Tampa city councilman hopes Ybor City could see return of bricks to historic 7th Avenue
TAMPA, Fla. - Ybor City is about rolling cigars, crowing roosters and bricks. They’re almost everywhere you look, and some want more bricks.
"It just makes it look more Ybor," said Connie Cosgrove, a Tampa native who has made visits to Ybor since she was a little girl.
While many of the streets are brick, on the historic 7th Avenue, the signature street in Ybor, the surface is asphalt. Bricks are conspicuously absent.
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We know they were there a hundred years ago by looking at old photos, but amazingly, many of those bricks may have traveled to another city.
Through the 1960s Tampa dug up all the bricks on 7th Avenue. Later, Tampa sold more than 100,000 of its historic bricks to the City of Winter Park for 30 cents apiece.
Now, some want the bricks back on 7th Avenue. Councilman Guido Maniscalco believes Tampa should put up the money to bring back the bricks.
"It’s separate from the city budget. It’s in the CRA," said Maniscalco.
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That’s the special taxing district where money collected from this part of the city could be used to restore 7th Avenue as a brick street. One possible plan calls for a mile of bricks to be installed between Nuccio Parkway and 26th Street at a cost of $10-$12 million.
Maniscalco believes it would be worth it in several ways.
"One is traffic calming, because people tend to drive more slowly on brick," he said.
But even more importantly, he said, bricks would enhance the historic character of the community. The city could purchase replicas or historic bricks that would look like the ones Tampa sold to Winter Park years ago.
The bricks would cost several dollars each instead of the 30 cents the originals were sold for.
"Perhaps we never thought we would come back to this," said Maniscalco. "Modernization is modernization, but I think we should learn from the mistakes of our past, and how we can correct it."
Correcting it would be a big job.
"In the meantime you are reduced to pedestrian traffic and dust and a lot of obnoxious road construction the center of your prime Ybor District," said Jack Parsons, a Tampa resident who frequents businesses on 7th Avenue.
Cosgrove is for bringing the bricks back to Ybor's 7th Avenue.
"It’s going to cost money, but it will last forever," she said.
In the shops here, fine cigars are rolled to last. If bricks do come back to 7th Avenue, this time, they might stay.
It’s just a proposal now. Public hearings would be required before millions can be spent to make 7th Avenue a brick street once again.