Parque Amigos de José Martí is a small triangle of land in Ybor City that has an extraordinary legal status: it is owned by the Republic of Cuba. The park was established in 1956 to commemorate José Martí's visits to Tampa in 1891 and 1892, during which the poet and Cuban independence leader gave fundraising speeches to the large Cuban exile community in Ybor City.
The park is tiny — barely a city block — and easy to miss. A bust of Martí stands in the centre, and the Cuban and American flags fly together. The surrounding streets are otherwise ordinary Ybor City neighbourhood. But the park's existence is genuinely unusual: this is the only piece of Cuban sovereign territory in the continental United States, and it has remained so through decades of severed diplomatic relations, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and everything else that has happened between the two countries.
The park is on 8th Avenue in Ybor City, a short walk from 7th Avenue. It requires only a few minutes to visit but is worth a brief stop for the historical peculiarity of the thing.