![]() Jim started drooling at the glass cases and a humidor filled with every cigar imaginable-both name-brand and El Sol's own line rolled off-premises-but he managed to hold out until we reached La Herencia De Cuba (81), a narrow, dark store, with a lounge in the back and a bar. ![]() We went into El Sol Cigars (81) and checked out display case after display case filled with brand name cigars, and a humidor packed with more. ![]() They're made from Kana Cuban Coffee, which is for sale inside the large, old-timey store, along with food, an array of imported beer and wine, a barbershop (we're talking a shave and a haircut in a real barber's chair) that's encased in glass so spectators can watch (how many people have seen someone getting a shave with a straight razor?), and a walk-in humidor packed with 60 brands of name cigars-and King Corona's own hand-rolled cigars. We parked, sauntering past the King Corona Cigars Café & Bar (1523 East 7th 81, where, outside, cigar smokers sipped on Cafe Solo (Cuban espresso), and Cafe con Leche (Cuban espresso with steamed milk). King Corona Cigars Café & Bar serves Cuban-style coffee and features a walk-in humidor, stocked with name brand cigars and it's own hand-rolled smokes. At night, with around 15 bars and nightclubs playing jazz and blues, Ybor City turns into party central. And it's not as loud, either, at least during the day. Most of the good stuff runs along one brick-paved street, 7th Avenue, the cigar lover's French Quarter, only not as contrived and with loads more free parking. With its low, red-brick stores-many on the National Register of Historic Places-Ybor City feels more like the small town we grew up in, Paola, Kansas. More urban pioneers followed and made Ybor City into a National Historic Landmark District. But in the 70s and 80s, after urban renewal failed, an army of artists invaded and began gentrifying. Buildings were shuttered and torn down, including nearly all the little white casitas, which explained the grass-covered lots everywhere. Ybor City suffered a run of bad luck when the Depression struck and then the cigarette became the latest thing in tobacco without cigar manufacturing, the factories closed and the makers were laid off, and the city devolved into a slum. "Many rollers were illiterate, but they were proud of their knowledge of literature and politics." "The lectore read aloud newspapers, novels, plays, nonfiction works," she said. A 1993 painting of a rolling floor by Ferdie Pacheco showed rows of cigarmakers working at tables while a lectore sat above them reading. Lee took us for a quick, personal tour of the old 1910 El Reloj Factory (2709 16th Street, 81) museum, pointing out the millstone once used to grind filler tobacco, and the glass-encased movement of the huge tower-mounted clock that gave the factory its name. Newman Cigar Co.-yes, the same people you can thank for the cellophane tube-and the last operating cigar company of any size in Ybor. Hispanics, blacks, Cubans, whites rolling cigars together," said Shanda Lee, director of marketing for J.C. "The culture was unique-the cigar was an equalizer. Other factories followed, which was fine by Ybor: He knew it only increased the pool of skilled workers. To lure Cuban cigamakers-who considered themselves artisans-Ybor converted the acreage into a turn-of-the-19th-century worker's utopia, with stores, parks and hundreds of little white houses called casitas, which the workers could purchase for cost. In 1885, after one Cuban revolution too many erupted, he bought 40 sandy acres near Tampa and turned it into the cigar capital of the world. Ybor City takes its name from Vicente Martinez Ybor, who started things rolling with a cigarmaking business in 1850s Cuba. Going to Ybor City was the least she could do. Two days earlier, she had competed in Tampa's Escape from Fort Desoto sprint triathlon while Jim minded her gear and took photographs of her crossing the finish line. Our mutual friend Linda Wood went along for the ride. That, after all, was the city where millions of cigars were rolled at the turn of the last century-and many by hand. A cigar vampire, he really wanted to check out Ybor City, Florida, which neighbors Tampa. My childhood buddy from Kansas, Jim Norris, had always wanted to see Tampa.
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