It was great to see so many people in Centro Ybor Monday night, and it wasn't easy to get in, either. The courtyard was closed off with only one entrance point on Eighth Avenue just past the Scientology building.
The line snaked around the block. It took us a half an hour to get to the security check-point. My husband had been carrying a knife - nothing sinister, something I gave him -so he gave it to me, figuring I looked less like a terrorist. I dashed across the street to make dinner reservations at Bernini and left the knife with them, luckily, because guards searched handbags and frisked everyone.
The guy who frisked me said, in a real friendly tone, "How are you doin'?" and I said okay. "Just trying to keep you safe," he said, and I told him we appreciate it, and I did.
We were all there to see John Kerry. One protester of sorts wearing a makeshift Arab headdress walked up and down the line with a goofy smile carrying a sign that said: "al-Qaida for Kerry." Some of the folks in line actually tried to reason with him. The only other protesters were two guys standing at a polite distance across the street. One's sign said: "What's your favorite Jane Fonda movie?"
Several guys in line called out, Barbarella!
Two women, Blake High School students, one wearing a sweatshirt for the Blaze, the school paper, were excited to see political buttons for sale. "They're, like, three for a dollar!" one cried. She put on a button with a picture of a Heinz ketchup bottle.
The courtyard was packed. People filled the balconies and walkway overhead.
A little before the end of Kerry's speech, we cut out for our 8 p.m. reservation. Bernini was full. Was it because of the event? They said they're usually busy, but, yes, the rally was an extra boon.
All of which shows you: People will come to Ybor, even to Centro Ybor, if there's something to come for.
Centro Ybor, the shopping/entertainment complex, is always blaming Ybor City, the neighborhood, for its troubles. Centro Ybor is always saying no one will come to Ybor City, it's too scary, there's no parking and so on. If I had trouble as bad as Centro Ybor, I guess I'd blame somebody else, too.
But it just doesn't wash. People do come to Ybor, the city. They just don't come to Ybor, the Centro.
Last month I went to an alumni luncheon at the Columbia on a Thursday. The place was packed and it seats more than 1,000. Earlier this winter, we went to lunch at Acropolis on a Sunday, and the restaurants on Seventh Avenue - Carmine's, the Green Iguana - were doing big business, people out at all the sidewalk tables and full inside, too.
I had a hunch, so two weeks ago I got a friend to go to Ybor City for lunch on a Tuesday. La Tropicana, her choice, was hopping. We walked down Seventh to test my hunch: yep, Carmine's, the Green Iguana were packed. When we got to Centro Ybor, we looked in Dish, and it was almost empty. Most of the tables at Barley Hoppers were empty. There were a handful of people at Samurai Blue. Surely Big City Tavern would be doing better, but no. It was closed. It's not even open for lunch anymore.
Fresh Mouth - where John Kerry had a strawberry milk shake waiting for him Monday night, by the way - wasn't empty but not what I'd call busy either.
A thunderstorm got us stranded in Metropolitan Deluxe, where I was looking for a drinking glass for my daughter and bought a couch instead. So we didn't get to the Laughing Cat, but I hear their lunch business - an Italian buffet - is busy big-time.
People come to Ybor City. They're attracted to it for the same reasons they have always been - the atmosphere. It's different from other places. La Tropicana, Carmine's, Bernini are one of a kind. The Columbia has been there for 100 years. They're in old buildings, Bernini in a great old bank building. They're right on the street.
This is what we want.
What we didn't want is another mall, and that's what Centro Ybor is, after all.
And there are many better malls.
- Sandra Thompson, a Tampa writer, can be reached at tampa@sptimes.com City Life appears on Saturday.
