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Photo gallery: Remembering the Pheil Hotel building

 
Bank Building Expands As City Grows -  The old Central Bank building acquired a new look in the early 1920s.
Bank Building Expands As City Grows - The old Central Bank building acquired a new look in the early 1920s.
Published Oct. 14, 2016

Now that the Pheil Hotel is being knocked down, we thought you might enjoy looking at some photos of that entire block from years past.

From Susan Taylor Martin's story on the demolition: Built in the 1920s by an early mayor of St. Petersburg, the hotel has long been known as the "cheese grater'' because of the grillwork added in the '60s. As demolition began this summer on other structures on the site, city staffers found old photos showing what appeared to be a stone sign engraved with the words PHEIL HOTEL beneath the grillwork. Hopes of removing the sign and perhaps displaying it in the city's history museum, were recently dashed when the sign, which turned out to be plaster, not stone, crumbled during attempts to remove it.