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Paul Guzzo - Culture Reporter

Culture Reporter

I am the reporter who found the lost segregation-era all-black Zion Cemetery. My unique beat also includes the local film industry, Tampa history, professional wrestling and the odd and unique people who make up this area. I have been a journalist in Tampa since 1999. In my younger years, I was also an independent filmmaker best known for an award-winning documentary on Charlie Wall, Tampa’s first crime lord. At home, I am married to a woman who is way out of my league and father of four kids who have diverse career goals – engineer, veterinarian, ballerina, and a “fighting ninja,” as opposed to a pacifist ninja.

  1. “(The building is) in a great location,” said Dylan Desai of the family-operated My Hospitality Hotels, which purchased the factory for $1.4 million and is spending another $12 million on the project. “And it’s survived more than 100 years for a reason.”
  2. Joe Davison, who appeared in season two of "Stranger Things," wrote "The Bell Keeper" starring Randy Couture that premieres on Oct. 13.
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  3. Goldfinger sleeps on a couch at Kam Hearing's house. The cat previously belonged to Nancy Sauer, who left an inheritance for her seven Persians. She died in November and the cats have since been adopted by seven Tampa Bay families.
  4. After Hurricane Ian last month, the Jackson House stood bruised and soaked — but still standing.
  5. Drew Newman, fourth-generation owner and general counsel of Ybor City's J.C. Newman Co., shows off the world's oldest cigars now on display in the his factory museum. Rolled in 1857, the cigars were lost in a shipwreck and then recovered by treasure hunters nearly 150 years later.
  6. The WWE's Royal Rumble event will be held on Jan. 24 at Tropicana Field.
  7. Dick Greco, former four-time Tampa mayor, is pictured against the backdrop of the Tampa skyline from his Bayshore Boulevard high-rise balcony a few days before his 90th birthday at his home in Tampa.
  8. Pinellas Park's Vance Walker won the 15th Season of "American Ninja Warrior."
  9. This letter written by Robert Jackson details the impact that the hurricane of 1848 had on Tampa.
  10. A flamingo in Old Tampa Bay on Monday. Give the flamingos some space, and definitely do not try to pet them.
  11. Rick's on the River owner Ken Brackins shows a sign that deters customers from dining and dashing.
  12. Peaches the flamingo, rescued off the shore of St. Pete Beach on Friday, is recovering at Indian Shores’ Seaside Seabird Sanctuary.
  13. Workers arrive at the site of the Cigar Lofts at Albany, a new student housing townhome and apartment project being built at the former Bustillo Brothers y Diaz Cigar Factory in Tampa.
  14. At a news conference Monday, Sept. 4, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd shows a picture of Stephen Thomas Rodda, accused of killing his 16-year-old son Stephen Rodda.
  15. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Tampa Bay helped rescue a displaced flamingo off St. Pete Beach over the weekend.
  16. The Hillsborough Sheriff's Office is investigating a Monday morning homicide at the Playhouse Gentleman's Club.
  17. Two men were shot and injured on the 9700 block of Nebraska Avenue on Monday morning.
  18. Convicted drug smuggler Angelo Bedami, son of mobster and alleged Santo Trafficante hit man Joe Bedami Sr., shares stories at his Tampa home.
  19. Hurricane Idalia destroyed most of Beer Can Island's structures. Owners say the entire island was under at least five feet of waves.
  20. The impact of the hurricane of 1896 om Fernandina Beach. That same hurricane devastated Atsena Otie Key.
  21. Bray Wyatt enters the arena to fight in the pitch-black event during the WWE Royal Rumble event at the Alamodome on Jan. 28 in San Antonio, Texas.
  22. Tampa land use attorney Mark Bentley, holds an autographed 1963 portrait of the Beatles made by German photographer Astrid Kirchherr on Monday, April 4, 2022, at his law office with Johnson Pope Bokor Ruppel and Burns in Tampa. Bentley has turned a life-long love of The Beatles into a full-length documentary that fills in one of the last pieces of the iconic band’s history.
  23. From left, Caleb Bergstrom, his wife Ashley Bergstrom, David Bergstrom-Wright, and David’s wife Caitlyn Bergstrom-Wright, 25 at the family's Jungle Gym parents  in Pinellas Park.