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The future takes shape in changing Ybor CityBy SANDRA THOMPSON © St. Petersburg Times, published October 7, 2000 Eighteen, 19 years ago, not long after I'd moved from a big city to St. Petersburg, desperate for an urban experience, we set off on a Saturday afternoon in search of an art festival in Ybor City. The calendar listing must have been in error. As we turned onto Seventh Avenue, there was not a soul in sight. It was so phenomenally empty it felt as though the apocalypse had come and nobody had told us. Still, I was captivated by the curlicue arcs over the street, the gas lamps, the old brick buildings with balconies like New Orleans. We looked for an excuse to come back. We found one. Alvarez, a small Cuban restaurant with a counter where workmen drank cafe solo, and food so cheap it was criminal. At Alvarez, kids were free. So was wine. Parking was no problem; you just pulled up and parked on the street. Alvarez closed. A new wave began. We took friends from Seminole to Anjelica's, a small Mexican restaurant high on hip. After dinner we walked down Seventh Avenue, which was lively but not yet thronged. "This is like Greenwich Village in the '60s!" our friend said. Well, not quite, but the street had that certain frisson that comes only with people outside after dark. By this time I'd moved to Tampa. On Seventh Avenue a few top-line restaurants opened, like Boca, and that kept us coming back to Ybor. Anjelica's closed; Boca closed too. In the past few years there hasn't been much to draw us to Ybor, except for Bernini or goings-on at the Cuban Club. So, when a few of the restaurants opened last weekend in the new Centro Ybor -- which, in case you've been on the moon, celebrates its grand opening this weekend -- I wanted them to be good. I wanted Centro Ybor to be good. I wanted a reason to go back to Ybor. The billboards, designed to pitch Ybor City to the crowd afraid to go there in the past, were not promising. "Get Wild in Ybor. Be Home for the 10:00 News," makes the place sound as exciting as flossing your teeth. The new parking garage delivers on the safety front. It's open and bright and attended, and it's a straight shot -- 106 steps, a Centro Ybor ad says -- to the Centro Ybor entrance. In fact, you could almost walk from the garage to Centro Ybor without ever seeing or touching one centimeter of the former Ybor. That would be a shame, but nowhere near the shame it would be if Ybor City were lost forever. It's this project, for better or for worse, that will keep Ybor alive. There weren't the crowds expected or hoped-for this weekend; only a few of the places were open. Still, you could see the outline. The Centro Espanol has been restored as part of the project, and it is spectacular -- itself worth the project's $45-million investment. Big City Tavern -- aptly named, considering its atmosphere and Tampa's aspirations -- is on the second floor and, with its brick walls and floor-to-ceiling windows, has to be the most impressive room in Tampa. The entrance to Centro Ybor, looking at it from across Seventh Avenue, is a little too big, out of scale with the buildings on the street. It all makes a bit too much of a commercial statement, but this is America, where big is good and bigger is better and Commercial R Us. But the logo, floating above it all, of a cigar-box seniorita whose beauty rivals Penelope Cruz is lush and inviting. And nobody, nobody, could want the old Ybor with empty buildings and closing businesses and decaying historic treasures. Immediately next to Centro Ybor is La France, an antique clothing store so special it has sustained its position here for 25 years. In the window, the owner, Jill Wax, with her long wavy graying hair, looked ghostlike among the beautiful dresses, as she moved inside the storefront, arranging something on a mannequin. She'll be staying open most nights now, in anticipation of customers from Centro Ybor. - Sandra Thompson is a writer who lives in Tampa. City Life appears on Saturdays.
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