ybor8.htm

BUSINESS IN YBOR CITY

This section will contain text and photographs of business in early Ybor City.
The famous Columbia Restaurant of Ybor City - largest and oldest Spanish restaurant in the United States.

When people like of Ybor City and business, they think of restaurants, nightclubs, and entertainment. Ybor City was the nightlife place during most of its existence. lovely tile work at the Columbia Restaurant (Ybor City) The diverse population of Ybor City did not all come from big cities like Havana, but the love of maintaining the traditions of late meals, and cafe hopping were important contrasts between Ybor City and the rest of Florida in the nineteenth century.
Girls on 7th Avenue balacony in Ybor City. To the rural Anglo community, Ybor City seemed a foreign place, where people drank wine and often stayed up late to dance and sing and talk.
In reality, Ybor City for forty years was a booming development where factories and stores and homes were built. Many of the original commercial structures were made of wood with an almost frontier mentality - the first store would get the business. Soon larger, brick structures began to replace the wooden originals. Iron balcony rails and metal ornaments were important. Ybor City's architecture was not like downtown Tampa.
Max ARgentar's historic clothing store in Ybor City. The Ybor City Ice Works (Ybor Brewery). Feeding and housing the growing population of Ybor City and West Tampa meant employment for thousands. The Ybor Ice Works was a monument and stood along the Government Spring.
The Caligura Machine Shop. The tobacco and other industrial workings that came by ship left as cigars and cigar boxes on railroad trains. Between these two forms of transportation were wagons and later trucks. Below is the notorious EL DORADO HOTEL, which in the 1920's and 1930's housed a casino and one of the largest houses of ill-reprute outside New Orleans.
The notorious El Dorado Casino and Whorehouse.

There were more than just mutual aid and social clubs in Ybor City. The famous Labor Temple was one of many labor organizations that supported the workers.
The Labor Temple in Ybor City.

Ybor City's status as a colorful, different place attracted tourists by the 1920's and having a Spanish meal in Ybor City became a tradition for snow birds.
Famous Garcia Restaurant in old Ybor City. Until it folded in the 1970's Las Novedades was the oldest continuous restaurant in Florida.
Las Novedades in 1927 - a restaurant for 70 years until 1970's. Ybor City was a vibrant workplace, offering jobs with a flair.