Nostalgia Business Booming as City Expands

The nostalgia business in Tampa, Fla., is booming, with dozens of antique dealers throughout the city offering all sorts of memorabilia dating back to the area’s settlement as a military fort in 1824.

Most nostalgia items are reasonably priced and are ideal purchases for local collectors and visiting souvenir hunters.

The place to pick up Tampa’s nostalgia trail is historic Ybor City, a distinctive Tampa neighborhood named for Vicente Martinez Ybor, a Cuban who emigrated in 1885 to start his cigar business. In doing so, Senor Ybor established Tampa’s Cuban community and founded the industry that put Tampa on the map.

Cigar making is no longer one of the city’s major industries (although 3 million cigars are rolled here daily) but Ybor City is still a top Tampa attraction.

Antiquing and other shopping activities center around Ybor Square (1901 North 13th St.), a collection of three huge classical brick buildings surrounding a cobblestone plaza.

Ybor Square has a nostalgia of its own, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The buildings, erected to house the original V. M. Ybor Cigar Factory, are connected by covered walkways. Multilevel interiors are a maze of wide wooden stairways, cavernous corridors and attractive balconies. Hand-blown glass windows still filter the Florida sunshine.

Historic Factory Restored

In converting the factory into a shopping complex, developers restored rather than gutted, and wisely maintained the character and charm of the place.

Ybor Square is a successful blending of flea market and fun fair.

Some shops sell ethnic clothing and accessories, others gourmet grocery goods and inexpensive jewelry, but the largest number of dealers, about 16, offer nostalgia. Most have open stalls in three large rooms, known alternatively as the Nostalgia Market and the Antique Mall.

In this browser’s delight, merchandise is displayed on table tops. Employees are friendly and there is no pressure to buy.

Goods for sale vary from stall to stall. Most articles are reminders of Tampa’s past, including such diverse items as antique lace collars ($5 and up), old coffee grinders ($8 and up), toy trains ($12 and up), wicker baby carriages (about $18), sizable pine chests ($125 and up) and small double-drawer wooden file boxes ($30 and up).

Vintage Clothing

You will find vintage clothing and retro-jewelry, tin soldiers and tapestries, books, magazines and fan photos ($2 and up) of young Don Ameche or Bob Hope on the road to everywhere.

Tampa’s past is traceable at The Red Horse, a nostalgia shop on Ybor Square’s second floor near the old metal spiral staircase. The shop specializes in antique post cards of Tampa dating to the turn of the century.

The cards depict famous buildings and sites, commemorate historic events and feature thousands of vintage greetings from hundreds of Aunt Marys and Cousin Myrtles, each offering descriptions of and comments about Tampa’s past. Some are corny, others are charming.

Priced from 15 cents to $60, the cards provide souvenir glimpses into the history of the city.

The Red Horse sells additional printed memorabilia, including original cigar box covers ($1 each), an assortment of antique calling cards (50 cents and up) and a variety of prints of “pretty ladies, priced as marked.”

Retail Renaissance

Another cluster of about 20 antique dealers is along a two-mile stretch of MacDill Avenue in downtown Tampa. Most MacDill antique dealers are set up in old and colorful frame houses with sweeping verandas. As at Ybor Square, nostalgia is in the air.

Larger houses are used as mini-antique malls, with several dealers occupying one or several rooms. Each shop is crammed with a clutter of fascinating objects.

Browse from living room to kitchen to bedroom. Inspect crystal, porcelain dolls and knickknacks, cedar chests, table settings, grandfather clocks, vintage cakes of soap, marble-topped tables, old office furniture and fireplaces that have been carefully extracted from old buildings.

Hunter’s Finds (1802 S. MacDill Ave.) is a shop arranged very much like a home from the past. Owner Jay Hunter Loiselle specializes in fine antique Americana, paintings and folk art. Most items are from 1825 or earlier, and were made in other (mostly Southern) states. They have been bought from estates in and around Tampa.

Hunter’s has a mahogany secretary desk made in Georgia during the early 1800s and priced at $6,500. A functional Philadelphia butler’s chest, dated 1820 and selling for $1,850, has a tambour door with brass fittings in perfect condition. Also from 1820 is a rare and complete Coalport porcelain dessert service that sells for $2,100.

The walls are a gallery of portraits of early Florida settlers, gentle landscapes and appealing primitive paintings.

Notable Antique Shops

Several shops are at MacDill and Barcelona streets. Side by Side (3107 Barcelona) is a mini-antique mall with five friendly dealers.

Among them, Effie Lindberg’s Antique Dolls and Collectibles has a range of porcelain dolls with movable limbs, including a beautifully dressed 24-inch Victorian doll, dated 1912, for $999.

The Glass Alley’s colorful Duncan-Miller glassware, 1936 to 1950, is superb, especially a large clear glass punch bowl ($65) with a wavy, sculptural surface.

Antiques ‘n Stuff (3106 Barcelona) has 10 rooms with seven dealers offering quilts, linens, toys, glass, lamps, wicker furniture and other items. There is a lot of Steuben glass and New Deal pressed colored glass (place sets for $22 and up).

A green Victorian wicker doll buggy is $95. Silk slippers are adorned with silk roses ($20) and a pair of clear plastic spike shoe heels is brightened with brilliants ($18). Antique Hohner harmonicas in original boxes are $20 and up, and a set of seven Florida flamingo drinking glasses costs $32.

For Modern Tastes

In the midst of this nostalgia, Clothes for Your Self (3108 Barcelona) is a not-to-be-missed example of Tampa’s modern outlook.

Owner Heidi Hamlin makes exotic harem pants with matching tunics ($30 each) and fabulous patchwork jackets appliqued with hands ($55). Tampa designer Ken Echezabel hand-paints white suit jackets with eyes ($130) and psychedelic patterns ($55).

At 3005 S. MacDill is Barclay Hall Antiques, a general store with everything from 1920s fashion lithographs ($45) to enormous matched mahogany wardrobes from the late 1800s for $2,500 for two. Owner Jerry Stewart is also a contractor, and so the shop is filled with marble fireplaces, wooden window frames and other architectural elements from old Tampa houses.

Aunt Ruth’s Antiques (3217 S. MacDill) is a large purple-walled gallery of antique furniture and paintings. Featured are an 1800s Georgian mahogany man’s commode costing $2,300, a Victorian turning bookcase for $1,900 and a six-foot-tall mahogany glazed bookcase and sideboard, 1860, for $6,600.

Must-See Museum

The Henry B. Plant Museum (401 W. Kennedy Blvd. on the University of Tampa campus) is an essential stop on Tampa’s nostalgia trail.

It occupies one wing of what was once the Tampa Bay Hotel, a deluxe resort. The hotel was built in 1890 by Henry B. Plant, a Connecticut industrialist and transportation magnate, and was designed by architect J. A. Wood in a Moorish style with 13 minarets atop the roof.

The hotel’s posh furnishings are housed in the museum. A charming shop offers antiques similar to items in the museum, including reproductions of antique jewelry, post cards and other memorabilia.

Renting a car to tour Tampa’s nostalgia trail saves time and money in getting from shop to shop, and to other attractions. Book cars seven days in advance for the best rates.

For additional information, contact the Florida Division of Tourism, 107 W. Gaines St., Suite 410D, Tallahassee, Fla. 32301, or call (904) 488-4141.