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Activist's Life Filled With History

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By KATHY STEELE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 22, 2007

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - Steve Gluckman was a character - a hippie among baby boomers, Bohemian and just a bit eccentric.

In a crowd, he stood out courtesy of his shirts - Hawaiian and flannel and never tucked in - his white beard and handlebar mustache, and his forearms as big as Popeye the Sailor Man's.

In a life 70 years long, he was an underwater archaeologist, an archaeology teacher, a preservationist, an art lover, a photographer and, as his brother Jeremy Gluckman describes him, "an inveterate collector of about anything. His home is filled to overflowing with things he found interesting."

He loved three things above all: books, historic preservation and Seminole Heights.

"I think he is Mr. Seminole Heights," friend Alan Dobbs said.

Dobbs was among many who spoke at Gluckman's memorial service Dec. 15 at the Seminole Garden Center, where more than 100 family members and friends gathered to share tales of life with Gluckman.

He died Dec. 11 of an apparent heart attack while surrounded by friends at a holiday party.

"No one can fill his shoes," said Susan Long, president of the Old Seminole Heights Neighborhood Association.

Gluckman, who moved to Seminole Heights in 1977, was a founding member of the neighborhood association. He recently was re-elected as board trustee and served as chairman of the historic preservation committee.

"He was the epitome of the eccentric academician," association Vice President Jeff Harmon said. "His views were always distinct."
Gluckman was the go-to source for preservation in a neighborhood brimming with bungalows and the coordinator of the annual book sale for the Seminole Heights Branch Library.

He checked out stacks of books and CDs from the library every week. He could read a novel a day, his brother said, and wrote some fiction.

His musical taste was eclectic, from jazz to Cajun. Friend Ginny Howard recommended a bluegrass group recently, but Gluckman was ahead of her. He had heard it years ago, she said.

Library director Joe Stines said the county for years dubbed the library as Seminole Branch Library. Gluckman got "Heights" added.

And he fought tirelessly to push Seminole Heights to the top of the library system's construction list.

"Steve was our No. 1 friend of the library," Stines said.

The association is collecting donations to buy historic preservation books for the library in Gluckman's name. A documentary on Seminole Heights that will premiere at Tampa Theatre on April 17 will be dedicated to him.

Gluckman's passion for preservation went beyond his neighborhood's borders. He served on the city's Architectural Review Commission and for 10 years was on the board of the Central City Community Development Corp.

Mourners at his service included dozens of Seminole Heights residents, city Councilman John Dingfelder, Sulphur Springs activists Norma and Joseph Robinson, Central City corporation director David Foster, East Ybor Historic and Civic Association President Fran Costantino and Hillsborough school board member Candy Olson.
Gluckman grew up near Orlando and Daytona Beach but at 14 went to a preparatory school in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of Florida, where he worked on the preservation of area sugar mills and plantations.

In the 1950s and early '60s, he pursued photography and filmmaking at California colleges.

"He was quite the photographer," his brother said. "And he did love to look at art and talk about it."

But he came finally to preservation and archaeology.

Howard met Gluckman when they were at Catholic University in the 1970s helping with excavation of more than 10,000-year-old Paleo-Indian artifacts in the Shenandoah Valley of northeastern Virginia.

With his salt-and-pepper beard and mustache, Gluckman was charming, Howard said. "He was a very vibrant part of our group."
Gluckman hunted for sunken ships in the Caribbean and along the Atlantic coast.

The Canadian government hired him to find 400-year-old English galleons lost in hurricanes off Nova Scotia. He reported back that they had been preserved underwater for hundreds of years and should be left as they were. Jeremy Gluckman said Canada sent another diving team to the ships in recent years and they found $7 million in gold.
Gluckman taught in the University of South Florida's anthropology department from 1977 until 1983. He also operated a salvage business retrieving remnants from demolished historical buildings.

Gifts to friends were never store-bought.

"He would come up with something he salvaged," Bill Duvall said. "Not something new; something he found somewhere in some closet where he was salvaging."
Gluckman wouldn't take no for an answer and sometimes won.

When the Florida Department of Transportation was widening Hillsborough Avenue in the mid-1980s, it targeted the drawbridge west of Highland Avenue for demolition.
Gluckman said it was one of Tampa's oldest drawbridges, former association President Pat Kemp said.

"I'm not sure the bridge would have been preserved but for Steve," she said.

He had no cell phone. He learned enough about computers to store historical photos of Tampa as a ready reference for the association.

Code enforcement cited him for not painting his garage. Duvall said Gluckman argued that it was historical and never had been painted.

"He lost," Duvall said. "He painted it."

When many wanted a Starbucks coffee shop to open on Hillsborough Avenue, Gluckman objected because he thought the association should press harder for a more historical-looking design.

"I move that we just ignore what Steve said," Harmon recalled saying at a board meeting where members voted to support the shop. "Steve said he would vote in favor.

"He was a serious person who never took himself seriously," Harmon said. "I always wanted to know what he thought because it was well thought-out and consistent. I will be sad not to see him again."

To make donations in Gluckman's memory, call Suzanne Prieur at (813) 610-5255.

Reporter Kathy Steele can be reached at (813) 835-2103 or ksteele@tampatrib.com.

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