Ybor City, Change, or Not Change?
Tampa was the city of my college years. It is where I met friends that became family, and some that still are family today. Others, have faded into the memories of those days.
I was fortunate to travel up to Tampa with my best mate Jerry, his father Cliff and Cliff’s wife Doris from Miami. We were on a mission to go to Bern’s Steakhouse. But for me it was a chance to see the some streets and fragments of memories from those South Florida days.
We had a bit of time before our reservation, so we headed down to Ybor City to see if there would be anything that I would remember. We used to head to Ybor to hit one of the only live venues where once upon a time I saw the Lemonheads.
Walking up and down the main street, I thought I had stepped off in another world more akin with South Beach than anything I’d remembered from Tampa. The street was now lined with venues, clubs and cigar shacks. The cigars I do remember, but these were new, clean, and with lots of neon signs.
Like most places, when I was in school, the early 90’s were not the best of times. Stores were shuttered across south Florida after the excessive building of the 80’s. Now those times have come again. There also were dusty closed store fronts in this new hip neighborhood. That was the Tampa I remember. Dusty store fronts with a FOR RENT sign duct taped to the window. I did catch a glimpse of that down on Seventh Avenue. The gray cinder blocks with the bright blue sky overhead.
I really want to thank Cliff and Doris for spiriting us away to Tampa.
