The Cuban Club
Posted: 09.24.2024 | Updated: 09.24.2024
Nestled in the northwest corner of Tampa, Florida’s downtown area is an 11-block sprawl that is forever synonymous with the history of the area’s immigrant past. At the city’s heart is a grand and ornate venue that provides a path back into the cigar industry and Cuban immigrants that so heavily populated the area, The Cuban Club. This ‘Ybor Building’ is full of spooky tales and secrets within its timeless walls, echoing a dark and turbulent past that resonates today with daring visitors.
Often described as America’s most haunted place, the gleaming floors and eerie basement are said to be home to a staggering 300 spirits, each with their own often bitter and tragic tale. It is perhaps hardly a surprise that a place that drew so many through its glittering doors has a colorful tale to tell. The depth of tragedy and woe that befell some of the club’s members does, however, create more of a shocking story.
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Who Haunts The Cuban Club?
Spanish entrepreneur Vicente Martinez Ybor’s cigar factories left an indelible mark on the places where the industry thrived. Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in Ybor City, a portion of Tampa, FL, founded by the cigar baron, where Cuban immigrants flocked to be part of the nation's burgeoning appetite for fine cigars. Children, actors, and the dark acts of a broken heart are just some of the Cuban Club’s ghastly attendees.
El Circulo Cubano De Tampa
At the dawn of the 20th century, thousands of Cuban workers arrived in Ybor City, hoping to call it home. While these workers toiled by day to churn out hundreds of millions of cigars, by night, they flocked to the Cuban Club, which stood proudly at the very heart of this thronging area.
Built in 1917 on the ashes of a previous building consumed by fire, the social club, which required roughly 5% of a patron's paycheck for membership, acted as a lighthouse for weary workers eager to meet their neighbors, kick back and enjoy the fruits of their labor. The building itself is a striking yellow 4 story pillar of the community, which retains a neo-classical charm and speaks to the prosperity and aspirations of the age. Even today, the Cuban Club, which has been on the National Register Of Historic Places since 1972, is an active venue for special events and even weddings for those willing to tie the knot under the gaze of spectral wellwishers.
Permanent Members of The Cuban Club
The Cuban Club, a bustling and thriving social space, was a place of happiness for these hardy immigrants of the time, and it is thought that many of them remained patrons of the club long after the end of their natural lives. With every trip inside the walls, visitors find the ghost of an eight-year-old immigrant boy who drowned in the building’s long-since-removed swimming pool. ‘Little Jimmy’ is a playful soul, it seems, offering wary patrons a hello of sorts with flickering flashlights. He likes to play with rubber balls that have been seen rolling backward and even spinning freely on the spot, unaided by the hand of the living.
Just as tragic is the tale of Victorio, the playwright, who it is said was laughed off the 2nd-floor theater stage for forgetting his lines in 1919, only to return in the dead of night to recite those forgotten words to an empty room. Fittingly, this thespian’s crushed soul is said to cast a lonely figure under the stage’s single ‘ghost light’ to complete his performance before hanging himself from the rafters. For Victorio, it appears the show must indeed go on. Curious visitors have described floating orbs in the theater and even the appearance of shadowy, vaporous audience members in photographs.
The Darkest Of Fates
The most shocking tale of the Cuban Club’s ghostly goings-on is one that was not the accidental and tragic fate of a young boy or a humiliated playwright. It is one of a Latin love gone awry and a vengeful murder that shocked the community. Now, a heartbroken soul calls the Cuban Club home forever.
The spirit of a woman named Rosalita is said to occupy the 3rd-floor ballroom to this very day. One evening as the club bustled and moved with the sound of people enjoying themselves, she spurned the romantic advances of a man who had wished to dance with her on that shining ballroom floor. Her refusal would be the final act of her life, as the embarrassed and jilted man tossed her off the 3rd-floor balcony to her death. Rosalita was forever left to act out this final waltz that never was.
The spiritual happenings within the club are wide and varied. Ghost hunters, who claim the spectral activity has registered clearly on thermal detectors, regard the Club as a treasure trove of activity with pianos playing by themselves, pulling on the heartstrings of the listener with melancholic melodies. White-gowned women are seen disappearing into the ether, perhaps in search of a moment of happiness long gone. It is even said that the ghosts of two board members reside within the walls, with one having shot the other dead, both now adrift in the afterlife, locked within their regretful final moments.
HAUNTED TAMPA
The Cuban Club was a focus for thousands in those bygone days, and so its present-day spiritual activity is unsurprisingly as varied and deep as one could imagine.
The club serves as a murky window to peer into the lives of those who are long dead and a crystal clear lens through which one can see the history and culture of Ybor City. Should someone be brave enough to step into these ghostly halls, either to meet these tragic souls and playful poltergeists or to tie the knot in the splendor that drew Rosalita and so many others, you can book your own ghost tour below. Just be sure to check the photos you take for figures and faces you may not recognize.
Tampa Terrors offers nightly ghost tours for those interested in the darker side of Ybor City. For even more spooky tales, keep reading our blog, and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
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