The neighborhood around the intersection of 22nd Street South and 9th Avenue South was once the most important area in St. Petersburg's most vibrant African-American neighborhood during segregation, when African Americans were forced by law to live there. Despite these restrictions and exclusion from downtown and white residential areas, the community developed a self-sufficient and independent spirit. Beginning in the 1920s, what had been considered country relative to downtown St. Petersburg grew among palmettos and pine woods as people moved there for jobs in new industries and as white city leaders encouraged African Americans to leave older black neighborhoods. The core of 22nd Street South, between 5th and 15th Avenues South, became a commercial district with stores, restaurants, professional services, nightclubs, and beer gardens, while the Manhattan Casino became its premier entertainment venue, hosting dances, house bands, leading musicians, and gospel singers. A few Jewish merchants, also barred from opening in downtown St. Petersburg, began there as well. In contrast, the 9th Avenue South corridor between 16th and 24th Streets South developed as a center of churches, schools, and civil organizations, anchored by Jordan Elementary on the west and Sixteenth Street Junior High and Immaculate Conception Catholic School on the east. For decades, about a dozen churches along or near the avenue served many denominations. Gradual integration and the coming of the interstate damaged the area's commercial, professional, and entertainment foundations as well as its cultural identity, and serious decline was evident by the 1970s, even as the community's resilience, ingenuity, talent, and perseverance remained central to its history.