Post #122228 by Kono on Thu, Oct 28, 2004 8:56 AM

On 2004-10-28 08:29, Satan's Sin wrote:
Kono --

Lived in Tampa for awhile when I was a little kid. No white man would dare go into Ybor City after dark. Imagine my surprise when I went there recently and it's been turned into this cutesy-wootsey kinda-like Melrose Ave sort of place. Glad to hear, in a strange sort of way, that people are still getting shot and stabbed there.

Orlando. Man. That whole city is very strange, in my opinion. Sort of like Berlin in 1938, only with Mickey Mouse in charge instead of Hitler. No offense, Orlando tiki friends. But I am native-born Floridian, and have every right.

Well, Ybor is still just a few blocks away from the shipyards and a few blocks from College Hill (worst area in Tampa) so there is always a little bleed over from these other areas. In the late 80s, the only things in Ybor at night were a gay club and a punk club just a few doors down from each other and the Columbia restaurant. Slowly, artsy people started moving in and more funky bars and restaurants and shops. Then more corporate type places started coming in and then they built the hockey arena and the Channelside area and really started cleaning things up down there. Since I've left they've even put up video cameras on most of the street corners in Ybor to combat crime. It's a completely different place than it was back in 89 when I first went there to go to the punk club (that I forgot the name of but its still there).

I will defend Orlando somewhat though. My gripe above is just with the weekend downtown crowd, not the city overall. I think people get the wrong impression of Orlando thinking its all about Disney. I've been here four years and Disney and the attractions aren't even a blip on my radar screen. I rarely go over that way, I don't hear that much about the attractions. Yeah, some people work there and people sometimes go there on the weekends but, like the beach it just there. Doesn't effect my life. Most of that tourist crap is in Kissimmee anyway. Orlando's a small southern city with brick lined streets downtown. Very safe and pretty clean until the damn hurricanes. Great radio station in WPRK Rollins College. A couple universities, some museums, nice shopping areas. No really good record stores though. And then out west, just outside of the city are a bunch of amusement parks. People are overall friendly in Orlando, one of the first things I noticed when I moved here is the lack of road rage which was rampant in Tampa when I lived there (but possibly dropped quite a bit when I left :wink: ). I like the town overall but just can't stand the downtown club crowd.

I went to Kissimmee a couple months ago to check out their antique shops and I hadn't been there in 2 or 3 years. It's like going back in time. All these bizarre tourist trap roadside attractions. Shell stores, Holy Bible Land, Great Wall of China Land, King Arthur Land (I'm not getting the names right cuz I don't remember them), tacky souvenir shops everywhere. It's actually kind of cool if you don't see it too often. Like a downtrodden low rent Las Vegas strip minus the gambling.