El Circulo Cubano de Tampa (also known as the Cuban Club) is a historic building constructed in 1917 (to replace an earlier structure on the same site that burned down) to serve as a gathering place for Cuban immigrants in

Ybor City Ybor City ( ) is a historic neighborhood just northeast of downtown Tampa, downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly ...

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. It was designed by Tampa architect

M. Leo Elliott M. Leo Elliott (April 4, 1886 – August 1967) was an architect known for his work in Tampa, Temple Terrace and Sarasota, Florida.

. It is located at Palm Avenue and 14th Street. On November 15, 1972, it was added to the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. On April 18, 2012, the

AIA AIA or A.I.A. or Aia may refer to: Aia * Aia, a small town in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, Spain * Aia, current Kutaisi, ancient capital of Colchis * Aia, another name for Aea (Malis), an ancient town in Greece * ''Aia'', the collected ed ...

's Florida Chapter placed the building on its list of ''Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places'' as Cuban Club, Ybor City.Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places
/ref> The building has a theater and once included a bowling alley, spa, pharmacy, ballroom, library, and cantina. Decorated with imported tile, stained glass,

scraffito ''Sgraffito'' (; plural: ''sgraffiti'') is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colours to a moistened surface, or in pottery, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive laye ...

spandrels and murals it continues the legacy of the club first established in 1902 as a

mutual aid society A benefit society, fraternal benefit society, fraternal benefit order, friendly society, or mutual aid society is a society, an organization or a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief fr ...

. In 1893, Cuban revolutionary, writer, and poet

Jose Marti Jose is the English transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Gree ...

was visiting the building in order to gain support for his revolutionary party and movement in Cuba. During the time Marti was in the building, there was an assassination attempt on his life when two Spanish agents gave him a glass of poison. Marti survived the encounter by pure intuition and quickly forgave his would-be assassins. Today there is a plaque remembering the incident outside the western entrance to the structure.

References

External links

Official websiteNational Register of Historic PlacesFlorida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs page on the Circulo Cuban Club Records
at the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF is ...

Buildings and structures in Tampa, Florida Cuban-American history Cuban-American culture in Tampa, Florida National Register of Historic Places in Tampa, Florida Ethnic fraternal orders in the United States 1917 establishments in Florida {{HillsboroughCountyFL-NRHP-struct-stub

See also

References

External links