One Traveler's Opinion: Miami, 37 years later
Aug 11th, 2004, 08:23 AM
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One Traveler's Opinion: Miami, 37 years later
This past weekend, I ventured to Miami for the first time in nearly a decade. It was a special trip because I happen to be a native of that city. I went to see old friends, and also to see an area that I remember with great fondness. Herewith, a very personal report.
I have called New England home for most of the past 25 years and, to my mind, Boston hasn't changed much in that time. Sure, there are some new, tall buildings in the Financial District, but change has come gradually. As with friends and loved ones with whom you've stayed close, the process of change (or aging) is so gradual that you don't notice the alterations. You adjust your mental map so that the new is seamlessly incorporated in with the old.
I grew up in Miami and lived there the first 18 years of my life. Once I left for college, I returned with decreasing frequency and then only for brief periods. In essence, my mental map - my image - of south Florida is frozen in time circa 1967. In my mind, the Rickenbacker Causeway to Key Biscayne includes a drawbridge that routinely backs up traffic for miles. The 28-story Dade County Courthouse towers over a rather dowdy downtown, and Brickell Avenue has single-family homes on it as far north as S.E. 10th Street. The beach on Miami Beach is a pathetic narrow strip of sand held in place by beggar-thy-neighbor groins, and the Roney Plaza is the shuttered grande dame of South Beach, which is otherwise filled with old people in rockers on the porches of decrepit old hotels from the 1930s. The Palmetto Bypass pretty well marks the western edge of civilization except for some developments out Bird Road Extension and Coral Way. I-95 is under construction through downtown Miami; north of Miami, you get unceremoniously dumped off at Hollywood Blvd., with no indication the highway will ever be extended northward.
South Florida in 2004 is unrecognizable from the air. There are over 4 million people in the two counties that comprise Miami and Ft. Lauderdale -- nearly triple the population of 1967. The two cities have grown together seamlessly; dense developments stretch deep inland, bumping up against the levees that form the boundary with the Everglades. There is a 'real' downtown Miami now, very attractive and with interesting architecture. The Brickell Avenue corridor with its 70-story Four Seasons complex, seems to have been imported, intact, from some exotic locale. I could not identify a single structure as having dated from "my" Miami.
Miami Beach is at once better and worse. The tens of millions of dollars spent to rebuild the beach were well worth the time and money. It looks spectacular, top to bottom. I was somewhat prepared for South Beach; the reality of it was still stunning. Art Deco has never looked so fresh; seldom have so many buildings been recycled so well and to such good effect. It is good to see an area come back to life; it is a well-deserved rejuvenation. However, the density of development - meaning high-rise development - is awful, especially from the Fountainbleu property north and at the southern tip of the island. The hotels, condos, or whatever they are, are too big, too tall, and too out of keeping with the character of the area. Many of them are, to my eye, plug-ugly behemoths. I predict that, in years to come, they will be looked on as embarrassing eyesores.
Just south of Ft. Lauderdale, a three-mile long stretch of pristine Atlantic Ocean beach has been preserved as the John Lloyd State Park. Four decades ago, it was privately owned and targeted for development. It is exactly as I remember it, except that you no longer have to wade across a slough to gain access to the beach. A golden conch shell to the state of Florida for acquiring that wonderful strip of pre-development Florida.
The powers that be in South Florida have spent some serious money on landscaping public parks and thoroughfares, and it certainly shows. The MacArthur and Rickenbacker Causeways (now drawbridge-free) are gorgeous stretches of roadway, luxuriant with foliage; the access roads throughout Crandon Park and Matheson Hammock are as pleasing to the eye as a botanical garden. Once-plain roadways along canals, like Red Road below U.S. 1, are a delight to drive because of the waterway-side plantings and bike paths. I commend these drives to tourists as well as residents.
While I spent some time in the new, western developments (attractive but, for all I knew, I could just as easily have been in San Diego or Palm Springs), most of my time was devoted to places that I had hoped would be familiar. For the most part, I was rewarded with a timelessness that brought a smile of grateful recognition. The Ingram Highway through Coconut Grove, Coconut Grove itself, and Old Cutler Road look the same as they did in the 1960s. May they continue to keep that look as the century progresses; it's a wonderful link to South Florida's past.
Coral Gables is essentially unchanged, down to those terrific concrete street signs that I've never seen in another U.S. city. Certainly, existing homes have been enlarged - what was acceptable in 1954 is not appropriate half a century later - but homeowners, whether by zoning fiat or sensitivity, have kept the city's Mediterranean look intact. On its present course, Coral Gables will look even better in another few decades.
My home town in Miami's northwestern suburbs is largely unchanged, which is somewhat sad in a way. The predominant building material of south Florida is stucco over concrete block, which needs lots of greenery to look attractive. New developments recognize this reality; shops and stores are set back behind several feet of shrubs and palms, which probably annoys architects no end but softens the hard edges of buildings subjected to year-round sun and humidity. In the 1940s and 1950s, as the area grew from scrub pine to suburb, that lesson had not yet been learned. Today, a 50-year-old commercial building set right to the sidewalk line looks older and less welcoming than does the same structure set behind a curtain of green. The net result, driving through the town's commercial areas, was a sensation of seeing an area down at its heels. In point of fact, my home town is doing well, as evidenced by well-maintained (and expanded homes).
The leafy shade trees - olive, frangipani, and the like - that were planted by the thousands in the 1960s have reached their maturity; and a wet summer had kept everything vividly green. Despite multiple additions and an exterior color palette that has grown bolder with the passage of decades, I had no trouble picking out the homes of childhood friends.
But finding my own home was a bit of a problem, because it isn't there any more. I grew up on a secondary street just off what is now a major thoroughfare. What was a parking lot next door has sprouted a restaurant and a Holiday Inn. The remnant of my childhood home is now an office building. You can't go home again if there is no home to go to.
But I have my memories. And in many areas of Miami, you don't even have to squint very hard to see the past. This past weekend, I saw how the past and present flow together. On the whole, I approve. Good job, Miami.
I have called New England home for most of the past 25 years and, to my mind, Boston hasn't changed much in that time. Sure, there are some new, tall buildings in the Financial District, but change has come gradually. As with friends and loved ones with whom you've stayed close, the process of change (or aging) is so gradual that you don't notice the alterations. You adjust your mental map so that the new is seamlessly incorporated in with the old.
I grew up in Miami and lived there the first 18 years of my life. Once I left for college, I returned with decreasing frequency and then only for brief periods. In essence, my mental map - my image - of south Florida is frozen in time circa 1967. In my mind, the Rickenbacker Causeway to Key Biscayne includes a drawbridge that routinely backs up traffic for miles. The 28-story Dade County Courthouse towers over a rather dowdy downtown, and Brickell Avenue has single-family homes on it as far north as S.E. 10th Street. The beach on Miami Beach is a pathetic narrow strip of sand held in place by beggar-thy-neighbor groins, and the Roney Plaza is the shuttered grande dame of South Beach, which is otherwise filled with old people in rockers on the porches of decrepit old hotels from the 1930s. The Palmetto Bypass pretty well marks the western edge of civilization except for some developments out Bird Road Extension and Coral Way. I-95 is under construction through downtown Miami; north of Miami, you get unceremoniously dumped off at Hollywood Blvd., with no indication the highway will ever be extended northward.
South Florida in 2004 is unrecognizable from the air. There are over 4 million people in the two counties that comprise Miami and Ft. Lauderdale -- nearly triple the population of 1967. The two cities have grown together seamlessly; dense developments stretch deep inland, bumping up against the levees that form the boundary with the Everglades. There is a 'real' downtown Miami now, very attractive and with interesting architecture. The Brickell Avenue corridor with its 70-story Four Seasons complex, seems to have been imported, intact, from some exotic locale. I could not identify a single structure as having dated from "my" Miami.
Miami Beach is at once better and worse. The tens of millions of dollars spent to rebuild the beach were well worth the time and money. It looks spectacular, top to bottom. I was somewhat prepared for South Beach; the reality of it was still stunning. Art Deco has never looked so fresh; seldom have so many buildings been recycled so well and to such good effect. It is good to see an area come back to life; it is a well-deserved rejuvenation. However, the density of development - meaning high-rise development - is awful, especially from the Fountainbleu property north and at the southern tip of the island. The hotels, condos, or whatever they are, are too big, too tall, and too out of keeping with the character of the area. Many of them are, to my eye, plug-ugly behemoths. I predict that, in years to come, they will be looked on as embarrassing eyesores.
Just south of Ft. Lauderdale, a three-mile long stretch of pristine Atlantic Ocean beach has been preserved as the John Lloyd State Park. Four decades ago, it was privately owned and targeted for development. It is exactly as I remember it, except that you no longer have to wade across a slough to gain access to the beach. A golden conch shell to the state of Florida for acquiring that wonderful strip of pre-development Florida.
The powers that be in South Florida have spent some serious money on landscaping public parks and thoroughfares, and it certainly shows. The MacArthur and Rickenbacker Causeways (now drawbridge-free) are gorgeous stretches of roadway, luxuriant with foliage; the access roads throughout Crandon Park and Matheson Hammock are as pleasing to the eye as a botanical garden. Once-plain roadways along canals, like Red Road below U.S. 1, are a delight to drive because of the waterway-side plantings and bike paths. I commend these drives to tourists as well as residents.
While I spent some time in the new, western developments (attractive but, for all I knew, I could just as easily have been in San Diego or Palm Springs), most of my time was devoted to places that I had hoped would be familiar. For the most part, I was rewarded with a timelessness that brought a smile of grateful recognition. The Ingram Highway through Coconut Grove, Coconut Grove itself, and Old Cutler Road look the same as they did in the 1960s. May they continue to keep that look as the century progresses; it's a wonderful link to South Florida's past.
Coral Gables is essentially unchanged, down to those terrific concrete street signs that I've never seen in another U.S. city. Certainly, existing homes have been enlarged - what was acceptable in 1954 is not appropriate half a century later - but homeowners, whether by zoning fiat or sensitivity, have kept the city's Mediterranean look intact. On its present course, Coral Gables will look even better in another few decades.
My home town in Miami's northwestern suburbs is largely unchanged, which is somewhat sad in a way. The predominant building material of south Florida is stucco over concrete block, which needs lots of greenery to look attractive. New developments recognize this reality; shops and stores are set back behind several feet of shrubs and palms, which probably annoys architects no end but softens the hard edges of buildings subjected to year-round sun and humidity. In the 1940s and 1950s, as the area grew from scrub pine to suburb, that lesson had not yet been learned. Today, a 50-year-old commercial building set right to the sidewalk line looks older and less welcoming than does the same structure set behind a curtain of green. The net result, driving through the town's commercial areas, was a sensation of seeing an area down at its heels. In point of fact, my home town is doing well, as evidenced by well-maintained (and expanded homes).
The leafy shade trees - olive, frangipani, and the like - that were planted by the thousands in the 1960s have reached their maturity; and a wet summer had kept everything vividly green. Despite multiple additions and an exterior color palette that has grown bolder with the passage of decades, I had no trouble picking out the homes of childhood friends.
But finding my own home was a bit of a problem, because it isn't there any more. I grew up on a secondary street just off what is now a major thoroughfare. What was a parking lot next door has sprouted a restaurant and a Holiday Inn. The remnant of my childhood home is now an office building. You can't go home again if there is no home to go to.
But I have my memories. And in many areas of Miami, you don't even have to squint very hard to see the past. This past weekend, I saw how the past and present flow together. On the whole, I approve. Good job, Miami.
Aug 11th, 2004, 09:01 AM
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Neal, thank you so much for posting this. It comes at timely moment for my husband and I.
He lived in Miami for a few years a looong time ago and I know he is going to enjoy your Opinion greatly~
Scarlett
He lived in Miami for a few years a looong time ago and I know he is going to enjoy your Opinion greatly~
Scarlett
Aug 11th, 2004, 10:44 AM
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GoTravel, I thought Stiltsville existed today only in Carl Hiassen novels. I was told that Hurricane Andrew pretty well did it in (along with a lot of Key Biscayne), and we didn't have time to walk all the way down to the Cape Florida lighthouse.
But you say "most", indicating that a few of the structures are still there. Amazing!
But you say "most", indicating that a few of the structures are still there. Amazing!
Aug 11th, 2004, 10:47 AM
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GoTravel, I thought Stiltsville existed today only in Carl Hiassen novels. I was told that Hurricane Andrew pretty well did it in (along with a lot of Key Biscayne), and we didn't have time to walk all the way down to the Cape Florida lighthouse. I remember Stiltsville as having 25 or 30 shacks.
But you say "most", indicating that a few of the structures are still there. Amazing!
But you say "most", indicating that a few of the structures are still there. Amazing!
Aug 11th, 2004, 10:49 AM
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There are still seven houses remaining in Stiltsville.
To see you can go to www.Stiltsville.org or www.Key-Biscayne.com
Wonderful and amazing Neal.
To see you can go to www.Stiltsville.org or www.Key-Biscayne.com
Wonderful and amazing Neal.
Aug 11th, 2004, 12:08 PM
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Good posting Neal we will be moving over to FLL in October. That was a very fitting perspective. I am not so sure about the seemless melding of FLL & Miami however. I think Hollywood would like to be included in there ;-).
Aug 11th, 2004, 12:23 PM
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Neal - I was born in Miami back in the...50's and only lived there till I was 4. My mom and dad however lived in Miami several years and owned a motel in Boca (Dad still kicks himself for not waiting to sell for a few years....) My dad has been back to Miami since then and is amazed at the changes as well.
Aug 11th, 2004, 01:38 PM
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GoTravel, thanks for the Stiltsville web site tip, and I commend it to anyone who wants to take a peek at a unique (to put it mildly) community.
Judy, it seems that the communities of South Broward have always been been squeezed between their two big neighbors to the north and south. I note Hollywood gave up and just spreads west forever. Good luck with your move.
Linda, "Skinny Dip" was my pre-trip reading preparation. Amazingly, the three Miami natives to whom I mentioned that I had just finished his new book all gave me blank stares: they never heard of him! Mr. Hiassen may be more popular outside of his home state than inside.
Judy, it seems that the communities of South Broward have always been been squeezed between their two big neighbors to the north and south. I note Hollywood gave up and just spreads west forever. Good luck with your move.
Linda, "Skinny Dip" was my pre-trip reading preparation. Amazingly, the three Miami natives to whom I mentioned that I had just finished his new book all gave me blank stares: they never heard of him! Mr. Hiassen may be more popular outside of his home state than inside.
Aug 12th, 2004, 05:57 PM
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Neal....nice post
I too spent some early years in Miami. Enjoyed you descriptions. Been back several time, but not recently.
I remember the opening of the Fountainbleu...WOW...and the many years it lived and weather, and a few years ago...I see it was to be re-furbished....and yes, south beach...good description...
enjoyed your post....thanks
I too spent some early years in Miami. Enjoyed you descriptions. Been back several time, but not recently.
I remember the opening of the Fountainbleu...WOW...and the many years it lived and weather, and a few years ago...I see it was to be re-furbished....and yes, south beach...good description...
enjoyed your post....thanks
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