Today

As part of their on-going Tampa Bay Documentary Series, Cigar City Magazine and The Buzz present two documentaries on human trafficking on Thursday, March 1 at 7 p.m. The Buzz is located at 710 Harbour Post on Harbour Island in downtown Tampa.

Today Ybor City is not the Latin Quarter it once was. Instead, playing the part of an old historic actor, waiting in the wings for its next big role, Ybor City waits prepared for a true renewal, identity, and recognition of its past history.

Manny Leto recounts the harrowing tale of his face-to-face sit down with Tampa's Cigar City Mafia. All names have been changed to protect the innocent-and the guilty.

See why The Travel Channel interviewed Cigar City Magazine for a show called The Dead Files.

See It, Experience It, before it airs in September!

THIS SATURDAY, MARCH 19TH!

Cigar City Magazine is fast becoming the go-to source for new and exciting Ybor City tours!

It's all the rage in newspapers like the St. Petersburg Times and The Tampa Tribune's Friday Extra and is featured on sites like TBO.com, as well as most of our local TV stations! It’s “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” tours in historic Ybor City, Florida.

In July 2010, Paul Guzzo and his father travelled to Cuba with Raul Villamia and his family. The purpose of the trip was to document Raul's return to Cuba after more than three decades away. Guzzo is currently working with Raul Villamia on his memoirs, including his time as a member of Tampa's branch of the 26th of July Movement, Fidel Castro's revolutionary army. The trip also provided Guzzo a firsthand look at how the embargo affects Cuba and how the Cuban people view the United States. A regular contributor and our senior writer, he shared some of his experiences with Cigar City Magazine.

In this artilce on West Tampa, Ed Turanchik notes that the historic neighborhood on the west side of the Hillsborough River has “good bones.” Turanchik was talking about the physical layout of West Tampa, its uninterrupted street grid, its abundant housing stock, its central location. All of these factors are part of the reason why West Tampa has received so much attention and private investment of late.

Joan Jennewien of the Tampa Railway Society offers her insight into the resurrection of Tampa’s Historic Streetcar. The culmination of nearly 20 years of planning and advocacy, the streetcar has certainly played an integral part in the re-development of Channelside and the southern edge of downtown as numerous condo developments have sprouted along the rail line.

Collectively, we’re Latins. Ybor City Latins. West Tampa Latins. The Latin Community. We were here first. That’s the deal. There are newer immigrants–Dominicans, Mexicans, South and Central Americans–arriving here every day, making Tampa one of the most diverse cities in the United States. Only, we don’t call new immigrants Latins. In Tampa, that title is reserved. The Spaniards, Cubans, and Italians who “Founded Ybor City” are the real Latins.

Some people disagree with the term and who it includes. I spoke with an irate Italian woman the other day, someone’s grandmother, no doubt. I could easily have mistaken her for my grandmother, her West Tampa accent making her pronounce the word cigar as SEE-gar and say anywheres instead of anywhere. She called to tell me that I was all wrong about Ybor City. She wanted to tell me that, as far as she knew, Ybor was completely founded by Italians. “More of them lived in Ybor than anyone else,” she said. She called to proclaim that the Italians are being erased from Ybor’s history. “All anyone talks about are the Cubans,” she said, adding, “Now everyone down there is drunk,” before hanging up on me. I took offense, especially since it was before noon and I hadn’t started drinking yet.

Before California became the center of the American film industry, film studios were based primarily in New York and Chicago. Looking for a suitable winter climate, film studios in the Northeast headed south, landing in Florida in the first decade of the 20th century.