Two storey brick storefronts with cast iron balconies line a brick paved avenue with a running streetcar, and a three storey cigar factory still turns out hand rolled cigars nearby.
What Ybor City looks like
Seventh Avenue runs through Ybor City as a continuous run of two and three storey brick buildings, their upper floors wrapped in cast iron balconies and ground floors shaded by awnings. Brick paving still covers several blocks of the avenue, and the TECO Line Streetcar shares the roadway with cars on tracks laid down the middle of the street.
At 1910 East 7th Avenue, the former 's cast iron balcony runs the width of its facade above red brick storefronts, one now a bar called Trellis. The repeats the same two storey brick and balcony pattern at 19th Street. Storefront glass lines the yellow brick corner of the two blocks east, under globe topped street lamps.
A few blocks off the avenue, the rises three storeys in red brick behind a clock tower that still keeps time over the block, the country's last cigar factory still rolling cigars by hand. On side streets away from 7th Avenue, the buildings drop to a single storey. Small wood-frame cottages known locally as casitas sit close to the sidewalk behind narrow yards.
The fills an entire block at 7th Avenue and 22nd Street behind hand-painted terra cotta tile murals and wrought iron trim, still run by descendants of the family that opened it. On 8th Avenue, the sits in its own run of brick paving, where restored trolleys pull in under a covered platform a few blocks from the 16th Street crossing.
Shot in Ybor City
Magic Mike used East 7th Avenue for three scenes in 2012, including one at the restaurant then known as Sunday's Fine Dining. Mike watches his love interest Joanna dine with her fiance through its front window, at 1919 East 7th Avenue.
Magic Mike, 2012
Mike watches his love interest Joanna dine with her fiance at Sunday's Fine Dining, a restaurant then occupying this storefront. The scene plays the location as itself, on the same Ybor City strip the rest of the film is set in. The restaurant has since closed, and the storefront now holds a different business. Street View
The French Quarter's red brick buildings wear the same cast iron balconies and covered sidewalks as 7th Avenue, both built up around the same decades. Look along lower Decatur Street or Royal Street for the closest two storey blocks. The French Quarter's balconies run more ornate and wrap more corners than Ybor's. Its narrower streets mean a tighter frame holds the illusion better than a wide one. Try searching cast iron balconies now.
Old Town in Key West, Florida
Key West's Old Town keeps the same small wood-frame cottages as Ybor's casita side streets, built in the same cigar-era decades when the trade moved between the two ports. The lanes off Duval Street and Eaton Street hold the closest run of these frame houses. Key West's cottages mostly sit on raised piers with wraparound porches that Ybor's casitas lack, so a straight-on frame without the porch side reads closer. Try searching wood-frame cottages now.
American Tobacco Historic District in Durham, North Carolina
Durham's American Tobacco Historic District keeps its own red brick factory walls and a landmark water tower, the same way El Reloj keeps its clock tower over 7th Avenue. Both converted factory floors into restaurants and offices rather than tearing them down. Durham's complex is several connected buildings around a plaza, wider than Ybor's standalone tower block, so a single building frame works better than a wide establishing shot. Try searching red brick factory now.
