The Political Whore

Photo: Amber Rhea/flickr.com

By Manny Leto
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.

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Architect sketch of the new HCC Student Services Building

By Manny Leto
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.

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McCain on the plane: Temper, temper

Crocodile Tears Dept.: “It’s sad, because clearly she’s a bright and intelligent person.”

Ashlee sings in Ybor for only 10 minutes — and that’s a problem because…?

Disappearing signs of Irvine

So will he really show up here?