Is Tampa’s Italian Club looking for 1,200 missing bodies?

TAMPA ― Ground-penetrating radar is used for a variety of reasons, such as searching for underground utility lines and septic tanks.

It is also used to locate graves, which is why a man rolling ground-penetrating radar across a piece of East Tampa land caught the attention of a passing Tampa Bay Times reporter on Tuesday.

The sliver of property is owned by the Italian Club and abuts their cemetery parking lot, which old maps and federal documents point to as the location of College Hill Cemetery.

More than 1,200 Black and Cuban residents were buried there from 1896 through the 1940s, when the cemetery disappeared. The graves might still be there.

The Italian Club, which purchased the parking lot property in the 1950s, won’t say what they were looking for.

When asked, board chairperson Giovani Fucarino said, “That is above my pay grade,” and suggested that the Times call the Italian Club’s office.

During a visit to the office, the club’s executive director, Mark Stanish, said the cemetery does not fall under his jurisdiction. In 2021, Stanish was among the Italian Club representatives who met the Times at their cemetery to review records indicating that parking lot was once College Hill Cemetery.

Stanish suggested talking to board president Sal Guagliardo and said he would pass a message to him. A message for Guagliardo was left at his office Tuesday, but he has not responded.

The Ybor City-based social club celebrating Tampa’s Italian heritage also did not respond to seven previous requests for comment made since the Times published a detailed report on College Hill Cemetery in May 2021.

Geotechnical consulting firm Ardaman & Associates was scanning the property. The employee pushing the radar said he was not told why he was scanning the ground.

During a call to the company’s Tampa office, an employee said he could not provide information on work performed for a private client.

The land being scanned is part of a fenced-in retention pond. The Italian Club owns a small sliver of the pond property that adjoins their cemetery parking lot. The city owns the rest of the pond.

Ardaman & Associates placed wooden stakes in the ground marking the edge of the Italian Club’s property and scanned within that boundary.

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In recent years and in response to Times research, archaeologists have confirmed that six sites throughout the Tampa Bay region are home to erased or forgotten graves tied to pioneering Black communities. Another five sites, including College Hill Cemetery, have been identified as likely locations but are not known to have been surveyed for graves.

Ground-penetrating radar could determine if the College Hill Cemetery graves are still there, were moved, or if they were never there and the old records incorrectly point to that area as the burial ground.

The Italian Club had their cemetery parking lot scanned for graves in 2005. Nothing was discovered, but archaeologist Jeff Moates previously said that the methods were not “conducive to investigating historic cemeteries.” He recommended a second scan.

Angela Alderman, whose uncle is among those buried in College Hill, hopes the Italian Club performed that second scan this week.

“This is the time to make things right with the past,” she said. “They were people. They do not deserve to be erased and forgotten. I will continue to fight to be their voice of hope.”