Editor's Note: Shannon Bennett is a recent addition to the roster of contributors on Creative Loafing's blog, The Daily Loaf. A UCF grad, she's back in Florida after spending her first year post-college living and working in England, France and Spain. Because she clearly loves discovering new places, we assigned her to blog about her newest place: Ybor City. The articles and photos in this section (interspersed with Charles Greacen's beautifully rendered maps) provide a perspective that comes from somewhere between tourist and resident, a middle ground where many of us find ourselves when discovering and rediscovering the many surprises of Ybor.
A Rainy Day
I am brand spanking new to Tampa Bay, so when presented with the opportunity to do a newcomer's travel guide to Ybor City, my little writer's brain got all caught up in fluttery enthusiasm. I pictured myself sipping beer on sun-flooded patios, browsing all sorts of weird shops, and following it up with a night of all-in debauchery.
Imagine my disappointment when I was jolted awake by a crack of thunder to a black downpour of a morning. Suddenly I could relate to every horrified tourist I'd encountered during my college years in Orlando who felt they'd somehow been lied to when they booked a getaway to the "Sunshine" State.
Against every instinct to stay in, eat re-heated Chinese and watch the 6-hour version of Pride and Prejudice, I managed to pull some clothes on, wade out to my car and see what I could make of a truly subtropical day in Ybor City.
My favorite finds were as follows:
Ybor City State Museum
Museums are an obvious indoor choice when the weather is less than ideal. This was my first stop for precisely that reason.
The museum itself is relatively tiny, so I recommend you stop first at the round cubby in the center of the museum and have a seat inside to watch the short but well-made documentary. This will give you a better understanding not only of the museum artifacts, but of the buildings and statuary around the city.
I can't imagine the museum having quite the same allure on a sunny day. Most of the lighting inside comes via multiple glass skylights, which during the storm created romantic and spooky distortions on the artifacts and provided the perfect ambient rain-on-a-tin-roof soundtrack for a trip back in time.
Be sure to keep your umbrella close by to make a dash next door for the on-the-hour tours of the cigar workers' homes (casitas), admission $4.
La France
Everything a vintage shop should be: piles upon rows upon mounds of beautiful antique clothing, hats, shoes and jewelry displayed on as many racks as one could possibly fit into the given space.
In short, it is a fantasy find for the rainy-day shopper. Prices range from the $20-$30 range well up to what you would expect of an authentic Victorian ball gown or the like. Ration off plenty of browsing time and be prepared to walk out with at least one impulse buy.
Joffrey's
If you can score one of their cushiony armchairs, Joffrey's is a great stop to dry out a little, dip into your current reading material and sip a high-calorie whipped confection as the rain pounds away at the pavement outside. You'll be kept company by an array of unique artwork, all of which is available for purchase if it catches your fancy. Enjoy your view of all the other poor saps outside, dashing through Centro Ybor to escape from the rain. It will make your mocha, novel and dry clothes seem all that much more cozy.
Hi, tea
Last Thursday in Ybor City, the afternoon's high tea ceremony at the Tea Rose Cottage was a little bit "curiouser" than usual.
Local artists, re-invented as a variety of Lewis Carroll's beloved creations, invaded the little tea house nestled on the corner of Centinnial Park to share scones, tea and photo ops prior to a group viewing of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.
Ringleader Pamela Tipton, who attended the event as the Mad Hatter, says that the group formed when she began hosting tea parties in her home a few years ago. When one guest arrived fully decked out in costume as her own mother, the tradition stuck so firmly that she "couldn't get people to come as themselves anymore."
Events like this one aren't unusual for Tea Rose Cottage. Owners Angie Ceglio and Jennie Weaver have played host over the years to an array of bridal showers, themed parties, bachelorette nights and the occasional gathering of Jane Austen enthusiasts.
It's a setting fit for the ultra-feminine, the fairy-tale and anyone seeking an afternoon of Regency-era pampering. Homemade sandwiches, seasonal scones and local fruit are served up on delicate tiered trays, (literally) topped off with a generous variety of chocolate-dipped desserts.
The tea ceremony stretches over a two-hour period while soundtracks from era-appropriate films like Ang Lee's Sense & Sensibility float around the cottage, your pot of tea kept warm by the traditional British method of a tea candle inserted into a latticed metal stand.
The owners recommend their strawberry shortcake tea, though the namesake tea rose blend is the most popular. I tried (and loved) both the pomegranate rosehip's exotic sweetness and the earthy guava tea, carried specifically for the local, Cuban-influenced palate.
For little girls who celebrate their birthdays (ages 6 and up) in the Cottage, fruit juice or hot chocolate is served in place of tea, along with the dress-up boas and tiaras.
The owners ask that special events are booked at least two months in advance, and any high tea sittings are given at least 24 hours' notice, as all the high tea delicacies are prepared fresh daily. If you're not quite ready to jump into the full-on $17 high tea, I highly recommend popping in to test the waters with a cream tea.
Cream tea is a popular afternoon-break luxury in the UK consisting of only the middle-layer of a high tea. It will run you around $7, and take it from a very picky cream-tea-addict who just returned from a year in England, the crunchy home-recipe scones layered with thick, frothy cream and a rotating variety of fresh fruit preserves easily hold their own next to the authentic Cornish and Devonshire varities.
The Tea Rose Cottage is located at 1901 N. 19th Street. For reservations, call 813-248-2040.
Market Research
As any globetrotter worth her salt will tell you, one of the best parts of travel is finding that perfect token to take home.
Unfortunately for a souvenir junkie like myself, local marketplaces the world over have slowly begun to resemble each other. My hand-woven Moroccan beanie and my traditional Corsican wood necklace both look like items I could have easily picked up in any Stateside strip mall.
So when I stopped by the Ybor Saturday Market last weekend, I expected to see the usual: identical displays of beaded jewelry, incense, a few (potentially stolen) pleather handbags, the compulsory unfortunate-looking ceramic kitchenware, and since we're in Florida, some salt water taffy and a few Disney figurines.
I am thrilled to report that I was quite mistaken. From lush, local produce to artistically displayed frames of reclaimed trash, the market plays host to an array of unique locally produced items.
I could in no way do justice to the myriad of choices available. For that, you'll need to show up in Centennial Park on Saturday morning to see for yourself, but here are a few of my favorites:
Gonzales Habano Cigar Company
As luck would have it, one of the first stalls I stopped at was maintained by Wallace Reyes, the Guinness World Record holder for rolling the world's longest cigar. The display houses some of Wallace's more modestly sized cigars and comes equipped with the expert himself to assist in decision-making.
He's spent 35 years in the cigar business, in the city that was built on cigars, so he's a good person to talk to if you're after a sample of this traditional Ybor art form.
And drectly behind the market, in the Ybor City State Museum store, slices of Reyes' record-breaking cigar are available for purchase.
The Honey Cart
Raw honey, Honey Cart proprietor Jo White will tell you, gets its flavor from the nectar of the flowers in bloom, which makes an autumn honey entirely different from the spring batch.
If you don't believe her, stop by and try the free spoonfuls she hands out to Saturday browsers.
My personal favorite was the winter blend of Florida maple, golden rod, tea tree, strawberry and a prominent dose of blueberry that gives the honey a purple glow and a uniquely decadent flavor. All four seasons include nectar from plants that are definitive of Florida's ecosystem, including Black Mangrove, Citrus blossoms and Palmetto.
The honey comes both in traditional bottles and jars, and as indulgent hunks of honeycomb.
Our Stuff
With wine-bottle wind chimes and box frames of beads and shattered liquor bottles glimmering in the sunlight, the Our Stuff display invites closer inspection.
A mother/daughter operation that reclaims trash and artistically reinvents whatever treasures they may uncover, Our Stuff (ourstuff@tampabay.rr.com) offers an eclectic variety of ornaments and whirligigs that spark the imagination.
Aeesha Spa
Though homemade soaps are commonplace to local markets, I was particularly impressed by Aeesha's creamy texture and conservative perfuming. Aeesha is a local, family-run natural soap company promising "quality ingredients in thoughtful and researched combinations."
Swing by their stall and grab one of their poker-chip sized samples. I'm definitely sold after a few days with their luscious Champs-Elysses blend.
The Ybor Market runs every Saturday between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. in Centennial Park at 1800 E. 8th Avenue.
Ybor's Ghosts
It was appropriately cold and blustery the night I met Chrissy Koplenik in Centro Ybor to talk about the paranormal goings-on in one of Florida's oldest and most infamous neighborhoods.
Chrissy owns Ghost Party Paranormal, a company that has been offering guided tours of Ybor's most haunted areas since 1996. Her customized tours range from historically informative vanilla to recording-ghost-voices-in-a-dark-cellar scary.
Because I was feeling more adventurous than I actually am (I regularly keep myself awake in terror from reading horror movie synopses on Wikipedia), I asked for the full treatment. So, armed with a set of investigative tools and a thorough knowledge of the area, Chrissy took me around and let me in on some of the area's creepy little secrets.
What follows are my three absolute favorites. If you want more, you'll have to call Chrissy yourself, and have her or one of her expertly trained guides take you around on a dark, windy night of your own.
Teatro on Seventh
This beautiful Ybor restaurant has long been host to a variety of luminescent paranormal events.
It's not just the frequent tourist photographs showing light flooding out of ceramic chandeliers that contain no light source whatsoever, or the reports of disembodied footsteps from the staff: co-owner Jill Scott recalls closing up alone one memorable night. She stepped out into the foyer and turned to lock the doors only to discover that the entire row of candles she'd just extinguished along the center of her restaurant had somehow burst back into flames.
Revolve
Ybor's trendy clothing swap has a secret tenant. If you see him, you might not notice his curious period clothes among the shop's eclectic clothing choices. He likes to duck between the racks and antagonize the newer shop girls who aren't yet familiar with the literally disappearing boy.
The employees seem fond of their resident ghost, even when he occasionally messes with the music selection or beats his hand against the computer keyboard, repeatedly punching in the letter "L."
After all, he's just a kid.
Don Vicente Inn
Stepping into the luscious atmosphere of the Don Vicente, one would never suspect that the building was originally a turn-of-the-century clinic struggling to serve Ybor's entire Spanish-speaking community.
Chrissy's plan was to descend into the cellar of the hotel, which is now a trendy underground lounge with a full bar and big leather booths.
She produced a thermometer, a digital tape recorder and a compass to take paranormal readings of the cellar that she describes as "one of the creepiest places I've ever set foot in."
One would never guess that concealed behind the bricks at the back of the room is perhaps one of the darkest secrets in Tampa Bay.
As legend has it, the Gonzales clinic was home to a gifted doctor by the name of Avellanal who had both a wonderful reputation as a doctor, and a violently unstable schizophrenic son.
After being kicked out of the clinic for his unsavory ways, Avellanal Jr. took up residence across the street from the clinic in Ybor's high-end brothel (the El Pasaje building). He was, however, using his nights to impersonate his father and convince the working girls to come up into his rooms where he could conduct sadistic and ultimately fatal "experiments."
Though Junior was obviously a psychopath, he was no dummy. He knew about the secret tunnels winding under Ybor's streets and the incinerator in the basement of the clinic, meant for disposing of amputated limbs and the like.
With the aid of a mysterious Spanish nurse, he disposed of his victims in that incinerator, which sits fully intact behind the bricks in the basement of the Don Vicente.
It's not Junior who's been caught lurking around the basement of the hotel, though. It's the Mystery Nurse: silent, stern, and still wearing a traditional Spanish fan in her hair. Be careful rounding corners, because she's been known to make sudden nose-to-nose appearances.
We caught several drops in temperature in the middle of the room. Chrissy (who was politely ignoring how wimpy I am), encouraged the cold spot to make contact in any way possible, to tug her scarf or whisper its name. It would've made a hell of a story, but I must admit with marginal relief that we didn't encounter the Nurse that night.
Though I cannot possibly recount the entirety of the paranormal knowledge I took in on this tour (including but not limited to ghosts of mobsters frequenting a local bar, and an apartment that has led its last six tenants to suicide), Ghost Party exists to do just that.
Each location on the tour has been thoroughly researched and tailored to create an hour or two of optimal intrigue and history while you walk around the cobbled streets of Ybor City.
Tours run most days of the week, and should be scheduled by appointment at 813-404-9275. Tickets are $15 per adult, $10 per child, and a special rate of $9 per child if the tour is a family group.
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2010.