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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If you missed CL Wine Club’s Wine Rave at the West Tampa Center for the Arts last Saturday, sucks for you. If you were smart enough to be there, we know you had fun
See the pictures
See the handout with all the wines listed

350 people strolled two packed floors of this historic cigar building, staring intently at collections of 24 local artists, dancing to the tunes of DJ Coro and Jen Saavedra and sipping cocktails and over 60 wines. The vibrant social scene completely rocked. Smiles on everyone’s faces. Plenty of tipsy imbibers. The graffiti wall – where everyone gathered to paint their own brand of art (including a crudely classy sketch of the male anatomy) – proved a popular destination, as did the live body painter from Artworld. One of our fearless Street Teamers, Emma, bravely stripped half naked and had her skin airbrushed with grapes and vines. Like a married man with his wife at the mall, men timidly stole glances as her breasts slowly disappeared underneath the paint. Emma only giggled. 

West Tampa Center for the Arts apparently wants us back, so we’ll have another bigger and better one next year with Wine Rave 2009. In the meantime, we have cool wine events each month so sign up here to receive our weekly wine education newsletter to find out about them. OR, if you’re interested in being a part of our exclusive VIP wine tastings and winning tickets to wine and food events around Tampa Bay, sign up for our text alerts: send the phrase CLWINE to 50618 to be in the know.