Word: cigar
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...cigar workers pooled their resources to establish hospitals and mutual- aid societies. They built elaborate ethnic clubs complete with cafes, ballrooms and theaters, some of which attracted the best opera singers and actresses of the day from Spain, Italy and Cuba. "The culture of the cigar worker was evolved to a degree hardly found elsewhere in the proletariat," says County Historian Anthony Pizzo...
...early 1930s, however, cigar-factory owners began barring the lectores from the premises for reading subversive materials. Long strikes by active new unions did little to bring the lectores back or to stop the inevitable progression toward mechanization. "One machine took care of a whole row of twelve people," says Delia De Caprio, owner of Joe Faedo's bakery. Her parents were both cigar workers. The Depression finished off what the unions and machines started...
After World War II, Ybor City went downhill. Urban renewal bulldozed many of the old cigar workers' homes, stripping away the heart of the community. During the 1970s artists started moving into the cheap-rent area. Then, in 1972, Local Developer Harris Mullen bought up the old Vincente Martinez Ybor Cigar Factory and converted it into a collection of shops and restaurants. That signaled the beginning of a revitalization for the sorely decayed neighborhood...
Another team of developers, Shirley and Alan Kahana, is renovating El Pasaje, a historic building once known as the best bordello in the Southeast. It was also home to the Cherokee Club, a famous hangout for cigar magnates and their friends, which over the years played host to such renowned lovers of the leaf as Teddy Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland and Winston Churchill. The Kahanas have restored the magnificent ballroom on the second floor and are converting the "gentlemen's hotel" portion into office space...
More and more, the remaining Ybor City cigar makers are bringing their grandchildren and great-grandchildren back to their old neighborhood for a look around or a day at one of the frequent festivals that celebrate the neighborhood's rich heritage. When they close their eyes and take a deep, long breath, they claim, they can still smell the sweet aroma of cigars...