He established his practice in 1954 and continued to practice dentistry in St. Pete until his death in 1996, according to StPete.org.
Swain was an influential figure in the community, known for pressing for equal opportunity during the segregation era.
He challenged Section 3 of the City of St. Petersburg’s Charter, which established separate residential and commercial areas for whites and African Americans in 1931, according to StPete.org.
The state-of-the-art Swain Dental Office was built on the opposite side of 15th Avenue, impeding on the government allocated “white” territory, and was the first dental office for African Americans in the area at the time.
Two years later, in 1956, Swain appended the residential apartment building behind his office to house African American Major League baseball players who were denied the right to stay with their white teammates during spring training.
Annette Howard converted the Swain Dental Office building, which had previously been transformed into a doctor’s office years earlier, into the Golden Shears hair salon. Williams transitioned from her nursing career as an LPN at Bay Pines Medical after her divorce to being a hairstylist in order to “take advantage of what was here (her parent’s property),” she said. It also allowed her to have a more flexible schedule while she was raising her daughter.
Her parent’s health issues in recent years caused Williams to re-direct her focus from being a full time stylist to tending to the well-being of her family members as their primary caregiver and managing the residential property to generate income for the family.
Williams, along with her parents and 99-year-old grandmother, live in the three ground level apartment units and rent out the top three.
“Everything’s so scattered,” she said. “Everything’s like… My life’s like a tossed salad.”
The three one-bedroom units are rented for $600 a month and have original cabinetry with updated flooring, fans and appliances. Williams works to enhance each apartment as tenants cycle through.
William’s dream for the business is a boutique-style salon where stylists would rent their own stations and bring in their own customers.
Making that dream come true could help make this area come alive again.
