Column

Ybor icon passes from the scene

By ERNEST HOOPER
Published January 2, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [Special to the Times] Victor DiMaio Sr., a longtime civic leader, died Saturday.

In the coming days, friends and family will celebrate the life of the late Victor Emmanuele DiMaio Sr., touting him as a husband, civic leader, successful insurance agent, father and gregarious do-gooder.

I will always remember Mr. DiMaio, who died Saturday at St. Joseph's Hospital, as the elderly but spry University of Florida fan who joined me and hundreds of other orange-and-blue revelers to watch the Gators' 2006 national championship basketball victory over UCLA at a local sports bar.

We talked about his love of Florida and basketball, a game he played even when he served in the Navy on the USS Antigone during World War II. He explained he eventually co-founded the Catholic Youth Basketball League in 1959, which continues today.

I joked then that Mr. DiMaio, a 1950 UF graduate and former Tampa Gator Club president, deserved a seat of honor, but had to settle for sitting with my friends and me.

In his lifetime, however, Mr. DiMaio often found himself in a seat of honor. Metropolitan Life, the agency where he worked for 40 years, once recognized him with a national award and a full-page ad in Life magazine.

The honors came from decades of service. He served as the past president of at least six different groups, including the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce and the Ybor City Lions Club.

A staunch Democrat, Mr. DiMaio also was politically active, once vying for a Tampa City Council seat. He also had a role in starting many of the city's long-standing traditions and institutions, including the Ybor St. Patrick's Day Parade and the convention and visitors bureau.

"He was a go-to guy," said Victor DiMaio Jr., a local political consultant, who noted his dad stepped up in the wake of the 1991 Super Bowl/Ye Mystic Krewe controversy to help organize Bamboleo.

Yet it's his native Ybor City that stirred his passions. Born Feb. 19, 1924, Mr. DiMaio often said he and his seven older siblings would walk from their home to Seventh Avenue holding hands "like little ducks." His father John, a native of Italy, worked as the Italian Club's first doctor during the district's heyday before passing in 1928. His mother, Barbara, supported the family working in the lunchroom of Our Lady of Perpetual Help School before she passed in 1942, when Victor was a student at Jesuit.

That upbringing sustained his interest in preserving Ybor's history. He was a Gov. Bob Graham appointee on the Hillsborough County Preservation Board that helped refurbish the Cuban Club and save the wood-frame homes known as casitas.

The Ybor City Round Table and the Ybor City Museum Society honored Mr. DiMaio with special awards for his dedication to the district in recent years. He was a charter member of the museum and helped the late Sam Leto raise money for the famed Ybor immigrant statue.

That statue bears the name of Mr. DiMaio and his wife of more than 50 years, Mercy, herself a well-known figure in the community. He also is survived by sons Victor and Michael, a cardiologist at the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center.

Like Leto, Tony Pizzo, Adela Gonzmart, Roland Manteiga and other icons who passed away in recent years, Mr. DiMaio served as a bridge to Ybor's glorious past. I hope today's generation extends their legacy of devotion.

[Last modified January 1, 2008, 23:20:28]