Live in Levy Park
A 1940s neighborhood between North Monroe Street and Gibbs Drive with a park, a City pool, two public schools and a supermarket inside the line, and Lake Ella just across Monroe.
This guide's Levy Park is the Levy Park Neighborhood Association's area as Tallahassee-Leon County GIS maps it: 273 acres between North Monroe Street and Gibbs Drive, West Tharpe Street and West 4th Avenue, where the 2020 census counted 1,606 residents in 1,050 homes. The association's own account, as Tallahassee Magazine told it in 2019, is that the land came to the city in the early 1940s from the widows of the Levy brothers, merchants, and that the neighborhood began outside the city limits as one of Tallahassee's first suburbs. Inside the line are Levy Park and its City pool, the LeVerne Payne Community Center, the City's senior center, Ruediger Elementary, Raa Middle School and the Publix by Lake Ella, and the lake itself is about 160 m east, across Monroe Street. What the line does not settle is where Levy Park ends: the Frenchtown association's map takes in 857 of the same residents, and the Midtown West association's begins at Gibbs Drive.
Daily life inside one line, and three maps that disagree on where it runs
The Levy Park Neighborhood Association's area on the Tallahassee-Leon County GIS (TLCGIS) Open Neighborhoods layer (LEVY PARK NA, a neighborhood-type association the layer marks ACTIVE, listed through the City's Neighborhood Affairs office; data edited 2 September 2026): an area the association filed and TLCGIS maps, not a line the City drew, clipped to the current City limits, which hold all of it. North Monroe Street bounds it on the east, West Tharpe Street on the north, Gibbs Drive on the west and West 4th Avenue on the south, and North Duval, North Bronough and North Adams Streets, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and West 5th to 10th Avenues run through it. The Frenchtown association's mapped area overlaps part of it; this guide counts the 857 residents of the overlap and the Frenchtown guide does not.
This guide's Levy Park is the Levy Park Neighborhood Association's area as the Tallahassee-Leon County GIS office maps it, clipped to the City limits: 273 acres between North Monroe Street and Gibbs Drive, West Tharpe Street and West 4th Avenue, where the 2020 census counted 1,606 residents in 1,050 homes. It is a line the association filed, not one the City drew, and it is not the only claim on the ground. The Frenchtown association's map overlaps it by 857 residents, whom this site counts here and not in Frenchtown; the Midtown West association's area begins at Gibbs Drive; and the City's 2011 Midtown Action Plan called the neighborhood "Levy Park (or Midtown West)".
The association's story, as Tallahassee Magazine told it in 2019, is that the land came to the city in the early 1940s from the widows of the Levy brothers, merchants, and that the neighborhood began outside the city limits as one of Tallahassee's first suburbs, its first houses about 1,000 square feet. The City's 2020 Dream Builders marker at Seventh Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard honors Levy Park's history and the desegregation of Leon County's schools.
Most of daily life is inside the line. Levy Park itself, 8.6 acres with a City pool, the LeVerne Payne Community Center, the City's senior center, Ruediger Elementary, Raa Middle and the Publix by Lake Ella at Monroe and Tharpe Streets are all within it, and the lake is about 160 m east across Monroe. StarMetro's Evergreen route stops at North Bronough Street and West 7th Avenue, near the point: 13 weekday departures, six between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., an hour apart, at $1.25 a trip. Moss and Big Bend stop on the line's south and east edges about as often.
The census tract holding most of them counted 13.4% of residents aged three and over in college on the 2020 to 2024 survey, a tract figure with wide margins; Florida State's campus line is about 1.4 km away. Of the residents, 1,118 are inside the Greater Frenchtown/Southside Community Redevelopment Area, which captures tax growth and adds no rate. Flood is a small question here. 0.64% of the area, all zone A, is in a FEMA special flood hazard area on the 2009 maps, no resident lives in it by block point, and FEMA puts the point in zone X. The City floods from rain, not surge, and is in Class 5 of FEMA's Community Rating System. Its storms are wind: Hermine in 2016, the 10 May 2024 tornadoes, which broke more than 400 utility poles, and Helene, which cut power to about 53,000 City utility customers. No source maps how any street here fared.
No price follows the line. Zillow's typical value for ZIP code 32303, which holds these residents and tens of thousands more, was $239,971 in August 2026, up 1.9%, condominiums included. Every parcel pays the 2025 City stack of 19.2060 mills: a homestead at that value owes about $3,783 a year, with $25,000 off every levy and a second $25,000 off all but the School Board's, and a landlord about $4,609. Save Our Homes caps a homestead's assessed value at 3% a year and resets on sale, so the seller's bill understates yours; portability can carry part of an earlier Florida homestead's benefit. Stormwater ($11.00 a month), garbage ($28.19) and a fire services fee of unknown amount, under a lawsuit since 17 November 2025, come on the City utility bill with the City's own electricity, water and gas. The arithmetic is on the Tallahassee page.
- Check which association maps cover your parcel: Levy Park's line and Frenchtown's overlap
- Run the address through the district's school zone lookup; Ruediger was issued no 2026 grade
- Look the address up on FEMA's flood map: a small zone A sits inside the line
- Ask the seller for a year of City utility bills, where stormwater, garbage and the fire fee appear
- File for homestead with the Leon County Property Appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy
How Levy Park got here
- 1867Bull Pond, the natural pond now called Lake Ella just east of North Monroe Street, is the scene of an Emancipation Day picnic and political rally that draws some 2,000 freedmen, in Tallahassee Magazine's history of the lake.
- 1928Building North Monroe Street, the line's eastern edge, fills part of the swamp around the pond, and at about the same time Bull Pond becomes Lake Ella, with Gilbert S. Chandler's tourist cottages on its west bank.
- 1940sBy the association's account, the land comes to the city early in the decade from the widows of the Levy brothers, owners of mercantile stores, and the neighborhood starts outside the city limits, most of its first houses about 1,000 square feet.
- 1968Five years after a J.M. Fields department store opens by the lake, the state widens North Monroe Street to four lanes, and runoff from the new pavement starts decades of work to clean Lake Ella.
- 2011The City's Midtown Action Plan, adopted on 30 March, lists "Levy Park (or Midtown West)" among the stable neighborhoods beside the Midtown commercial district. Today a separate Midtown West association is mapped west of Gibbs Drive.
- 2016Hurricane Hermine comes ashore just east of St. Marks on 2 September and passes about 25 nautical miles east-northeast of Tallahassee, the worst damage to the City's electric system since Hurricane Kate in 1985, the National Hurricane Center reports.
- 2017The Council of Neighborhood Affairs names Levy Park a Leon County Neighborhood of the Year, Tallahassee Magazine reports.
- 2018Hurricane Michael, a category 5 at landfall near Mexico Beach in October, brings sustained winds of 41 knots and a gust of 62 to Tallahassee's airport.
- 2020The census counts 1,606 residents in 1,050 homes inside the line. In July City staff begin work with the Levy Park, Frenchtown, Carolina Oaks and South Bronough Street neighborhoods on Dream Builders, whose marker at Seventh Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard honors Levy Park's history and the desegregation of Leon County's schools.
- 2024Two EF2 tornadoes converge on Tallahassee on 10 May and break more than 400 utility poles. Hurricane Helene comes ashore in the Big Bend late on 26 September and leaves about 53,000 City utility customers without power at its peak.
- 2026The state's 2026 school grades issue none for Ruediger Elementary, inside the line, which the file marks I; it was graded A in 2025.
A park and a pool inside the line, and Lake Ella across Monroe Street
Levy Park, 8.6 acres at 609 West Tharpe Street, has a City pool, soccer, basketball, youth baseball, a Little League field and a playground. The LeVerne Payne Community Center on West 4th Avenue adds tennis courts, and Lee Park, just south, a ball field. Lake Ella, about 160 m east, sits in the City's 19.1-acre Lake Ella and Fred O. Drake Jr. Park, with a 1920s motor court's stone cottages on its west bank, now small shops.
What the map does not show: the pool's season and hours were not read, and Lake Ella is a stormwater lake as much as a park, fed by North Monroe Street's runoff since the 1968 widening.
Elsewhere in Tallahassee, not Levy Park
24 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 24 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are computed from the population-weighted center of the association's 2020 census blocks, by West 7th Avenue and Green Street, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor of 1.32 and a tiered speed model: honest ranges, not routed times.
Every gym within reach
Three City facilities are inside the line: the LeVerne Payne Community Center, Levy Pool and the Tallahassee Senior Center on North Monroe Street. The Trousdell Aquatics Center is a second City pool about 2 km north. No private gym was looked for.
- LeVerne Payne Community Center, 450 West 4th Avenue: about 0.5 km
- Levy Pool, 609 West Tharpe Street: about 0.9 km
- Trousdell Aquatics Center, 326 John Knox Road: about 2.6 km
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| LeVerne Payne Community Center open | The City's community center inside the line at 450 West 4th Avenue, on 3.5 acres with tennis courts, basketball, youth baseball, a playground and a covered shelter. Programs and hours were not read. | 2–4 min |
| Tallahassee Senior Center open | The City's senior center inside the line at 1400 North Monroe Street, on the City's park list as Senior Center - Armory (1.3 acres). Programs were not read. | 3–4 min |
| Levy Pool open | The City pool in Levy Park at 609 West Tharpe Street, inside the line. Its season and hours were not read. | 3–4 min |
| Lafayette Park & Sue Herndon McCollum Community Center open | The City's community center in Lafayette Park at 501 Ingleside Avenue, east of Thomasville Road. Programs and hours were not read. | 4–6 min |
| Trousdell Aquatics Center open | A second City pool, at 326 John Knox Road, north of Lake Ella. Its season and hours were not read. | 6–8 min |
The free option is the walk around Lake Ella.
Two of the three zoned schools are inside the line
Every address here is in Leon County Schools, which assigns by home address. The point is zoned for Ruediger Elementary and Raa Middle, both inside the line, and Leon High on East Tennessee Street; on the 2026-27 layers all 1,606 residents fall in the same three zones. Ruediger was issued no 2026 grade, marked I in the state's file, after an A for 2025 and a C for 2024. Raa and Leon were graded B for three years, and Raa is also a magnet program.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Ruediger Elementary School | Leon County Schools | Inside the line at 526 West 10th Avenue, about 0.5 km from the point. The point is zoned for Ruediger on the district's 2026-27 elementary layer, and so is every one of the 1,606 residents on the 2020 blocks. No 2026 grade was issued: the state's file marks it I, with no scores. It was graded A for 2025 and C for 2024. |
| Raa Middle School | Leon County Schools | Inside the line at 401 West Tharpe Street, and the point's 2026-27 middle school zone. Graded B for 2024, 2025 and 2026, and listed among the district's middle school magnet programs, so some of its seats are applied for from elsewhere. |
| Leon High School | Leon County Schools | The point's 2026-27 high school zone, at 550 East Tennessee Street, about 1.7 km away in a straight line. Graded B for 2024, 2025 and 2026. |
Run your own address through the district's school zone lookup. The zone layers carry no edit date, and an elementary rezoning approved on 25 February 2025, around Riley Elementary, shows the lines do move.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- Highs near 18 °C and lows near 5 °C at Tallahassee International Airport, with 9.6 nights at or below freezing, the most of any month (27 in a year)
- Bought last year? The homestead application is due to the Leon County Property Appraiser by 1 March
- 112 mm of rain on about six days
- Highs near 20 °C, lows near 6 °C, and 5.2 freezing nights
- Last year's tax bill is due by 31 March
- The Frenchtown Farmers Market runs on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., about 1 km south
- 1 March: the deadline to file for homestead with the Property Appraiser
- Highs near 23 °C and 133 mm of rain, the wettest month before summer
- Springtime Tallahassee's 59th festival, 2 and 3 April 2027: music on Kleman Plaza and the Grand Parade downtown, about 2 km south
- Highs near 27 °C and 90 mm of rain
- Highs near 31 °C, with 12.9 days at or above 32 °C
- 10 May is the anniversary of the 2024 tornadoes, which broke more than 400 utility poles in the city: have the old oaks over the roof looked at before summer
- Hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November
- 197 mm of rain on about ten days, the wettest month of the year
- Highs near 33 °C on 20 days
- Highs near 33 °C and lows near 23 °C, with 24.8 days at or above 32 °C
- 181 mm of rain on about 11 days
- The Property Appraiser mails the TRIM notice of proposed taxes in August (17 August in 2026); a petition to the Value Adjustment Board was due by 11 September, 25 days later
- 193 mm of rain and 23.8 days at or above 32 °C
- Hermine came ashore on 2 September 2016 and Helene late on 26 September 2024
- Highs near 31 °C and 125 mm of rain
- Florida State plays at home at Doak Campbell Stadium, about 3 km southwest, on 31 October (Clemson) in 2026
- Highs near 28 °C and 82 mm of rain on about four days
- Tax bills go out in late October or November
- Florida State's last 2026 home games: 21 November (NC State) and Friday 27 November (Florida)
- The tax bill arrives: on a City address, 19.2060 mills for 2025, with stormwater and garbage on the City utility bill instead
- Hurricane season ends on 30 November; highs near 23 °C and 79 mm of rain, the driest month
- The City's Winter Festival downtown on Saturday 5 December 2026, 3 to 10 p.m., with the Nighttime Holiday Parade at 7:10 p.m.
- Highs near 19 °C and 7.4 freezing nights
3 more photographs of Tallahassee and the region
Drawn from the site's shared, freely licensed Tallahassee photo library, not photographs of Levy Park itself. Filter by category.
Showing 1–3 of 3 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images from the site's shared Tallahassee library, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. None of them is presented as a photograph of Levy Park.