The Sunset Park Fountain
Is There for You
Across the street, the Sunset Hotel opened in 1916, today known as the Crystal Bay Hotel, the oldest standing landmark on St. Pete’s west side. That same year, a professional golf course and country club opened a few blocks north. Within a decade it would become the famed Jungle Country Club, drawing visitors from across the country.
In 1938, Central Avenue was extended westward through Sunset Park, dividing the park into two sections - north and south. A transfer station was built on the north section to serve riders switching between the city trolley and the new Treasure Island bus line. The Treasure Island Causeway opened on November 29, 1939, making Sunset Park the last stop before the Gulf.
The transfer station later became the location of the Pasadena Card Club, which was badly damaged in the 2024 storms. The city now plans to remove the irreparable structure.
A St. Petersburg Times article from early 1956 notes that the Boca Ciega Kiwanis Club installed the fountain in Sunset Park as part of its 1955 civic projects, a community effort that came and went without leaving any record of a dedication, ribbon-cutting or commemorative plaque.
The old fountain has taken a beating from Florida’s weather, but she’s still standing proud, patient and overlooked. Seventy-plus years of storms, salt breeze, and neglect haven’t managed to topple her. The paint’s gone chalky, and a few rust streaks have crept through the concrete, but the muse atop the fountain holds her bird’s nest steady, her loyal dog still at her side.
Just one block away, the city’s new mosaic trail has rightfully drawn crowds to Sunset Park, complete with speeches, music, food, and games. Yet few noticed the fountain keeping watch nearby, doing what it has always done.
Maybe that’s as it should be. In a city where nearly every patch of ground now hums with activity, a patch of passive, green space, and one steady, splashing fountain, is something to be quietly grateful for.
Mosaic photos credit: Aron Bryce
Symbolism of the Muse Statue
1. The Bird’s Nest with Chicks
In classical and Victorian symbolism, a nest with chicks represents nurture,
renewal, and the continuity of life. By the 1950s, this imagery was widely
used in civic art and advertising to evoke motherhood, community, and care
for the next generation, values central to postwar America and particularly
resonant for a civic group like the Kiwanis.
In a community context: it could stand for the “nurturing
spirit of Boca Ciega,” tending to its young, hopeful citizens.
2. The Dog at Her Side
Dogs in sculpture traditionally symbolize loyalty, protection, and
companionship. The fact that the dog’s form wraps or leans against her leg
conveys a domestic intimacy, protection and trust.
Together with the birds, it creates a triad of Home,
Family, and Faithfulness, the wholesome pillars of mid-century civic
virtue.
3. Combined Meaning
The combination of woman + nest + dog forms a unified allegory of care
and guardianship over both nature and community.
It’s almost as if she’s saying, “I will protect and nurture life here.”
That would make her an ideal emblem for a community park fountain installed by
a service organization like the Kiwanis.
The structure is a three-tiered concrete fountain topped with a neoclassical female figure, a design that was very much in fashion during the civic-beautification boom of the 1950s. The pose, drapery, and scalloped basins echo the inexpensive “cast stone” and concrete molds that community groups and local clubs could order from catalog suppliers of the time. It was the sort of fountain meant to add dignity to a neighborhood park. Not a monument, but a gesture of civic grace.
Up close, the surface shows fine cracks, paint layers, and rust streaks beneath the white coating. Those details tell a mid-century story. The concrete shell was reinforced with bare steel rebar, common practice before galvanized or epoxy-coated rebar became standard in the late 1960s. Over time, water intrusion caused the rust stains that are now visible, a subtle fingerprint of 1950s construction methods.
The bright white finish isn’t marble at all, but painted concrete, refreshed many times since. That choice also fits the era: postwar civic groups often painted fountains white to evoke classical stone while keeping maintenance inexpensive. The ornamental acanthus leaves and urn-like reliefs along the bowl edges are typical of mid-century cast designs, which blended Depression-era WPA motifs with cleaner, more symmetrical lines favored in the 1950s.
The fountain was the civic aesthetic of the time, cheerful and enduring, meant to elevate a public park without pretense. Nearly seventy years later, the fountain’s symmetry and splash still capture the optimism of its era. It’s not just a relic. It’s a survivor from a time when a little concrete and some civic pride could turn a patch of grass into a gathering place.
Unlike the new Sunshine City Mosaic, the Sunset Park Fountain wasn’t custom-designed. It was ordered, most likely, from a mid-century statuary catalog. It was assembled with civic pride and practical thrift. Similar fountains graced parks and civic lawns across postwar America, though none, as far as we know, looks quite like our statue featuring a woman holding a bird’s nest and a loyal dog at her side.
(The title of this article is a small nod to the fountain scene from the opening of the TV series Friends.)
