Healing the broken Tampa-Cuba connection at an Ybor City forum

By Manny Leto
Cigar City Magazine Editor and POHO Contributor

You may not have even known it was happening, but “Rapprochement With Cuba: Good For Tampa Bay, Good For Florida, Good For America,” a conference sponsored by the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation and held Saturday at the Italian Club in Ybor City, was, by its very existence, a milestone in repairing the tattered relationship between Tampa andCuba.

About 150 guests, panelists, professors and local politicians filled the grand, neo-classical Italian Club, once the social, cultural and political epicenter of Tampa’s Italian community. Whether the speeches, panel discussions, and networking sessions will really accomplish much toward ending the 50-year-old U.S. embargo, no one is really sure. However, to get a sense of where the Cuba barometer is pointing, you could start with the venue itself.

In 1955, a young, verbose Fidel Castro arrived in Ybor City. This was no accident, no anomaly. In fact, it made perfect sense. Castro, in a bid to gain popular support for his uprising against CIA-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, he followed — literally — in the footsteps of an earlier young, charismatic Cuban revolutionary, Jose Marti.

Marti was the ideological voice of the first Cuban Revolution; the one American school children call the Spanish American War. In the 1890s, after an earlier 10-year conflict between Spain and native Cubans, Jose Marti rose to the fore of a new effort to oust Spain from the island of Cuba. Like Castro, Marti was an intellectual, a writer, poet. He traveled extensively throughout Florida between 1891 and 1895, raising money for Cuban independence. He visited Tampa some 20 times, giving speeches to Tampa’s cigar workers and strategizing with the exiled leadership headquartered in West Tampa and New York City. Marti’s revolution began in 1895. Teddy Roosevelt and the U.S. Army showed up a couple years later, in 1898. Read More

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The rebirth of landscape architect Dan Kiley’s world-renowned gardens in downtown Tampa

By Manny Leto

Cigar City Magazine Editor and POHO Contributor

Kiley Gardens, the hotly contested riverfront park nestled between Kennedy Boulevard and the new Tampa Museum of Art off of Ashley Street, will be saved after all.

Well, most of it will be saved.

Locals have fought for years to restore the park, designed by world-renowned landscape architect, Dan Kiley. Completed in 1988 and neglected almost from the beginning, when plans for the new art museum were announced back in 2000 during the Greco administration, Kiley Gardens was scheduled for demolition. It seems that in Tampa, to create art, you must destroy art, which is, I’m sure, exactly the postmodern statement city officials were trying to make. Irony notwithstanding, local architects and others began to speak out. After what is now nearly a decade of debate, studies and grass roots activism, which reached a highpoint in 2005 and 2006, the Downtown Partnership hosted a forum this morning to assess the current plans for Kiley.

Longtime Kiley advocate, Chris Vela of the Urban Charrette, and developers, Chuck Jablon of Skanska and Morris Lopez of Par Development participated in a panel discussion and, despite years of neglect and poor construction, the news looks promising.

Problems with the park’s original construction were myriad. Drainage was insufficient, causing the brackish water of the Hillsborough River to backflow into the gardens, killing the crape myrtles. Sprinklers and irrigation systems leaked into the parking garage below. The large limestone pavers and topsoil were too heavy for the garage’s crumbling supports. Even the crape myrtles themselves, planted back in 1988, were the wrong species. Read More

Hillsborough Community College changes course in historic Ybor City architecture dispute

By Manny Leto
Cigar City Magazine Editor and PoHo contributor

It’s 8 a.m in Ybor City, and there’s not a construction worker in sight at Hillsborough Community College’s new Student Services building on Palm Avenue. Pillars for the fourth floor reach skyward, while exposed rebar twists in the wind.

For weeks now, a group of influential Ybor City property owners, the Barrio Latino Commission, the city’s Office of Historic Preservation and the Cuban Club has battled HCC over the design of it’s new Student Services Building which by anyone’s standing is clearly out of place along the brick streets of Old Ybor.

There’s a reason why the architecture of HCC’s Ybor Campus, including the design for the new Student Services building, has never really jibed with what the Barrio Latino Commission considers the “historic patterns” of Tampa’s National Historic Landmark District: It doesn’t have to.

At least, that’s what college officials say. Read More

Hit the bricks:a historical street paving opportunity in Ybor City

By Manny Leto

Cigar City Magazine Editor and POHO Contributor

Most Tampa folks believe there are tunnels under the streets of Ybor City. People say they criss-cross 7th Avenue and were used by bootleggers in the 1920s to smuggle booze between establishments or stash cash in hidden vaults. Sounds sexy. I’m not sure whether it’s true. I met someone once whose family owned a grocery store on 7th. Apparently, she played in the tunnel under the family store when she was a little girl.

Maybe. After last week the only thing I know for sure is hidden under the asphalt in Ybor City is Augusta Brick.

After the city worker pounded on my door at 8:30 a.m., telling me to move my car or he would tow it, he and his crew from the Public Works department began “resurfacing” 4th Avenue, the street I currently call home.

When I came back during my lunch hour I was surprised to see red brick - and a lot of it – peeking out from cleared-away sections of asphalt.

I know this may not seem like a big deal. But it’s significant for several reasons. Read More

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TAMPANIAN

IT'S COMING...TAMPANIAN

MAMA KNOWS

Dear Mama,

My mother keeps telling me that she's going to hit 

me with her chancleta. What is a chancleta?

Julio

Dear Julio,

What kind of "latino" are you! A chancleta is a 

flip-flop style shoe that goes "clakita clakita" 

when you walk. Although considered a multi-functional 

item, mamas mostly use them to throw at their 

kids to get their attention when they are misbehaving. 

The main reason the shoe is thrown is because your 

mama can't sneak up on you to whack you on the 

head with it because of the "clakita clakita" sound. 

Chancletas can also be used to throw at the family 

pet when they are doing something wrong, 

and for killing roaches and flies.

Mama 

Dear Mama,

What kind of summer camps did kids from Ybor 

and West Tampa attend in the olden days?

Mary

Dear Mary,

You gotta be kidding...we didn't have summer camps! 

For fun, when we heard the mosquito truck coming, 

we would run behind the truck as it sprayed the 

mosquito killer mist. We would steal avocados and 

mangos from our neighbors' trees, and sometimes 

go swimming at Cascaden Park. On Saturdays, you 

would get dropped off at the movie theater, and 

given 50 cents. The 50 cents would cover the cost 

to get in, popcorn, coke, and a pickle...

and you could stay all day.

Mama

Dear Mama,

Last night my mama beat my butt with a 

big wooden spoon. Should I call HRS?

Too Sore to Sit

Dear Sore,

First of all, HRS will take you out of the house 

and your mama will finally have some peace 

and quiet. Secondly, I'm sure you deserved it! 

And last, when you get home your butte will 

hurt even more than it did the first 

time around.

Mama

Dear Mama,

I offered to take my elderly neighbor around 

town to run a few errands. But I have no idea 

where she wants me to take her. I haven't 

lived in Tampa very long, but I thought I 

knew my way around. Can you tell me where 

Guolmar, Besbai, and El Pobli are?

Need a New Map

Dear Map,

You don't need a new map, you need a 

lesson in Spanglish. Guolmar is Wal-Mart, 

Besbai is Best Buy, and El Pobli is Publix. 

Just in case you offer to help her on a 

regular basis, Quemar is K-Mart, Guindici 

is Winn-Dixie, and Wagrin is Walgreen's. 

Mama

Dear Mama,

I was researching my family history at the 

public library and found my grandparent's 

listing in a city directory from the early 1900s. 

It listed my Nonno's name and his occupation, 

then my Nanna's name and her occupation ... stripper! 

My sweet little Nanna was a stripper! Then, to 

make matters worse, this is published in a city 

directory for all of Tampa to see. All of my life I 

have been told that my Nanna worked in a cigar factory. 

I don't know if I can ever look at her in the same way.

Ruth who can't handle the truth

Dear Ruth,

You're a complete babba! A stripper was someone 

who worked in a cigar factory and stripped the 

tobacco leaves from its stem. 

Mama

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