REPORT FROM SCIENTOPOLIS SEPTEMBER 2005

Now that the traffic to Clearwater Beach has been diverted around the Scientology campus that used to be downtown Clearwater, we thought we'd do an update tour in order to memorialize life before Cleveland Street becomes L Ron Boulevard.

If one were to believe the cult spokesmen and the SP Times, you'd figure that the Scientology businesses would be thriving---a virtual bustling hub celebrating the complete take over of downtown Clearwater. We thought that we'd better take some photos now in order to compare it to the future "metropolis" that we have been told to expect from the now unencumbered, wog-free zone where Scientology businesses will flourish and prosper.

Let's start the tour, shall we?

Traveling down Cleveland Street on our approach to Scientopolis we noticed the first--and only--completed residential real estate project: very tiny apartments with tiny windows with somewhat tight enclosures that serve as patios. Hmm. . .not much of a view.

 

There are no amenities that we could see. In fact we didn't see a living soul anywhere on the property. They must all be worshipping at Mecca.

Moving on down Cleveland we see the Scientology motel that seems to be serving as a bus depot for the FLAG fleet. Again, not a living soul in sight and no Freedom Mags in the newsbox out front. The guests there must all be down the street at FLAG.

 

So let's get the two main buildings in Scientopolis out of the way. We were so excited to see the progress being made on the Super Power building:

 

Hmmm. . .interesting. Must be that darned wog concrete shortage cabal behind this.

Shocking! How many German psychiatric bankers are involved behind the scenes?

We turned our attention to the Ft. Harrison Hotel: the jewel in the crown of Scientopolis.

 

As we got closer we noticed peeling paint, big rust stains and window box A/C units hanging off the walls covered in rust and many missing the guts of the unit.

This is very disconcerting. After all the millions that have been raised to rehab orgs all over the world, how could the Mecca of Technical Perfection become so downstat?

It could be that the Scientologists are too busy clearing the planet from SP's and evil psychs they didn't have the time to handle their premier building. Perhaps now that the wogs have been detoured around the cult campus the Scientologists will be able to attend to the rehab unencumbered by those pesky DB's and antagos. It's obvious though that with the hotel in such a sad state of disrepair, the Ft. H most certainly must be discounting their hotel rates.

It occurred to us that perhaps the CoS was ignoring those two properties in order to focus on BOOMING the downtown. So we hurried back to Cleveland Street to check out the status of that most ambitious project.

Standing in the middle of the block and looking back to Garden Street, every shop was closed. The bank building at the corner of Garden had a big For Lease sign. Looking across the street, we found that Peter Gilham's vitamin shop was still open but all the other shops on that side of the street were closed as well.

Many of the shops had For Lease signs in the windows.

The bank building on the other side of the street had For Lease signs as well. Here are some photos.

Has anybody noticed that there's not a living soul around? Quiet as a church mouse.

And speaking of real churches, as we turned to look back the other direction down the block toward Watterson Street, we were interested to see how the last hold-out landlady was doing. This lady, whose name I won't mention here, has been holding out all these years through countless attempts by the cult to drive her out . She was adamant about not selling to the cult and has sat on a virtually empty building, which comprises half a block of downtown, for many years now. She's our hero; she never sold out even though it cost her a fortune to stay. And since nobody outside of the cult wants to invest in downtown Clearwater, she had no buyers.

Well, we were in for a surprise today. One of the long shuttered store fronts of her building was open with a crew of workers busy rehabilitating the space. We approached with caution for fear that she had finally caved in and sold out to the cult. But when we got closer we saw this sign in the window.

 

We ventured inside to speak to the workers. They told us they were all members of the Lion of Judah Church and they were all contributing their time to get the Church ready.

We asked them where their RPF uniforms were, but they told us that their church didn't have an RPF or an EPF; they are all volunteers and happy to be there.

We asked if they've had any problems with the cult, since they were basically invading what was supposed to be a wog-free cult campus. One gentleman told us yes, in fact they had. It seems that the CoS has started filing complaints that resulted in a "stop work order" being placed on their door. They have successfully disproven the false allegations made by the cult and are busy preparing for the opening of their Church.

We shook their hands and wished them well and asked for contact info so we can send them donations to help them along in what we are certain will be an uphill struggle. You can visit their website at: http://www.lionofjudahchurch.com/index1.htm . They are currently working with that nice Greek man who owns the Royalty Theatre as an interim meeting place. Here's the Royalty Theatre's current marquis:

We asked them before we left how they felt being attacked by another "church." The man we were speaking to said: "We're not worried, we have a true God on our side. We're not going to let them run us off---we have a job to do here."

You have to respect their courage for embarking on what they and we know to be a difficult test of wills. Even if you don't normally support religions, please consider a donation to the Lion of Judah Church. At least send them an email of encouragement.

It was nice to actually see some people in downtown so we continued our tour to see how the rest of Scientolopolis was progressing. We figured that they would really be getting busy, what with the new church moving in. Unfortunately, no matter which direction we looked, we saw this.

Everywhere we looked we saw the For Rent signs in the windows. Lease holders are gone, even though their signage remains. Empty shops proliferate on Cleveland Street with three exceptions: Peter Gilham's vite shop, a brand new coffee shop. . .

 

Oh, but we save the best for last: the other Certified Wog Hold-Out, the famous and friendly NEWSTAND! And we actually saw live people there! We asked the soft spoken guy working there if, like the Lion of Judah, they were getting hassled by the cult. His response? "Nah, not any more than usual"

We bought some items from him and told him to keep the faith and ventured further.

Hmm---more empty shops:

 

We peeked down Watterson Street. Nary a soul around at high noon!

 

 

HEY LOOK! A white stripe across the street! Such memories!

We did an about-face to see how the other side of Cleveland was faring and saw the Gaslight Alley next to the Coachman building:

 

Yes! We crossed the street to look for the Lisa brick---there it was.

 

Notice the one at the bottom of the photo:"Wake up and smell the coffee Clearwater"

Speaking of coffee, Starbuck's had five people at the time we were there. And yes, they do have wi-fi for customers---if you have T-Mobile. So feel free to come down to Scientopolis with your laptop and webcam and consider doing a live show from there!

 

Proceeding on with our tour, we look across the street to the corner of Ft. H and Cleveland. This is what we saw.

But we were encouraged to see the Starbucks doing so well so we ventured on assuming that perhaps the next block might have other businesses that are actually open. OOPS! More closed shops. But we ventured on.

 

BUMMER! More closed shops with For Lease signs.

Okay, so there's hardly a block in downtown Clearwater with more than one Scientologist-run business that's open. There's one block that has a few businesses open but let's see what they are.

Yep, that's about it. Of course, we can't forget the AmSouth office building recently purchased by two Scientologists from Mexico City; but that, too, has a vacancy problem.

This building tends to anchor a block full of closed businesses.

Across the street is the Calvary Baptist Church, soon to move to its new location.

 

It used to be that the streets of Clearwater were teeming with wealthy "publics"---not anymore. We only saw Sea Org members. What was interesting was the wide assortment of uniforms. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to this many types of uniforms. This is but a small sample of the many combos we saw.

Next stop on our tour: The Freewinds building. Looking extremely shabby and in disrepair we took a closer look. Wow they sure have a lot of dishes on the roof. Could it be Direct TV? Those lucky Freewinders---enjoying all those movie channels!

Next stop: Sandcastle and the Osceola Religious Retreat, but there wasn't much activity there either. Not as many cars as there used to be and very few humans in sight.

There's an old apartment building next to the Sandcastle where lots of Scientologists live. We took a photo of it for those that have an interest in upstat housing for "publics."

Next to this building is an overgrown and wooded lot where the new high end condo project is going to be built. It doesn't look like there's much construction going on.

 

For those that have been to Ottavio's Restaurant on Ft. Harrison, it was closed a couple of years ago, replaced by a Scientologist-owned Irish Pub which failed. Since then they have completely changed the front entry, but it's still not in business.

 

 

The blue and white building next door is the home of the rental car company owned by Antje Victore, the German Scientologist who successfully gained asylum in this country based on false documents presented in the Federal court in Tampa.

The next building might be recognizable to a few---the old LMT building--which no longer has a for sale sign on the windows.

 

Across Ft. Harrison the whole block is full of closed businesses including Daniela's Kitchen. Even ROC's sign is misleading, since they were out of business, too.

 

This real estate office owned and operated by Scientologists called Chic Realty seemed to be operating, but there was nobody working there when we went by.

We were kind of stunned by the ghost town effect of Scientopolis so we left the campus area to find the infamous Hacienda Gardens, home of FLAG's RPF and SO berthing

 

 

Looks "okay" from the front, given that there is a six foot tall security fence around the complex.

 

We noticed that all the windows had closed curtains---amazing considering it's daytime and it was a beautiful sunny day. Maybe they have Direct TV like the Freewinds and are all enjoying a movie day. The security cameras as seen here populated the complex.

 

The military installation style entry gate leaves something to be desired, but perhaps they don't want anyone to get in to see what the back of these barracks look like.

 

 

On our way out of downtown Clearwater we swung by the Clearwater Academy to see how this upstat institution of higher learning was faring. There were young girls jumping around on the side of the road with signs waving down every car that passed. We didn't have time to take photos since we didn't really want to stop and give the eager young girls the wrong idea that we were interested in what they were promoting.

Their signs read:

CAR WASH TODAY

PROCEEDS GOING
TO THE VICTIMS
OF KATRINA

We translated this to mean:

All the money we raise will go to providing gas and food for the Vulture Ministers who are preying upon the hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast.

Well, that wraps up another whirlwind tour of Scientopolis, formerly known as downtown Clearwater.

Next year's report should be interesting. Which church will prevail in the battle for the souls of those that dwell in what is currently the deadest town on earth: Scientopolis.