ybor the cigar city

Time to visit Ybor City just northeast of downtown Tampa (itself once nick-named as Cigar-City).

Ybor was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and was populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Cuba, Spain, and Italy.

There's still a mixed vibe of Cuban-Italian-Spanish and a few cigar stores still hand-rolling some of their products.

The city was unique in the American south as a successful town almost entirely populated and owned by immigrants.

The neighbourhood had features unusual among contemporary communities in the south, most notably its multi-ethnic and multi-racial population and their many mutual aid societies.

The post depression decline in cigar sales created a corresponding slide for Ybor until the 1980s, when an influx of artists began a slow process of gentrification.

We've visited before and the area around 7th Avenue has continued its development into a bohemian night club and entertainment district with many old buildings were renovated for new uses, although this time I noticed a few had indeed emptied again.

Things don't really kick off here until well into the evening, after the last bus has passed through the centre of the district.