For Memorial Day weekend, Sanaë and I packed our bathing suits, a handful of good books and my camera, and headed south for a few days in the sun. Neither of us had been to Florida before. We spent two days in Miami with Sanaë’s wonderful friend Lucy on the outskirts of the city, then a few hours in the Everglades, and finally a night in Islamorada in the Florida Keys. It wasn’t really the rest we had promised ourselves, but then again neither of us realized how easy it would be to fill four short days zipping around America’s southern-facing outpost.
For me, Miami has always been synonymous with rowdy parties and gaudy glamour. It’s all of that! Especially during the annual Urban Beach Week hip hop festival… But it was so much more than that too. At times, we truly felt like we’d left the continental US behind for some hybrid Caribbean island that managed to feel both familiar (the Design District feels like parts of LA) and so distant (hanging out at the Cubaocho Center). How refreshingly far from New York City we both felt…
Our first stops were the Design District and Wynwood’s Art District. A bikini clad giantess (Kate Moss doing yoga!) on the Paseo Ponti competes with the Hermés and Dior storefronts across the way for our attention. Across from her sits, equally serene, a curvy mother and her child, courtesy of the Colombian sculptor Botero.
WYNWOOD
Full from a big lunch at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, we made our way to the Wynwood Arts District. New York’s old 5 Pointz hardly holds a candle to this place! Whole city blocks of beautiful, colorful, and at times deeply moving tags dazzle under the reflection of the Florida sun in the bare concrete. Equally colorful bands of locals, tourists, bikers, gazers and gawkers going about their business make this an irresistible spot for a few photos. When you visit the Wynwood Walls, head all the way to the back to see the small indoor gallery full of odd artifacts. And when you’re looking to take a break out of the sun, Panther Coffee on NW 2nd Ave is really great.
MURALS & MODELS
My favorite piece is Codo a Codo (below, left) by Chilean artist Inti, ie. Sun God. He took inspiration from a 1900s photograph of child laborers to create his artwork.
DECO DISTRICT
We spent a lazy afternoon at the beach, eventually making our way for an evening cocktail at the wacky and wonderful Broken Shaker, and then a pizza for dinner at Spris.
Early the next day, we made our way back to Miami Beach for an architectural tour. For two hours, we crawled under the heavy midday sun around a few city blocks, learning Miami’s rich history while discovering the stories behind dozens of stunning art deco buildings.
So first, a quick history lesson (indulge me!) — South Beach’s history is as layered as they come.
A first wave of development began with “Mr Miami Beach,” entrepreneur Carl Fisher: auto racer, highway developer, real estate mogul. Mr. Fisher saw business potential in what was then a swampy region largely left untouched by northern settlers, and picked up where his predecessor John Collins left off to dredge the land, create the first of Miami’s many artificial residential islands, and complete construction of a 4km wooden bridge across Biscayne Bay. Miami Beach was an instant hit with the rich and famous during the Roaring 20s. Construction was fashioned after Mediterranean Europe, like the Castle Casuarina, built a little later in the 1930s for the heirs of the Standard Oil company. A hurricane in 1926 brought the boom to a sudden halt, and rebuilding was impossible in the context of the Great Depression.
Miami Beach’s second wave looked nothing like the first. The 1930s brought with them the New Deal, and with it higher wages, pensions, and crucially, holiday. Miami Beach was rebuilt, this time for America’s budding middle class. The American Art Deco style, or “Nautical” Art Deco in Miami, was imported from France and celebrated the optimism and exuberance of the pre-war period. (Interestingly, the term ‘Art Deco’ was only coined in the 60s by a journalist.) Just as the one before it, so too this building boom came to a sudden halt, in 1941 with America’s entry into WWII. The US Army took over the vacated constructions and after the war, many of its soldiers got “sand in their feet” and decided to stay. By the early 1960s, South Beach was largely a community of retirees. As they aged, the area became increasingly impoverished.
Some credit this brazen Calvin Klein ad shot at the Breakwater Hotel during the 1980s for kindling South Beach’s third and most recent wave of development. A grand plan to knock down the crumbling constructions and replace them with a wall of massive, modern hotels was spurred by Barbara Baer Capitman and her team of preservationists, who formed the Miami Design Preservation League in 1976. They eventually catalogued some 1200 buildings in the area, designating the country’s first 20th century “historical neighborhood,” protecting, renovating, and teaching eager brothers-of-budding-architects much like myself.
The most beautifully furnished Art Deco lobby in South Beach is at the Tiffany Hotel, the product of a 1930s rivalry between iconic architects Lawrence Murray Dixon, who designed the Tiffany in response to Henry Hohauser’s Essex House across the street. Not shown here is the great spire on top of the building. Radio tower? Rocket ship? Who knows.
The other question is whether bikes and boards have always been this popular on the beach.
There’s another story on these blocks too good to invent: The imposing Wolfsonian, built to offer hurricane-proof temporary storage for rich summer-dwellers. But on the side, the business (now a museum) catered to under-pressure hoteliers who would store incriminating evidence of illegal gambling when under investigation.
MOJITOS
The afternoon took us to Little Havana, without a doubt the only place in the world where you’ll see a Cuban flag proudly waving above a RadioShack. The Memorial Boulevard brought an interesting perspective on the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The highlight was a mid-afternoon mojito at the Cubaocho Museum & Performing Arts Center, where a troupe of performers played Cuban classics for a rowdy, mostly Cuban crowd drinking and dancing the afternoon away.
SAWGRASS PRAIRIE
That night we drove in to Homestead under a perfect electrical storm, and the next day we made our way to the Everglades (stopping for an incredible smoothie first at Robert is Here). Over the course of a few short, hot walks we saw two alligators, a beautiful turtle, and many gigantic grasshoppers. We also learned that the glades are basically a giant liquid glacier, draped like a giant sheet seven miles wide and only a few inches deep in most parts, flowing slowly from Lake Okeechobee 60 miles south to the Florida Bay. The glades are home to a lot of different habitats like tropical hardwood hammocks, little patches of trees rising a few feet above the wet sea of prairie like so many little islands. The fragile ecosystem of the glades is under massive threat from the rapid urbanization of the Miami metro area, the resulting depletion of natural aquifers, and now rising seawater levels (see this NPR story) — and won’t survive in its current form if we don’t take more aggressive steps to preserve it.
KEY LIME PIE
Our last stop on the trip were the Florida Keys, which reminded me of New York’s Montauk, with the same mix of townie & imports, and a similar laid back feeling (less sailing, more fishing!) We drove the incredible Highway 1 and stayed the night in Islamorada, where we enjoyed the very best key lime pie ever at Ma’s Fish Camp. The next day, we pushed on past the Seven Mile Bridge all the way to beautiful Bahia Honda Key, where a freak storm fortunately passed its way quick enough for us to enjoy the beach before returning, sand in our feet and burns on our backs, to New York.
PS: Take a look at my Foursquare list for all our favorite stops on the trip. In Homestead, we had the best breakfast at Nathalie’s AirBnB. And in Islamorada, we really enjoyed the Drop Anchor Hotel. Flights from NY are often cheaper into Ft. Lauderdale vs. Miami International, so be sure to check both. Thanks for reading!
