My Kind of Town

Ybor City in Tampa is my favorite place to hang out and take photos. It's been a part of my life since the early eighties when I attended college there. I loved the idea of an inner city school. Back then its streets were lined with small eclectic shops, Cuban restaurants, clubs, and art galleries.
By the late ninties, it tried to recreate itself as a party town....clubs began replacing the shops, quaint restaurants, galleries and yes, the apartments of the artists. Money was to be made in them there clubs. But with the clubs came crime and the clubs began shutting their doors.

But Ybor continues to evolve as it has since the days when it was first settled by the Cuban immigrants as Cigar City. And so today the artists are returning along with the art galleries and more restaurants. And a contingency of shop owners are hyping Ybor as Gaybor. Yes, my kind of town.