Revitalizing Neighborhoods: Ybor City

[Metro Jacksonville]

Revitalizing Neighborhoods: Ybor City



Metro Jacksonville explores one of Florida's earliest planned industrial communities: Tampa's Ybor City.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-jan-revitalizing-neighborhoods-ybor-city

[uptowngirl]

Another GREAT article, as long as I have been around (not since the earlt 1900s of course!) Swisher has always been the "poor man's cigar" , never a cigar to purchase a linger over a glass of port with. So perhaps it did have the same cultural/social impact in it's surroundings?

[Dog Walker]

Not mentioned in the story is that a significant part of the housing stock and some of the stores were destroyed in the riots of 1968 that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King.

We moved to Tampa in 1969 and my wife taught for several years at the Booker T. Washington Middle School which is right at the entrance to Ybor City.  She was one of two white teachers at a still segregated, all black school.

Ybor City was still un-gentrified at the time, old retired cigar rollers were playing dominoes in the clubs and you could still get cafe con leche e pan at the cafes in the morning.

[avs]

Having grown up in Tampa, I have to say I miss the Ybor City before all the commercial "revitalization."  The place wasn't dead - there were tons of mom and pop shops, concert venues, arts galleries - not high end, more street art galleries full of incense and actual artists making art.  right there.  My first time on 7th the owners of a gallery I went into gave me some sidewalk chalk and we hung out together outside the gallery drawing on the sidewalk and being creative for an afternoon (albeit, it was an afternoon I should have been in school).  Another great memory is seeing Greenday when they were touring for their very first album - no one knew who they were.  They played in this tiny boarded up building, in Ybor, in a room that could hold maybe 50 people.  There were only like 16 of us there to see it.  It was LOUD - not like the silly stadium shows they play now.

Like that show, Ybor was edgier and more diverse.  I miss the old cuban and african american residents.  There were great nightclubs and I was exposed to so many great people and creative minds.  I understand that it is a more economically vibrant area now, but when I go home, its not a place I visit - even though I spent most of my teenage years and my first 2 years of college at HCC in Ybor.  I have great great memories.  Its not the same place and I prefer the former.  Whatever the economists say.

[Jumpinjack]

Ybor City was always a place with small homes and multi-family housing (multi-generational housing too), many small businesses run by immigrant families, markets and meeting halls. Neighborhoods were "mixed up" ethnically and socially making for tolerant community life.  It is close enough to town that you could walk or bus to the department stores, shops, government offices. 

Even in its worst periods, business and residents did not abandon the area. My opinion is that it was built right from the beginning and quietly decayed in place until being rediscovered.

[letters and numbers]

Having grown up in Tampa, I have to say I miss the Ybor City before all the commercial "revitalization."  The place wasn't dead - there were tons of mom and pop shops, concert venues, arts galleries - not high end, more street art galleries full of incense and actual artists making art.  right there.  My first time on 7th the owners of a gallery I went into gave me some sidewalk chalk and we hung out together outside the gallery drawing on the sidewalk and being creative for an afternoon (albeit, it was an afternoon I should have been in school).  Another great memory is seeing Greenday when they were touring for their very first album - no one knew who they were.  They played in this tiny boarded up building, in Ybor, in a room that could hold maybe 50 people.  There were only like 16 of us there to see it.  It was LOUD - not like the silly stadium shows they play now.

Like that show, Ybor was edgier and more diverse.  I miss the old cuban and african american residents.  There were great nightclubs and I was exposed to so many great people and creative minds.  I understand that it is a more economically vibrant area now, but when I go home, its not a place I visit - even though I spent most of my teenage years and my first 2 years of college at HCC in Ybor.  I have great great memories.  Its not the same place and I prefer the former.  Whatever the economists say.

oh man thats sad. I heard people talking about five points in riverside the same way but I guess thats progress. I don't know?

[pwhitford]

Having grown up in Tampa, I have to say I miss the Ybor City before all the commercial "revitalization."  The place wasn't dead - there were tons of mom and pop shops, concert venues, arts galleries - not high end, more street art galleries full of incense and actual artists making art.  right there.  My first time on 7th the owners of a gallery I went into gave me some sidewalk chalk and we hung out together outside the gallery drawing on the sidewalk and being creative for an afternoon (albeit, it was an afternoon I should have been in school).  Another great memory is seeing Greenday when they were touring for their very first album - no one knew who they were.  They played in this tiny boarded up building, in Ybor, in a room that could hold maybe 50 people.  There were only like 16 of us there to see it.  It was LOUD - not like the silly stadium shows they play now.

Like that show, Ybor was edgier and more diverse.  I miss the old cuban and african american residents.  There were great nightclubs and I was exposed to so many great people and creative minds.  I understand that it is a more economically vibrant area now, but when I go home, its not a place I visit - even though I spent most of my teenage years and my first 2 years of college at HCC in Ybor.  I have great great memories.  Its not the same place and I prefer the former.  Whatever the economists say.

I know it's kinda scary to read this is black and white, but I feel this way about the old Times Square in NYC.  Sure, back in the 70's and very early 80's when I was there it was, in a lot of ways, an open toilet, but I can't help myself.  I was born and raised in that city.  Where else could you see a whole day of imported kung fu movies, come out and trade wise cracks with the endless supply of pros, while you dined on dirty water dogs or slices of pizza the size of your head.  Whatever you wanted, it could be bought somewhere in that 4 block radius.  Not that it was a good place, or even better than what's there now, and, heaven forbid, I'd never want it to go back, but still ...

[avs]

It is sad, but it is how we measure progress in the great US of A, I guess.  But I will take pinball at the previous locally owned Pizza and Subs any day over the Urban Outfitters that has moved in there now, although I am sure Urban Outfitters is contributing much more to our consumer economy, which is really the meat of it all, eh?

[Bewler]

hold steady. ybor city. you're up to your neck in sweat and wet confetti. if you want to get a little bit light in the heady. it's gonna have to get a little bit heavy.

if she says we partied then i'm pretty sure we partied. i really don't remember. i remember we departed from our bodies. we woke up in ybor city. ybor city is tres speedy but they throw such killer parties.

[simms3]

Loved this thread.  I was only vaguely familiar with Ybor and Tampa's immigrant community before, but now my eyes have been opened.  Very cool!

[ChriswUfGator]

Legend has it ybor city has an abandoned streetcar. Oh ock....

[DemocraticNole]

Ybor has a great history, but it still hasn't fully recovered even with the investment in the area. I go down there on a rare occasion, but it is still not a place I like to frequent because there is still a bit too much crime. If I go out to eat or drink, it is usually to South Howard.

[Ocklawaha]

Where's the old car body at Chris? Look's like a early enclosed passenger car, that was converted for line or track maintenance, the frame is apparently wood also. This would make a cool museum piece.

Wouldn't it be funny to pull an old car like that right out from under TECO?

OCKLAWAHA

[ChriswUfGator]

I'll be damned Ock you certainly nailed the car type didn't you, looks identical. It just sits in a storeyard behind one of the old cigar factories, funnily enough right next to the current active streetcar line. There is no fence or anything, you can go right up to it. This railroad buff took kind of a sad pic of it on flickr, new vs. old;