A new historic marker honoring one of Ybor City's most layered landmarks will be unveiled Tuesday, October 6, at 10:00 a.m. at 1505 E. Palm Avenue. The outdoor ceremony will commemorate the 1929 building that housed the United Secret Orders Hall and, later, the Centro Español medical clinic and pharmacy known as La Benéfica Española.
The dedication runs from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. and will be followed by If These Walls Could Talk: Stories of Community Building, Benevolence, Education, and Expression, a program on the building's second floor — the same rooms where generations of Ybor City residents once received medical care. A reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public.
Over nearly a century, the building has served in many capacities including a meeting hall for six fraternal lodges, a neighborhood clinic and pharmacy, the newsroom of a trilingual newspaper, a ballroom, and a college facility. Its history traces the arc of Ybor City itself: immigrant mutual aid, multilingual civic life, and the institutions neighbors built for one another.
