The Cuscaden Park area in north Ybor City was a booming place in the 1930s and 1040s. It was home to cigar factories, workers, and their families. It was a thriving neighborhood filled with stores, restaurants, a community pool, and shops. It was heavily impacted during the 1960s as urban renewal and hit particularly hard when the construction of I-4 severed it from the rest of Ybor City.

Joe Di Stefano’s Cuscaden Park Service Station opened in the 1930s and served as a filling station, a paint and hardware store, and a community polling place. The station itself was at the center of a political controversy in the late 1940s when a Tampa Tribune report alleged the (Mayor) Nick Nuccio administration misappropriated funds by overpaying for tires for the sanitary department because DiStefano was a friend of the mayors. In the late 1960s, Joe DiStefano was also convicted of being involved in attempted bribery in the Shoup Voting Machine scandal that rocked the county. In 1968, he tried to get hired by the county to manage a vehicle inspection station but failed the civil service exam. This photo is of a grand re-opening in 1958 for Henry DiStefano’s station, Joe’s son, most likely when he took over ownership. The station was later converted to a Sinclair Oil station. Records indicate that the shop closed in the late 1960s. Remnants of the old station are still evident, like the air hose spool on the driveway column, but the building is now vacant.

© 2022. Chip Weiner. Old Tampa Photos