by Beth Luberecki

People have been coming to Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood for more than one hundred years, albeit for some different reasons. At the turn of the twentieth century, Cuban, Italian, German, Spanish, and Jewish immigrants were drawn here by the area’s booming cigar industry. Today, locals and tourists head to Ybor City for good food, a thriving nightlife scene, and a glimpse at Tampa’s history.

You can still see cigars being rolled by hand here or enjoy a famed Cuban sandwich. But you can also get a tattoo, catch a flick on the big screen, or grab a slice of pizza after a night of drinking and dancing. America has long been touted as a melting pot, and Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood is a prime example of that type of mix-and-match spirit. It’s apparent in the multicultural population that still calls the area home, the blend of businesses found in its central core, and the meeting of past and present that takes place on a daily basis.

The former swampland owes its development to Don Vicente Martinez Ybor, who established a new industrial city based on cigar making here in the late 1800s. The Spanish-born businessman had spent much of his life in Cuba, where he manufactured cigars. Unrest in Cuba brought Ybor (pronounced EE-bore) and his business to Florida, first to Key West and then to Tampa, whose port and new rail lines courtesy of Henry Plant allowed for the importing of Cuban tobacco and the exporting of the factories’ finished products.

From its 1886 founding, Ybor City and its cigar industry flourished. “The climate was just right for rolling cigars,” says Tom Keating, the president and CEO of the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce. “The humidity here, though sometimes oppressive, was very good for that process.”

The area soon became known as the “Cigar Capital of the World,” a fact that still draws folks to Ybor City, whether they enjoy a good stogie or not. Though only one major cigar manufacturer remains in Tampa today, smaller Ybor City shops like La Herencia de Cuba and El Sol Cigars still sell smokes, some hand-rolled on site by workers both young and old.

The cigar industry also lives on at the Ybor City Museum State Park, where artifacts and historic photos tell the story of the ’hood’s heyday. Cigar makers were considered “well-paid artisans” during the late 1800s and early 1900s, rolling some 125 cigars a day and taking home $15 to $18 a week. It’s easy to see why many people saw so much opportunity here, and why Ybor City’s history is being preserved to this day.

“Where else can you find a place that has so many different types of immigrants who came and got along together and worked together?” says eighty-year-old Anna Mary Engle, a fifteen-year volunteer at the state park whose mother grew up in Ybor City. “It’s just a very unique area. You won’t find another place like it in the United States.”

Ybor City prospered during the early twentieth century, but by 1950 the good times had come to an end. Recent years have brought a rebirth to the area, which now trades on both its history and its party-friendly vibe.

What side of Ybor you experience depends on what time you visit. Pat Torrence, owner of fifteen short- and long-term rental properties collectively known as Ybor House, finds a typical day here to have three phases.

“During the daytime, you’re going to see business people going to lunch, a grandma with her daughter and a baby in a stroller; it’s a lot more family oriented,” he says. “Then you have the early evening, which is my favorite time, when an abundance of people are out dining, sitting in a cigar bar, looking at rolled cigars, and strolling. Then as I’m leaving, maybe anywhere between 9:30 and 11:30 p.m., a whole other shift comes in, which is the night shift. And that lasts till 3 in the morning, when everything shuts down. It’s got it all.”

A circa-2000 shopping, dining, and entertainment zone called Centro Ybor has added to the area’s after-dark appeal. Twenty- and thirty-somethings head here for a movie at its twenty-screen theater, a beer at the Tampa Bay Brewing Company, or some comedy at the Tampa Improv. Other bars and clubs can be found on the main drag of 7th Avenue, offering everything from live blues at the Blue Shark to dancing at Club Prana.

While office buildings now occupy many of the former cigar factories, and the casitas where cigar workers resided now house shops or neighborhood denizens, Ybor City retains much of its historic charm. Vintage-looking street signs mark every corner, brick streets crisscross the neighborhood, and an electric streetcar connects Ybor City with other parts of Tampa. Brick buildings with wrought-iron balconies line 7th Avenue, exuding a New Orleans feel and providing space for restaurants, bars, and merchants.

“What makes the area so neat is that the buildings that defined its economy are all still here,” says Keating. That includes the social clubs that played a crucial role for immigrants to Ybor City. Classical in architecture and formidable in appearance, they continue to serve as gathering places and sites for weddings and other special events.

The restaurant Teatro on Seventh is located in the former ballroom and theater of the circa-1892 El Centro Espanol social club building. “It’s a massive room with twenty-foot ceilings, soaring windows, all hardwood,” says Torrence. “I often take people in just to look at it and get a beer.”

Foodies find plenty to enjoy in Ybor City, no matter their tastes. For Italian, try Bernini or Carmine’s, which also offers Cuban and Spanish dishes. The legendary Columbia restaurant has been serving Latin specialties since 1905, drawing steady crowds to its fifteen dining rooms boasting glittering chandeliers, colorful tile work, and other Old World accents. Or bypass the crowds and go to La Tropicana Cafe for similar fare. “It’s where locals eat,” says Engle. “It has good food, reasonable prices, and good service.”

Restaurants like these help to further strengthen the connection between past and present, illustrating the impact various ethnic groups continue to have on what’s now a National Historic Landmark District. And that balance of history with modern life is what makes Ybor City so interesting to folks like Torrence.

“What’s unique about Ybor City is it’s this time capsule of a moment in time,” he says. “And you do get to experience, just strolling down the street, what it might have once been like.”

Beth Luberecki is a Venice, Florida–based freelance writer and an editor for Times of the Islands, RSW Living, and Bonita Living.