Category: Mafia

The Ybor City Ghosts

Chris and I planned this night out for weeks ahead of time. I was all excited the day before I was supposed to meet her in Tampa, but I woke up at 2 a.m. the morning of green-faced, sweating, and vividly remembering a horrible nightmare. Some people don’t recall their dreams, but I can recall them years later. I can smell in them. Taste in them. See colors. Talk, control them, or wake myself up if need be. I’ve tried to hone the waking myself up part a lot over the last few years. Sometimes I don’t make it.

This dream was probably due to eating very late the night before and then immediately falling asleep. Despite the natural reasons, I felt unsettled all morning and stayed in bed with a pile of books, a cup of green tea, and a cat. When it was time to leave I was feeling marginally better, and thought I’d be okay to drive over to Tampa.

Chris and I met in L’Unione Italiana but they were closing in ten minutes, so we visited a couple of other cemeteries before deciding to get out of the heat and head over to Burger 21 to meet two of her friends, Michelle and Sue, for dinner and the tour. We devoted an hour to dinner and then drove to Ybor City, which is gorgeous. It’s beautiful in the sunshine, during the sunset, any time of day, really, but it truly comes alive at night. It literally feels like you’re in another place altogether at night. The men sit outside of the cafes in a cloud of grey cigar smoke watching the women walk by, while the women sit in groups of friends drinking wine or coffee and staring back at the men. It’s all fairly polite and restrained.

We met Max, our tour guide, at King Corona Cigars on 7th. When we walked inside to take a look around it was hard to see because of the haze of cigar smoke that hung like a wreath around everyone’s head. When I went home the smell was in my hair and in my clothes, and it thankfully overpowered the pervading smell of sweat and sunburn that I’d carried around all day.

There were 8 of us on the tour, and promptly at 8 o’clock Max appeared, introduced himself, and our two hour walking tour began.

If you’re concerned about walking for two hours don’t be- there were frequent stops and the highest elevation was about 34 feet at the “hill” in Ybor City. It was an easy walk, and the night was cool and comfortable after the heat of the day. When we stopped at one point I looked over my shoulder and saw that the full moon was rising, the Pink Moon. It was so beautiful, sending a faint glow down over the red brick buildings. The moon added so much to the tour for me, but I’ve always been a moon lover.

I won’t tell you everything that the tour covered to leave some mystery, but I will highlight my favorite part, which was the Cuban Club. I thought that the tour would only include stories about the history of various buildings and inhabitants of the city, but we actually got to go in 2 buildings. The Cuban Club (built in 1917) is stunning, and included in it’s heyday a ballroom, a theater, and much to the chagrin of the Italian Club down the street, a swimming pool. When Max unlocked the door I was pretty excited to go in, and when I stepped over the threshold it was to heat and an odd smell, almost like the smell of an old hotel…if that makes any sense. Older carpet, old paint, plaster, that kind of smell. We walked downstairs and when we got to the bottom of the stairs I saw a movement to my right, but I thought that I was looking at a mirrored wall and that I was seeing the reflection of someone in the group. The lights were very dim and around the corner from where we were, so the section we were in had no overhead lights at all. Several people pulled out their phones in order to look around.

A child had died here, he drowned in the swimming pool. The pool had been bricked in and filled with concrete many years earlier, but you could still feel the energy of the water there, and it didn’t feel good or like it had been a happy place. I walked to the side to look at the corner where I saw movement earlier. It wasn’t a mirror, it was an open doorway. I turned away. I don’t know what I saw.

When we walked up the stairs Max told us we could take a quick peek at the theater, which was overwhelming. The ticket booth was white and gold, and the theater itself was 2 storied, with a balcony and a ceiling painted sky blue. The pendant lamps (not on, we were in the dark) were ornate brass and the air was so incredibly still, as though it were breathlessly waiting for people to file in again, laughing and talking as they found their seats. It was magical, and my favorite part of the whole experience. Also, all of my photos from this part have white marks or streaks on them.

We ended the night with a visit to Cheezy’s, which was a pizza joint/speakeasy and had once been a church. It amazed me that while you could tell you were inside a church because of the shape of the windows and the orientation (unless I’m very much mistaken the bar is where the pulpit used to be), you couldn’t feel the weight of all those years of prayer and petition. I loved it. The owner came and spoke to us, and we had a round of Shirley Temples and chocolate milk since we were all driving home and it was late. The bartender had even decorated the glasses with chocolate syrup to make it all look fancy and it was an adorable touch.

I had such a great time on this tour and plan to go again this fall when the renovations for the Cuban Club are complete and there will be more access to the building, but if you get the chance, go.

I’m doing some work on Pinterest now so the blog might have a few minor changes in the near future.

The Faces of La Unione Italiana Cemetery

This is one of my favorite cemeteries because this cemetery seems to look back at you.

The Italian Club is a Tampa tradition that dates back to 1894, the club building is in Ybor City on 7th Avenue and it is beautiful- so be sure to look for it when you’re visiting. This cemetery has a historical marker in front that talks about the tradition of the Italian funeral and the history of the parcel of land. The history of the cemetery is interesting, but the facts about the way the funerals were actually conducted is much more to my liking. The cortege would go by the deceased’s house and also by the Italian Club before proceeding to the cemetery. The cemetery itself is supposedly a good representation of Sicilian funerary art, and I will say that it certainly stands out.

 

I’ve been twice. The first time I was by myself and got there right after the caretaker, who kept and eye on me as I walked through. You have to navigate this one carefully because not only are the graves very close together, but they’re very ornate marble and the monuments are quite high, so it’s easy to get a banged knee or a grazed shin if you’re not paying attention. But aside from the gorgeous marble and occasional humble tile monuments, what I love about this cemetery is the fact that almost every single headstone has a photo of the person who died.

 

They’re extraordinary, and the sheer number of them is overwhelming. They are everywhere, including on the inside of the mausoleums (peek through some of the doors and you’ll see faces in the gloom affixed to the nameplates). It’s a wonderful place to visit, because you get a sense of the people in a way that you don’t in cemeteries that don’t have this feature. I know some people don’t like to see them, but I love them.

Many of the cemeteries I’ve visited will have a few portraits, but they tend to be sporadic and not really a highlight of the cemetery. After awhile I walked into the huge, modern mausoleum at the front of the property expecting to see volumes of white marble and names, but even here almost every grave site had a photo. All of these happy people looked back at me, many of the portraits seemed to have been taken in the 60’s and 70’s when these older folks were in the prime of their lives. It was a bright place that was loaded with flowers and it didn’t have the flat feeling of dead space like so many of the mausoleums I visit. If you’re not sure what this feels like call me up; I have a few I can take you to. No, I am not kidding.

This cemetery was also where I saw my second post-mortem photo on a headstone. I’ve seen tons of them in my research and on sites like Thanatos.net, but to see one in person is still a rare experience for me. I did take a picture of this one, because to me it wasn’t scary like some of them can be. The first one I saw I would never put in a blog post; it was a baby from the 1970’s and made me feel so devastatingly sad to see it that I walked away, got into my car, and left. The black and white ones don’t bother me and I tend to like them for their historical value and detail. The color ones do, maybe because it’s easier for me to imagine that person’s death. They feel confrontational.

This cemetery boasts one famous interment, and that is of Mafia Don Santo Trafficante, Sr. Go visit him, he’s by the fence in a mausoleum. In life he was not a man to be messed with and his story is fascinating so be sure to click the link! Plus, it’s pretty amazing that someone can survive a gunshot and then go on to their great reward a year later from natural causes.

The moral of this post is: get your sunscreen on and get to Tampa to visit this cemetery, and then while you’re at it go to the one next door. And Woodlawn, as long as you’re there. And maybe you should get a room so you can go to Ybor City that night and see the Italian Club, and then have a nice dinner and drinks at one of the cutesy restaurants there.