Rabbit's Moon studio: Wild Chickens of Ybor

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Wild Chickens of Ybor

So the story goes there was one chicken and a rooster....the rest is history. Now there are protected historic chickens every where! Ybor used to be a city to its own, a city of Cubans, Italians, and Spainards...a few Florida crackers thrown in. (crackers are early white settlers). Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders camped in Ybor on the way to the Spanish American war.

Famous Cuban entertainers came by boat traveling from Cuba to New York and straight to Ybor City and West Tampa. Cigar factories blossomed and Tampa was a busy vibrant community. Boats came in weekly with Cuban tobacco from Havana.

When I was a child you would not hear English spoken on the streets of Ybor. Men smoked cigars and sat on the benches in white shirts and hats smoking cigars while the women shopped. My Mother was one of the shoppers. Though not Hispanic she was a avid seamstress. Where but Ybor would one find the finest Spanish materials. Cafe con Leche, cordiality's, Spanish Bean Soup, Caldo Gallego, the best cuban bread anywhere(sorry Miami, its true!) and the original Cuban sandwich? If you grow up here the Hispanic influence in food, in culture, and in art is huge. I think I was aware of Spanish master painters before any other famous artist. All the Spanish restaurants were full of real and copies of Spanish master paintings. I will never forget falling in love with El Greco at the Las Novedades restaurant in Ybor city. The ghostly light, the elongated limbs captured my childhood imagination immediately and for ever.