YBOR CITY HISTORY IN TAMPA, FLORIDA (HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY)

    Government planning is destroying historic Ybor City, in Tampa, Florida.  Planners helped cause the weekend traffic snarls and non-resident crowds.  Ybor City's neighborhoods were literally torn down as part of "planning" for urban renewal, and also split in half by transportation planning and the construction of Interstate highway I-4.  Public highways and the local government's monopoly bus system displaced Ybor City's trolleys and the private railroad running through Ybor City, leaving the historic depot decaying.  Hypocritical people want higher taxes for new public rail systems to replace the private rail system that their policies ruined.  Simultaneously, they want the government to save the old depot that their policies left idle. http://rexcurry.net/ybor.html

    Government planning has been harmful to Ybor City.  The oxymoron of "Government planning" eviscerated Ybor City with urban renewal, stabbed a highway through it, and strangled its businesses with taxes, zoning laws and bureaucracy.

    When not pummeled by government's loving hands, Ybor City has had a rich history of defying party poopers and other "planners."

    Some planners complain that Ybor City is too much of a wet zone.  That is the same complaint made during prohibition - another notorious example of government's social planning.  Ybor City folks believed their partying forefathers fought for liberty and the pursuit of happiness, both rights ranking well above the 18th Amendment.  Few people understood what Carrie Nation said when she visited Ybor City because she didn't speak Spanish.  Quality Scotch whiskey was the "real McCoy" because the whiskey smuggler, Capt. Bill McCoy, traveled from Scotland through the Bahamas and Keys up to Ybor City and beyond.  Secret cupboards and rooms in the old buildings, past speakeasies, secreted Ybor City's whiskey.  Those cupboards may still hide intoxicants under the modern prohibition.  That same zest for individual liberty eventually defeated prohibition planning.  

    My partying ancestors followed the same route to Ybor City as Capt. McCoy. They originated in Glasgow Scotland, temporarily stayed in the grandest party of all - the American Revolution, then settled in the Bahamas, and partied on to Key West and up to Ybor City, following the cigar trade.
http://rexcurry.net/curry-mansion.html

    Cigars are symbols of Ybor City and of recreation and leisure.  Hav-a-Tampa? Hav-a-party!  My great -grandfather worked for Hav-a-Tampa when this area was known internationally as the cigar capital and party capital.   My great-grandfather followed the trail of the capitalist Vincent Ybor, namesake of Ybor City, when the cigar trade moved here from Key West.  Many advocates of planning would like to ban cigars in Ybor and elsewhere, as they did with alcohol and gambling.

    Gambling was part of the party in Ybor City, home of Bollitta.  Bollitta players bet cash to guess numbers marked on randomly chosen balls.  It thrived for years under intense prosecution by social engineers. Even so, the party spirit resurrected bollitta and today we have the biggest Bollitta game of all: The Florida Lottery. Of course the odds are horrendous compared to the older libertarian versions.  In a mind-boggling display of hypocritical "planning," bollitta is now a statewide monopoly run by the very organization that crushed the competition and drove another nail into Ybor City's coffin.

    Advocates of government planning shirk responsibility. They did not consider Ybor City important enough to save with their own time and money, but watched Ybor City decline, and now they cry for government to do what they failed to do. Many still support the government actions that harmed, and still harm, Ybor City.  Planners who enlist government are cavalier people with a love for Ybor City that is no deeper than their neighbors' pockets.  Planners think government can perpetuate Ybor City features that developed without government planning when local government as we know it was tiny.  The expansive government that planners support has destroyed more of Ybor City than it has ever saved.

    Ybor City can be the city that perpetually asks, "Why bore?" Don't bore! Excite & celebrate! End the state bollitta and gambling monopoly - to provide better odds.  Privatize and deregulate mass transit. Ybor City needs liberators like Jose Marti, not planners. Then Ybor City will be a triumph of liberty, and defiance of officialdom and party poopers.  Fight for the right to party!  And Ybor City will flourish, in spite of all the planners.


SCHEDULE CAPITALIST TOURS & TAMPA TOURS - learn about the libertarian heritage of Florida and the Bay area, and join Rex for skiing and wakeboarding on the Hillsborough River, in Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida.

    The Libertarian Club of Tampa has launched a new service for tourists: Capitalist Tours.  The Capitalist Tours highlight Tampa's libertarian history while criticizing the role of taxation and government.  http://rexcurry.net/tour.html

The tour includes the following sites:

    Plant Hall - A privately built grand hotel, built by Tampa's foremost capitalist, Henry B. Plant, who put Tampa on the map.  The site is now a private university (It is unfortunate that there are periodic discussions about the university being taken over by the state).  The tour proceeds near the Port of Tampa and near the path of the private rail system that Plant built, giving life to the Bay area. It is unfortunate that the Port and rail system are now operated or subsidized by government, and that the private mass transit of commuter rail that capitalism provided in the past was put out of business by government taking over the road-building business.  Now, public officials want to tax everyone to rebuild rail transit as a socialized system, decades after they destroyed the private version.

    Ruth Eckerd Hall - A mostly private performing arts center in which everyone can take pride, as compared with the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in which everyone takes socialist shame.  Any establishment named after private individuals probably is more honorable than any establishment named after a governmental entity or politician.  Although Ruth Eckerd Hall included government money, it was largely a private initiative. Ruth Eckerd Hall began in November 1977 when June Baumgardner Gelbart donated a 38-acre parcel of land.  It is unfortunate that the land, which had been privately owned, was donated to the City of Clearwater.  Gelbart and her former husband, Richard B. Baumgardner, were owners of the Kapok Tree restaurants, private restuarants which attracted throngs of diners with family-style meals and remarkable decor.  Ruth Eckerd Hall, the first facility on the site, was named after the wife of Jack Eckerd (founder Eckerd Drug Stores, a private retail drug chain operating in 20 states) to honor the Eckerd’s for their donations.   We are all thankful that the government was not invited to participate in the restaurants and drug stores or Eckerd College.

    Eckerd College: the only private national liberal arts college in Florida, is located on a waterfront setting in St. Petersburg.  In 1972, Florida Presbyterian College in St. Petersburg was renamed Eckerd College to show appreciation for gifts totaling more than $10 million.

    Gorrie Elementary School - named after the great capitalist John Gorrie who (along with Willis Carrier) should be a state hero for creating and popularizing air conditioning.  Florida's growth did not occur until air conditioning, and would not have, but for it. Florida would clear out if air conditioning ceased to exist.  John Gorrie Elementary School memorializes one of the men.  

    Davis Island - The walk proceeds east from Plant Hall, and pass Hyde Park Street for a view of Davis Island. The capitalist David P. Davis molded two lumps of silt and sludge (what environmentalists would glorify as a "wetland") into Tampa's most attractive and affluent neighborhoods.  Try doing that today. 

    Tampa's first sidewalk -  The walk continues east to the Southeast corner of Franklin and La Fayette streets where, in 1888, Archibald Ross, a popular Tampa banker, laid pavement 168 feet long and 8 feet wide around his brick building on that corner.  A memorial, with remnants of  Ross' historic marble sidewalk, still stands at the Southeast Corner of Franklin and Kennedy,  where City Hall now darkens the corner. 
    At the sidewalk, tour participants are asked to reflect upon the Gandy Bridge and Ben T. Davis Beach, both named after the capitalists responsible for the Gandy Bridge and the Courtney Campbell Causeway, respectively, George T. Gandy and Ben T. Davis. George Gandy even lived in his toll house that straddled his privately owned bridge.  It is unfortunate that both roadways are owned and operated by the government now, and helped destroy private mass transit in the area.

    Tampa's first library was built by the capitalist Andrew Carnegie.  Willie Lowry (that's a female Willie), read about the availability of Carnegie grants in a magazine and wrote for information.  Mrs. A.E. Dick of the Tampa Women's Club knew someone who knew the famous financier and the club received a positive reply from Carnegie. Later, the club discovered that Tampa City Council was unwilling to assume the library's maintenance even if the library was built tax free.  Nevertheless, the club persevered, and in 1917 Tampa's first library, in a beautiful building still standing near the downtown police station, opened to users. 

    Hillsborough High School in Tampa has eight tall stained-glass windows adorning its auditorium.  At first glance from outside, the windows appear to have some old religious purpose.  The details of the windows are not visible from the street, so further investigation requires entry into the school.  Thereupon, it is seen that there are no corpses on crosses, but pictures of Euclid, Galileo and other men of science (including Einstein), interspersed with microscopes, telescopes, amoeba and planets. What a surprise!  There, among that awe-inspiring church-like solemnity of glowing color is the glorification of reason and science, in a medium traditionally reserved for faith and religion.  Wouldn't that make an interesting "church?"  Hallelujah!?   Before I personally investigated those religious-looking windows I remember asking a former student what was depicted.  She said, "Gee, I don't remember, I never paid any attention."  I suspect the irony of it all has been lost on just about everyone who has ever been in the school.

    Harbor Island - another bunch of upscale homes built by capitalists on an island manufactured from muck.

    The Port of Tampa -used to be private, built by Henry B. Plant?

    The walk will end at Ybor City  -the entrepreneur Vicente Ybor brought the Cigar trade to Tampa, giving it the nickname "Cigar City," and turned a swamp, with dangerous bellowing alligators and vicious panthers (what environmentalists would glorify as a "wetland"), into Ybor City.

    Much of Ybor City was destroyed in the 1960's by government's "urban renewal" program. Today, local statists want to regulate the life out of Ybor City's recent revival.  If the area were a wetland today it would be impossible to develop.

    Tampa Florida is where Francis Bellamy died in 1931 and where Bellamy's pledge of allegiance died also, much later.   Bellamy's last residence is at  2926 Wallcraft Avenue where he lived from 1924 until his death.

2004 A proposal begins that Holocaust Museums can triple in size and scope as Wholecaust Museums, and that Francis Bellamy should be added to the museums as the origin of the straight-arm salute.


    The preceding anarchaeology tour is from the anarchaeological studies of the Society of Anarchaeologists.

Liberty and worldwide history trips are here http://rexcurry.net/trip.html

Enjoy Capitalist tours and Capitalism Tourism in Tampa, Florida at http://rexcurry.net/tour.html

Articles on Anarcheology  http://rexcurry.net/anarchaeology.html

AMSTERDAM: http://rexcurry.net/commentary/vices.html It has personal freedoms found almost no where else. http://rexcurry.net/vicesdutch.html and http://rexcurry.net/vicesdutch2.html and lot's of man-made land http://rexcurry.net/commentary/everglades.html

ARIZONA: http://rexcurry.net/arizona.html Reject government tours of the Grand Canyon. Embrace the Hualapai River Runners & Indian Reservation.

GRAND CAYMAN ISLANDS: http://rexcurry.net/ecoturtles.html tasty sea turtles and conchs, but no caimans! http://rexcurry.net/cayman.html

LONDON: http://rexcurry.net/commentary/London.html they need guns.

NEW YORK CITY: http://rexcurry.net/commentary/woodman.html capitalism! see the Triangle Shirtwaist building http://rexcurry.net/shirtwaist.html

PHILADELPHIA: http://rexcurry.net/commentary/philadelphia.html liberty seems so long ago.

KEY WEST, FLORIDA: http://rexcurry.net/curry-mansion.html The Curry Mansion shows how historic preservation should be private, through capitalism, and not through the government. See the Curry Mansion on the local tour and learn about the rich history of Curry Capitalists. http://rexcurry.net/commentary/everglades.html and http://rexcurry.net/commentary/reefs.html and http://rexcurry.net/ecoconch.html

TAMPA, FLORIDA: http://rexcurry.net/tour.html discover it's heritage of freedom. Meet local libertarians, and enjoy boating, skiing and wakeboarding on the Hillsborough River. http://rexcurry.net/commentary/earthcharter.html and http://rexcurry.net/orangebikes.html and http://rexcurry.net/drugdogs.html

YBOR CITY, FLORIDA: http://rexcurry.net/commentary/Ybor.html don't let hysterical perversionists destroy it.

COZUMEL, MEXICO: http://rexcurry.net/cozumel.html May I ruin Mayan ruins? Yes!

For more ideas on liberty the historic district problem and others see http://rexcurry.net

Historic preservation laws are bad.  When government aids historic preservation with tax dollars, regulations, or in any way, the government becomes the violator of property rights. http://rexcurry.net/pledge-allegiance-pledge-allegiance.jpg

The purpose of government is to protect individuals and their property from interference by others.   That is why Libertarians, Objectivists, and freedom-loving people oppose government assistance in historic preservation. http://rexcurry.net/commentary/historic.html

So long as preservationists spend their own money and time, and do not use government to pursue their petty fetish, they may do as they like with property they own or purchase, and leave the property of others alone. http://rexcurry.net/curry-mansion.html

As an attorney, the historian Dr. Rex Curry (author of "Pledge of Allegiance Secrets") is consulted about historic preservation laws, historic districts and other violations of private property rights. Known as the "Libertarian Historic Preservationist," he notes that today's historic preservationists impede greater histories of the future. Historic preservationists block future historic structures. They prevent historic homes from being replaced by new homes that would also become historical.  Newer structures become more historical than the old ones, thanks to capitalism. 

Historic preservationists owe their entire movement and  a debt of gratitude (which they will never pay) to capitalism.  Historic homes and buildings were built by capitalists and they are historical only because capitalists kept building other homes and buildings.  Preservable history exists only because change occurred.

Historic preservation is antidisestablishmentarianism.  The 28-letter word describes people who stop others from fighting the establishment and changing things.  Preservationism was thoroughly debunked by the capitalist philosopher Ayn Rand in her novel "The Fountainhead."   Preservationists are neo-luddites and, like the luddites of 19th Century England, they fight progress as well as the liberty, property rights and capitalism that bring progress, and they use old structures as an excuse. http://rexcurry.net/commentary/philadelphia.html

It is the dogma of American socialists like Francis Bellamy (author of the "Pledge of Allegiance") and Edward Bellamy (author of the book "Looking Backward") and their desire to nationalize all property in their global nationalism movment. http://rexcurry.net/pledge-allegiance-pledge-allegiance.jpg

That dogma of socialism not only destroys history and historic structures, it also destroys prosperity and lives. It did all of that and more in the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part): ~60 million slaughtered under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; ~50 million under the Peoples' Republic of China; ~20 million under the National Socialist German Workers' Party. http://rexcurry.net/swastika3swastika.jpg

Some preservationists say that they are trying to "teach history."  What lesson is to be learned?  Judging from the regulatory slant of preservationists, old structures are grotesque reminders of how bad things were before government grew so big and preservationists grew so powerful.

A principled preservation group would restore not just old structures, but what produced them: free enterprise, progress, and the historic relationship of government and people.  Old homes would teach of times when taxes and government revenue were tiny, when old neighborhoods and private mass transit flourished, when historic preservationists could not impose their whims on private property. Old homes would memorialize a history of individual rights and capitalism.  A principled preservation group would act without government aid and against it.  Now that's historic preservation! http://rexcurry.net/curry-mansion.html

Modern preservationists do not preserve history.  All real estate has history spanning the age of the earth.  Why do preservationists fixate on present structures?  "Hysterical" preservationists can only histrionically whine, "It's what's there now!"  Preservationism is strange idolatry that romanticizes old homes as empty symbols of arbitrary times.  They do not want to preserve everything that is historic, and they do not want to restore the historic Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, nor even remind anyone about those parts of their romanticized history. http://rexcurry.net/pledge-allegiance-pledge-allegiance.jpg

Historic preservation does not involve conflicts between property "rights" and "responsibilities."  There is never such a conflict.  People have property rights and everyone's responsibility is not to violate those rights.

The same government that trumpets preservation destroyed historic neighborhoods with urban renewal, strangled downtown businesses with taxes and bureaucracy, and helped build highways through historic communities.  The expansive government preservationists support destroys more historical private property than it ever saves.  

Modern preservationists shirk responsibility. Preservationists do not plan ahead, but wait until new construction nears and then cry for government to intervene.  It never matters how preservation impacts dreary people who need jobs, food, clothing, and shelter.  Preservationists who enlist government are cavalier people with a love for old structures no deeper than their neighbors' pockets.



LIBERTARIAN PARTY YBOR CITY, TAMPA, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA

Legislators who tout the Pledge of Allegiance met defeat three times recently at the hands of Dr. Rex Curry of the Libertarian Party of Florida. Thanks to the nation's leading authority on the Pledge of Allegiance, Dr. Curry, a new Pledge of Allegiance law died in committee, a federal judge ruled that a school pledge law is unconstitutional, and pledge supporters in the legislature met defeat in a debate challenge. http://rexcurry.net/debate-florida-legislature.html  

In the following radio broadcast, Dr. Curry discusses the debate issues (and all Florida legislators, including Rep. Legg and Sen. Fasano, were invited to participate). http://rexcurry.net/rexcurry9a-the-edge-2006.mp3

The pledge was opposed because of new historical discoveries showing that the pledge was the origin of the salute of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis). http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-pledge.html

Florida's Legislators did not dispute the work of Professor Curry that proves the relationship of the pledge to National Socialism and totalitarianism. Even the sponsors of the proposed new pledge law, Representative John Legg and Senator Mike Fasano, were part of the debate challenge and they did not present any opposition. Senator Fasano was especially gracious in his response. http://rexcurry.net/pledge-allegiance-pledge-allegiance2.jpg

The controversies raised disturbing questions about legislators, and provide evidence that legislators are victims of government schools and the rampant ignorance that those socialist schools cultivate:

Many legislators were so ignorant of American history, that until they learned of Dr. Curry's research, they did not know that the early Pledge of Allegiance used a straight-arm salute. http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-pledge.html  

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag The USA's Pledge of Allegiance (& the military salute) was the origin of Adolf Hitler's "Nazi" salute under the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis). http://rexcurry.net/pledge2.html

The swastika was used by the military and by socialists in the USA and in the USSR, before it was used by the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).
http://rexcurry.net/45th-infantry-division-swastika-sooner-soldiers.html
 The swastika, although an ancient symbol, was also used to represent "S" letters joined for "socialism" under the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis), similar to the alphabetical symbolism for the SS Division, the SA, the NSV, and the VW logo (the letters "V" and "W" joined for "Volkswagen"). http://rexcurry.net/bookchapter4a1a2a1.html
Francis Bellamy & Edward Bellamy touted National Socialism and the police state in the USA decades before their dogma was exported to Germany. They influenced the NSDAP, its dogma, symbols and rituals. http://rexcurry.net/police-state.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BssWWZ3XEe4



LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE DR. REX CURRY

The incumbent Democrat and her Libertarian challenger have very different views on government's role.

Libertarian candidate Rex Curry and Democrat Arthenia L. Joyner agree the residents of state House District 59, one of the poorest districts in Florida, need help. They agree on nothing else.

Curry, a sixth-generation Floridian, said that the unchecked growth of government has actually harmed its citizens.

"Poor people hurt the most from taxes on goods and services, and from the loss of jobs when businesses are taxed and cannot grow," said Curry, a Tampa lawyer.

Joyner, a lawyer in Tampa since 1969, has dedicated much of her life to boards and agencies that serve the once vital and now blighted inner
city. In a district that is nearly 60 percent black and 59 percent female, Joyner was elected in 2000 with 70 percent of the vote.

She focused on economic development issues, which she sees as central to revitalizing the depressed east Tampa community.

Curry lives in the district, but his recipe for improving the plight of its needy residents is to shrink government. The state's population has doubled during the last quarter-century, he said, but the budget has increased more than 1,000 percent during the same period.

So why aren't people better off, he asked.

"In a healthy society, the need for government should constantly decrease as we solve our problems," Curry said. "The marketplace is how you make intelligent decisions. People spending their own money."

Joyner said the Legislature faces a budget crisis this coming year as it struggles to "fund recurring programs with nonrecurring funds." New taxes are already being discussed, she said, though it would be preferable to handle shortfalls with belt-tightening.

Curry proposes strangulation rather than belt-tightening.

"I encourage people to remove their children from government schools," he said. "My goal is to get them their money back."

District 59 State House
published October 31, 2002

LIBERTARIAN PARTY YBOR CITY, TAMPA HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY FLORIDA libertarianism

This is the dogma that is partly to blame for destroying Ybor City
Ybor City, Tampa, Florida Cigar City
Ybor City & Cigar City, Tampa, Florida was destroyed by this dogma

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