Ибор-Сити: История сигарного района Тампа-Бэй

Neighborhood in Hillsborough County, Florida, US

Ybor City ('/iː//b//ɔr/ EEbor) is a historic neighborhood just northeast of downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Cuba, Spain, and Italy. For the next 50 years, workers in Ybor City's cigar factories rolled hundreds of millions of cigars annually. Ybor City was unique in the American South as a successful town almost entirely populated and owned by immigrants. The neighborhood had features unusual among contemporary communities in the south, most notably its multiethnic and multiracial population and their many mutual aid societies. The cigar industry employed thousands of well paid workers, helping Tampa grow from an economically depressed village to a bustling city in about 20 years and giving it the nickname "Cigar City". Ybor City grew and flourished from the 1890s until the Great Depression of the 1930s, when a drop in demand for fine cigars reduced the number of cigar factories and mechanization in the cigar industry greatly reduced employment opportunities in the neighborhood. This process accelerated after World War II, and a steady exodus of residents and businesses continued until large areas of the formerly vibrant neighborhood were virtually abandoned by the late 1970s. Attempts at redevelopment failed until the 1980s, when an influx of artists began a slow process of gentrification. In the 1990s and early 2000s, a portion of the original neighborhood around 7th Avenue developed into a nightclub and entertainment district, and many old buildings were renovated for new uses. Since then, the area's economy has diversified with more offices and residences, and the population has shown notable growth for the first time in over half a century. Ybor City has been designated as a National Historic Landmark District, and several structures in the area are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, 7th Avenue, Ybor City's main commercial thoroughfare, was recognized as one of the "10 Great Streets in America" by the American Planning Association. In 2010 Columbia Restaurant, which is Florida's oldest restaurant, was named a "Top 50 All American icon" by Nation's Restaurant News magazine.

In the early 1880s, Tampa was an isolated village with a population of less than 1000 and a struggling economy. However, its combination of a good port, Henry Plant's new railroad line, and humid climate attracted the attention of Vicente Martinez Ybor, a prominent Spanish cigar manufacturer. Ybor had moved his cigar making operation from Cuba to Key West, Florida, in 1869, due to political turmoil in the then Spanish colony. But, labor unrest and the lack of room for expansion had him looking for another base of operations, preferably in his own company town. Ybor considered several communities in the southern United States and decided that an area of sandy scrubland just northeast of Tampa would be the best location. In 1885, the Tampa Board of Trade helped broker an initial purchase of of land, and Ybor quickly bought more. Italians were also among the early settlers of Ybor City. Most of them came from a few villages in southwestern Sicily. The villages were Santo Stefano Quisquina, Alessandria della Rocca, Bivona, Cianciana, and Contessa Entellina. Sixty percent of them came from Santo Stefano Quisquina. Before settling in Ybor City, many first worked in the sugar cane plantations in St. Cloud, central Florida. Some came by way of Louisiana. A number of families migrated from New Orleans after the lynching of eleven Italians in 1891 during the "Mafia Riot". Italians mostly brought their entire families with them, unlike other immigrants. Once arriving in Ybor City, Italians settled mainly in the eastern and southern fringes of the city. The area was referred to as La Pachata, after a Cuban rent collector in that area. It was also called "Little Italy". the Romanian Jews, and the Chinese. The Chinese and Jews were employed mainly in service trades and retail businesses. The Germans arrived after the 1890s, and most were businessmen. In the cigar factories, they worked as managers, bookkeepers, and supervisors. Cigar boxes were made by German owned factories. Several early cigar box labels were made by German lithographers. The Germans formed their own club, the Deutsch Amerikanischer Verein. The club building is still standing on Nebraska and 11th Avenue. It contained a restaurant open to the public that served German food. In 1919, because of anti German feelings from World War I, they sold the building to the Young Men's Hebrew Association. The building is now used as offices for the City of Tampa. In 1887, Tampa annexed the neighborhood. By 1900, the rough frontier settlement of wooden buildings and sandy streets had been transformed into a bustling town with brick buildings and streets, a streetcar line, and many social and cultural opportunities. Largely due to the growth of Ybor City, Tampa's population had jumped to almost 16,000.

The Depression was a major blow to cigar manufacturers. Worldwide demand plummeted as consumers sought to cut costs by switching to less expensive cigarettes, and factories responded by laying off workers or shutting down. This trend continued throughout the 1930s as the remaining cigar factories gradually switched from traditional hand rolled manufacturing to cheaper mechanized methods, further reducing the number of jobs and the salaries paid to workers. After World War II, many returning veterans chose to leave Ybor City due to a lack of well paying jobs and a US Veterans Administration home loan program that was only applicable to new homes, of which there were few in the neighborhood. In fact, the home stock was aging poorly, as many of the structures built in the early days of Ybor City were still in use. As the historic neighborhood continued to empty out and deteriorate through the 1950s and 1960s, the federal Urban Renewal program sought to revitalize the area by demolishing older structures and encouraging new residential and commercial development. The demolition took place, but due to a lack of funds, the redevelopment did not happen. The primary legacy of the program was blocks of vacant lots which remained empty for decades. The construction of Interstate 4 through the center of the neighborhood during this period also resulted in the destruction of many buildings and cut most of the north–south routes through the area.

Historically, the boundaries of "Greater Ybor City" stretched from Tampa Bay on the south to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (formerly Buffalo Avenue) on the north, and from Nebraska Avenue on the west to 40th Street on the east. The official boundaries of the Historic Ybor neighborhood are I 4 to the north, 22nd Street to the east, Adamo Drive to the south, and Nebraska Avenue to the west. The area of this district is about 1 square mile (about 2.6 km2). Though modern Ybor City also includes some of the surrounding area, its exact dimensions are loosely defined and subject to debate.

At the height of its life as a thriving immigrant community, Ybor City's population was numbered in the tens of thousands. In the lowest point in the late 1970s, perhaps 1000 residents called the neighborhood home. According to a 2003 survey, the top five business types in the area were professional services (22.8%), retail (18.4%), manufacturing (14.0%), wholesale/distribution (13.2%), and restaurants & bars (11.4%). In 2014, the elevated I 4/Selmon Expressway Connector was built to siphon heavy truck traffic away from the historic district. The TECO Line Streetcar, which links Ybor City, the Channelside District and Downtown Tampa, began operating in October 2002. The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HARTline) operates the streetcars as well as the bus system. Small startups have also begun utilizing NEVs to shuttle passengers between Tampa's core neighborhoods including Ybor.

Jason Isbell references Ybor City in the song "Traveling Alone" from the album Southeastern released in 2013. The Hold Steady also reference Ybor City in several of their songs. Some examples are "Killer Parties", "Slapped Actress", "The Cattle And The Creeping Things" and "Most People are DJs". JJ Grey & MOFRO references Ybor City in a song of that title on their album Orange Blossoms.

The 2016 film Live by Night (based on the books of Dennis Lehane) is centered on an Ybor City bootlegger who becomes a notorious gangster during Prohibition. The crime drama was written, directed, and co produced by Ben Affleck, who also played the starring role. Although the movie is almost entirely set in Tampa during the early 1930s, much of it was shot in and around Brunswick, Georgia due to movie production tax incentives offered by the state of Georgia and the town's proximity to Affleck's home. Ybor City inspired signage and decorations were added to buildings in downtown Brunswick, and several new buildings based on locations in Tampa were constructed on empty lots to add to the "fake Ybor City" setting.

In 2016, the Ad Council and the non profit Love Has No Labels produced a public service announcement promoting diversity and inclusion starring John Cena that used Ybor City as a backdrop for a commercial which premiered on July 4, 2016 to coincide with Pride Month. The PSA promotes the importance of acceptance of all communities, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age and ability.