In the summer of 2013, Oscar winning actor-director Ben Affleck turned heads when he visited Tampa scouting the location for his next film. The Argo director was visiting Ybor City specifically because it’s the location of Live By Night, his latest project that opened to a limited audience Friday, January 6th premiering January 13th nationwide.
Ybor City's 7th Ave in Brunswick GA as Affleck's 'Live by Night' Premieres
Set in Ybor City during the 1920’s, Dennis Lehane’s Live By Night is a prohibition-era tale of life and death within the world of organized crime in the Bay Area. The New York Times bestselling author, while originating from Boston, lived in the Bay Area while attending college and used Ybor City’s rich cultural history as a backdrop for his novel.
Ybor City, rooted in both Cuban and Italian history, has also had its fair share of connections with organized crime. In Live By Night, the title character Joe Coughlin moves south from Boston to participate in the rum-running business that is operating between Tampa and Havana, Cuba.
Joe Coughlin, while respected within his organization, runs into different problems within the underworld and is forced to make both business and personal decisions that have life and death consequences. The novel, while fictional, is not a far cry from the reality of Tampa’s history in the 1920’s. A natural port between the Caribbean and the mainland, Tampa has deep roots in the history of organized crime in America.
Unfortunately, due to budgetary concerns, the production decided against filming in the Bay Area; opting instead to re-create Ybor City’s famous 7th Avenue in Brunswick, Georgia. The architecture in Brunswick was completed around the same time that Ybor City’s was and is said to carry the same aesthetic. Bay Area residents will have to watch the film and decide if the production company was able to re-create the iconic Tampa cornerstone for the film.
Photos courtesy of Wikimedia (Cover photo by IMDB)
The film stars Ben Affleck, Brendan Gleeson, Zoe Saldana, Chris Cooper, Sienna Miller, as well as other A-List actors that will bring the story to life on screen.
If you enjoy Live By Night, another title that might interest you is Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld by Scott M. Deitche, and his follow-up novel, The Silent Don: The Criminal Underworld of Santo Trafficante Jr. Both novels were hugely popular upon publication in the Bay Area and give a detailed account of Tampa’s ties to organized crime.
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