Daily Loaf

This post is about one of my favorite places in Tampa Bay: Ybor City.

The Ybor City I admire is the community pre “urban renewal”: that pathetic time in the 1960s when vast stretches of this remarkable multi-lingual and multi-ethnic historic district were demolished in the name of the mid-century streamlined suburban dream.  I’ve written about Tampa’s planning history in previous Creative Loafing posts: The Tampa That Might Have Been, The roots of sprawl, and Fixing sprawl and redesigning suburbia.

The idea behind urban renewal (a national program) was that it demolish the existing crumbling old historic fabric of cities, and the newly vacant lots would become modern new development that would spur the economy. In Ybor this Faustian new construction never materialized, as I remember the old 1980s “Rough Riders restaurant” in Ybor being surrounded by vacant lots.

The real premise for urban renewal was most likely racial and socioeconomic, with the goal of moving the poor and disenfranchised out of the cities and into the sparkling new modern housing projects further out. Mind you, this re-location scheme is still being pursued by Tampa and the county to this day as these old housing projects are now meeting the wrecking ball and the unfortunate inhabitants are relocated even further out to places like the USF area (aka “Suitcase City”), Lutz, Carrollwood and Brandon (might I add places that largely lack mass transit). Dear readers, please note that South Tampa is not on the list.
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We recently came across a trove of 8×10 black-and-white photos capturing Tampa as far back as the 1920s. A lot of folks at the CL office were mesmerized, so we thought we’d share them on the Daily Loaf.

Most of the photos came without any information about the year they were taken, or what part of town they were taken in, or, in some cases, what they depict. If you can shed any light on these photos, or if you know anyone who might, please hit us with a comment (You can view the photos in the gallery below).

Below is the first installment of our Tampa Back in the Day photo series. Keep an eye out for new ones over the next dozen or so weekdays.

By the way, if you look on the lower right corner of a real-size version (click on slide show below), you can see a store called Rio Liquors next to a Hav-A-Tampa cigar shop. The Rio Liquors looks like it might be where the Hub currently is. Thoughts?

Thanks to Maria Sevillano for the hookup on the photos.