El Pasaje, also known as the Cherokee Club, is the two-story brick building on this corner of Ybor City. Built in 1886 to house the offices for Vicente Martinez Ybor’s companies as he planned Ybor City and then ran his cigar factory and other businesses, this corner has kept pace with the city’s shifts. Over the decades El Pasaje has been a hotel, several restaurants, several bars and speakeasies, a military recruiting station, and newspaper offices, among other uses.
On November 15, 1972 it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, recognition of its long, layered life. Today it serves a new kind of purpose as the headquarters of TheIncLab, the first AI+X defense lab, an unexpected chapter in a building that began as cigar-company offices. Stand close and take in the brickwork and two-story profile that have witnessed change here at the corner of 14th Street, Avenida Republica De Cuba, and East 9th Avenue.
Picture Ybor's original cigar factory across the street, the site now known as Ybor Square, where people once flowed between these buildings.