Ybor Speaks

"Ybor Speaks," is a public art project created to celebrate the immigrant experience in Ybor City – from the boom town of the 1890s through the creative revival of the 1980s. The City of Tampa, Division of Arts & Cultural Affairs commissioned playwright Sheila Cowley and sound designer Matt Cowley to create a sound installation that welcomes you to Ybor City through immersive soundscapes and audio vignettes, and histories and memoirs read aloud. The Cowleys included local talent from the Spanish Lyric Theatre, faculty and students from the University of South Florida School of Theatre and Dance, stage and screen actors based in Tampa Bay, and many residents. Original music was composed by La Lucha. 

The in-person experience at Centennial Park takes you back in time through soundscapes played on speakers at the park. These audio adventures evoke life in Ybor City from the musical calls of street vendors and horse-drawn carriages to busy streetcars and WWII shipyards, from a modern highway slicing through the streets to the festive Artists and Writers Ball. 

You'll hear the languages of Ybor then and now – Spanish, Italian, Yiddish, Russian, Romanian, English and Vietnamese. Soundscapes play at the top of each hour from 7 a.m. - 5 p.m., every day except Saturday.  The soundscapes run for 20 minutes, followed by music. The 20 minute soundscape track is one continuous MP3 from the 1880s to the 1980s. Each era can be listened to separately below.

Can't make it out to the park? Here are links to hear the soundscapes through each era. Produced by Matt Cowley:

Keep exploring! Author Paul Wilborn arranged for books by many Tampa Bay authors to be included in this project. Experience the vivid sights, sounds, scents and feel of daily life in Ybor through selections read aloud – and audio theatre shorts that explore personal moments in Ybor City history.

Special thanks to everyone involved in this project - local musicians, actors, writers and linguists. 

"Cigar Workers" Tampa: The Treasure City by Tony Pizzo with Gary Mormino, Read by Bonnie Agan

"Lectores" from Once Upon a Time in Tampa: Rise and Fall of the Cigar Industry by Wallace Reyes, Read by Stephanie Roberts

Audio Theatre: Experience a moment in 1890s Ybor life: Linda’s a young woman from Cuba looking for work as a cigar roller. Mario’s a streetcar driver fresh from Spain who gives her a surprising tour of Ybor City’s busy factories, bustling social clubs and fiery support for the Cuban revolution.

Voices in the street are speaking Spanish, Romanian, Russian, a bit of Italian and fleeting moments of English. We hear a Yiddish lullaby, a lector reading Don Quixote in Spanish to the cigar workers, and Black Cuban activist Paulina Pedroso rallying a crowd. Two recent immigrants, Rita and Florinda, are thrilled to make it to Ybor.

Original story written by Sheila Cowley, featuring local actors, JL Rey (Mario) and Mary E. Hughes Gonzalez (Linda). Directed by James Rayfield and Sound Designed by Matthew Cowley.

Listen to Audio Book Highlights! These book excerpts provide descriptions of bolita betting, strolling merchants and Ybor neighbors from books by Jack Espinosa, Scott Dietche and Wallace Reyes PhD.

"Bolita" from Cigar City Mafia by Scott M. Deitche, Read by David Waterman

"Charlie Wall" from Cigar City Mafia by Scott M. Deitche, Read by David Waterman

"Neighbors" from Cuban Bread Crumbs by Jack Espinosa, Read by Mary Rachel Quinn

“Ybor Merchants” from Once Upon a Time in Tampa: Rise and Fall of the Cigar Industry by Wallace Reyes, Read by Stephanie Roberts

Audio Theatre: Experience a moment in 1920s Ybor life

Mario’s family came from Italy – he’s the first to go to college, thanks to his dad getting work as a bootlegger. On a quick trip home he marvels at the cars on 7th Avenue as Linda, a Romanian Jewish woman whose family has a shop on 7th, assures him that rumors of “air conditioning” are true at Tampa Theatre. 

We hear the calls of strolling vendors selling collards, devil crab, fish, piruli candy and furtive bolita bets. The voices on the street are speaking Spanish, Italian, English and Romanian, while a lector now reads Don Quixote in English to the cigar workers. Rita and Florinda chide Mario for sitting too close to Linda, then order devil crabs through the streetcar window. 

Listen to Audio Book Highlights!  These audio book excerpts by Ferdie Pacheco, Jack Espinosa, Gary Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, go into Ybor streetcars, Cuban bread, baseball and the vivid scents of Ybor from books.

"Cuban Bread" from Cuban Bread Crumbs by Jack Espinosa, Read by Mary Rachel Quinn

“Streetcars” from Ybor City Chronicles: A Memoir by Ferdie Pacheco, Read by David Waterman  

“Smells of Ybor” from Ybor City Chronicles: A Memoir by Ferdie Pacheco, Read by David Waterman

“Baseball” from The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and Their Latin Neighbors in Tampa,1885-1985 by Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, Read by David Waterman

Audio Theatre: Experience a moment in Ybor life during WWII

Mario’s grandparents came from Italy – he’s in Ybor City for one day before he ships out to fight in Europe. He’s hiding his Italian heritage, pretending that he’s Cuban to slip off to Ybor and find an Italian restaurant. On the streetcar, he sits next to Linda, a Spanish-Cuban-Romanian woman working at the nearby shipyards. The restaurant is closed, but she invites him home for Sunday lunch, and to an Ybor baseball game.

Almost all the voices in the street are speaking English. We hear the echo of a Yiddish lullaby. Rita and Florinda are cigar rollers, enjoying their wares and offering the soldier a cigar.

"Street Life" from The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and Their Latin Neighbors in Tampa,1885-1985 by Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, Read by David Waterman

Audio Theatre: Experience a moment in Ybor life during Urban Renewal in the 1950s-1960s

Mario and Linda are Ybor natives with a rich blended heritage, who don’t want to leave their family home – but their street is being bulldozed to build the freeway. With a construction crew waiting, they’re joined by former neighbors who come to help. All agree that none of them would be here if their grandparents hadn’t come from all over the world to work in Ybor.  

We hear houses collapsing, bulldozers and pile drivers pounding in the concrete pilings for I-4. Rita and Florinda bring guava pastries and come to help shout ¡Viva Ybor!

Relive the 80s! Hear stories of the neighborhood’s artistic revival in the 1980s from a book by Paul Wilborn, narrated by actor, Eugenie Bondurant.

"Quarter Moon" from Cigar City: Tales from a 1980s Creative Ghetto by Paul Wilborn, Read by Eugenie Bondurant 

"Apprentice" from Cigar City: Tales from a 1980s Creative Ghetto by Paul Wilborn, Read by Eugenie Bondurant 

Audio Theatre: Experience a moment in Ybor life during the 1980s Artistic Revival

Linda’s an artist, about to move to an abandoned Ybor storefront. She and Mario are lost in the chaos of the Gasparilla Night Parade, searching for the Artists and Writers Ball. Mario doesn’t know why anyone would live in Ybor City, but they both know it’s not easy to be gay in Palma Ceia in the ‘80s. All they know of Ybor is not really listening to their parents and grandparents’ stories.  

We hear a street singer, a street poet, partying artists, rowdy pirates from the Gasparilla floats – and as Ybor quiets down again, Rita and Florinda are cops wrangling traffic and speaking Spanish, lighting an Ybor cigar as the voices of current USF students greet you in many languages.