John F. Germany Public Library Downtown Tampa

I've driven past, but never stopped at the John F. Germany Public Library in downtown Tampa before, so yesterday, we headed over there on a whim. I only used my cell phone because it's downtown and I didn't want to be flashing a $1,000 in DSLR equipment around in a parking garage. Not that it's unsafe in downtown Tampa, but you know...you need to be aware of the kind of situations you put yourself in.

I found this link which tells a bit about the man for whom the library is named. (Because though I've lived in this area for 25+ years, I really didn't know who he was! LOL)

Found this shot on the web. Since I drove I couldn't stop to get a shot of the front of the building. LOL Also, the water features have been turned off lately because of drought issues.

You have to park in one of the paid parking garages since it's downtown but they have a covered skywalk to get from the garage to the library itself.

Picture found on Google to help show the walk from external view.

This is the same skywalk but from INSIDE as the picture above.

From the skywalk, looking back at the parking garage and some of the skyline.

The skywalk crossed over a street and you can see some of downtown Tampa's skyline.

After you reach the end of the skywalk, you get to the first building which houses the kids section and the genealogy on another floor. (I wanted to get a photo of a cute near-life sized toy train they had in this area, but some kids ran over to climb on it just as I went to take the shot so I couldn't.)

There's a second sky bridge to connect from the 1st building over to the second.

A shot of the Straz Center (formerly the Performing Arts Center) where they have all kinds of Broadway shows and such.

It's two floors with a "floating" staircase in the middle.

 
 I didn't really get any images inside because there were a lot of people there and I couldn't get a lot of shots without getting them in the frame. Also, sadly, as it's a downtown library, there were a lot of homeless people hanging out there since it has a/c and it felt wrong to take silly pics with a pineapple with them in the background. I didn't want to insult anyone or put them in an undignified photo without permission, you know?

Still, it's a very large building and Anana and I had fun exploring both levels!