1615-21 Various Miami Beach �4S6 W166-INGIoN BLuti . SctJw16zTT---
second wife Margaret Fisher,instead preferred that ti r' ��'l
he be cremated and his remains taken to the family '■ ` ,,1
• '
vault in Indianapolis.Two weeks after his death,it ' ' r `' I
was proposed that Alton Road be renamed in honor att■-lan is -,±� III :• '
of Fisher.Prominent Miami Beach clubwoman Mrs. tt r - ' r
S.B.Rohrer was behind the move,saying that her 'ti;�Ji+;+ '. CI 'III • '
group actually had wanted to change the name of the 1,,;� tig [ t • t:z IJ,11 '' •
1 street while Fisher still was alive.Levi retorted:"If '7 I .t11 ll'•
"-`�R '
you had tried to,he probablywould have sent his r�_ I �., ` � ! ; � 1
I. i4'' i at
,- j
attorney down and gotten out an injunction against ' +i It 'r �•U :. , i
a you."' I I I l kl I IIII I Ise ?. taw" - ; �
(1 Ata time,when the assessed value of the city �' t L1tet a i r+
I with which he had so much to do in creating,reached A; R i` • + , E „ i .-
$65 million,Fisher's estate totaled but$52,198.5 His �_ F f r��I+I F 'r j*- , 1 t o-
worth once was estimated at$20 million. _ 4' 1 ��
r_.. ".,�` ;� --n r -,is
• His friends proceeded with their plan for a T -
•
memorial to him despite the fact that they could not 'S-,.fi .1'4 fes' "—
• inter his remains in it.On April 10, 1941,the Carl
,- - r'�
Fisher Memorial was dedicated in the park.Again, ..+w-
John LaGorce and Monsignor Barry stood to honor �(-. �, I.
their friend,as did James Cox.In his remarks,Barry i l , •. ►^. ' j • ' V
- I i said:"We are here to honor a man who never sought
. •.,v;6
;
an honor, a great man who never thought he was ) .
I I great. Simple and humble he was, more than theI.
n " w ~
1 greatest man in this community he was greater than ;, ""'•
....30. '-, �"`
the community.Today we give him our gratitude for a 4` ►�.�� '
what he did."'Cox described Fisher as the"man who
made Miami Beach the great human drydock of , ,. -F."'*?'-
America,to which the multitudes come for health
and happiness.'" '4-_`!, ; .
• s, , Another of Miami Beach's pioneer developers . - f t; ,,
also died in 1939.Irving Collins,son of John Collins,
and a partner of Fisher in several Miami Beach from a jungle had moved on,but new leadership and
projects as well as the Montauk Point disaster, capital were in place to continue the job.The more •
•
preceded Fisher in death by but two months.'He and southerly section of Miami Beach,those properties
Fisher were the same age. Irving Collins was the initiated by Lummus without legal or habitual
ii strict business man of his family.It was he who ran restrictions on who may live there,were fast becoming
his father's businesses back in New Jersey. He also a tourist and residential haven for Jewish people,
i was one who insisted his father agree to build a most of whom were arriving from New York. By
bridge from the beach to Miami before they gave 1940,most of the residences south of Lincoln Road
him money to build his canal.When Fisher and the were inhabited by Jews. Jewish-owned and run
Collins family became partners in the Miami Beach businesses dominated lower Collins and Washington
• Bay Shore Company in 1919,Irving Collins was the avenues.One could walk next door from the Miami
family representative and was credited with keeping Beach Kosher Meat Market at Third and Collins •
• 1 Fisher from being too flamboyant with the company's Avenue to Goldstein and Meltzer's Grocery and just
j money. At the time of his death, Collins was an a few doors down to Joe Reisman's Meat Market,or
1 I, officer in six Miami Beach corporations,a director of a block south to Ed Weinstein's Grocery and Lou
i i the Miami Beach First National Bank and a Schulman's Delicatessen. A block to the west,on
participant in Miami Beach social functions that Washington Avenue,and a few further north,Adolph
Fisher long ago stopped attending.' In contrast to Daum had still another kosher meat market.Herman
Fisher's estate of $52,198, Irving Collins left Popkin ran a small restaurant and Hyman Sacks sold
$1,128,408.1° cigars from the same address at 75 Washington
John Collins was gone;so were Carl Fisher and Aveque." The Jewish dominance reache a most
Irving Collins. J. N. Lummus no longer lived in but not quite to Fisher's Lincoln Road.Two blocks
Miami Beach and Thomas Pancoast was to die in south of it,an office building at 1456 Washington
1941.The original cast that created Miami Beach Avenue was occupied by people with last names
136
�.- presence,plus the growing number of Jews living in '`
!! Miami Beach and help from Carl Fisher,led to his
'° l a election to the Miami Beach City Council in 1939. 1 III
__ rr'? ) r (Several months later, Wolfson was an honorary
K„t ;itf pallbearer at Fisher's funeral.)Wolfson was reelected
• " r twice more.After his third election,in 1943,he was
I . F e / ' unanimously elected mayor by fellow councilmen,
a111 ,-; ' — r 's:3" • 1�s the first Jew to be so positioned in Miami Beach."In
t •` a4
�� itc..,. , jr', later years, Wolfson recounted how Fisher, in his
, ;,
t i r'. { plie x ',
�-,, declining days, assisted his 1939 campaign, thus
] 1 i.. .?.' , further muddling the charge that Carl was an anti-
"' F.74.. �f ` , Semite."He[Fisher]found there were others on the
`
•, 1 i. ', • t Beach who were his contemporaries. . . who were
G r t 171111.. a f -i-. ; very much opposed to me because they didn't think
7,f. —' 4r, they'd want a Jewish member on the council."
:� :' ji' Wolfson recalled:
" ..,1/ Mr.Fisher had quite a fallout with some of
a. 3 - _ them as a result of supporting me,but I would
think that I probably owe my election more ‘
t I I I 1 to Carl Fisher than to almost anyone else..
Af .
t i�. At the time there were not sufficient
Jewish votes on Miami Beach to elect
/ someone like myself. . . . Without Carl
Fisher's support,I would have had a difficult
`� �r time receiving sufficient votes from the
P' f f' Gentile community to have been elected."
•
1
(Wolfson saying there were not enough Jewish
; - 1, votes on Miami Beach to elect him is puzzling,as
• / Baron De Hirsch Meyer,a Jew,was elected to the
city council nine years earlier.)
While the political torch had been passed,
there was no"takeover"mentality in Wolfson.He
Jack and Rose Samet came to Miami Beach from Atlanta in understood the way things had been, and were,
.i
1924.In 1932,they opened Samet's Kosher Delicatessen at and while not condoning some of the practices of
737 Washington Avenue in a narrow,three-table storefront. Miami Beach Realtors, developers, club boards
Jack Samet is behind the counter.Standing in front are Rose,
who did all the baking,and their son Jerry. (Alvin Samet) and others, was too sensible to foment a "we- • t
they"situation."I think that most resorts,whether
such as Cohen,Schwartz, Blum and Epstein while they were originally in the Catskills or whether i O
closer to the famed boulevard at 1512 Washington they were at Saratoga,or whether they were here 1
Avenue—within what was considered Fisher in Miami Beach or Palm Beach, tried to have a
territory—people with names such as Gallagher, snob appeal to wealthy people,"Wolfson told an
Kaiser, Mitchell, Beatty and Clifford lived in the interviewer in 1970."The Jews weren't so wealthy
Haliburt Apartments.'= at the time.""
While the conceived line against Jews held Wolfson recalled a time when even
fairly well to the north of Lincoln Road,it followed newspaper advertisements carried"Gentiles Only"
the same prescription laid out by Fisher years earlier. constraints,and of the role he played in bringing
• If you were a wealthy Jew, and if you didn't carry it to a stop.The Anti Defamation League asked
yourself in what others perceived as a stereotypical Wolfson to talk with the two major Miami k
manner,you could live anywhere you pleased. newspapers about eliminating the"Gentiles Only"
Such was the case with Mitchell Wolfson, tagline on hotel and apartment advertisements.
who had his residence at 5464 Pine Tree Drive.Key I had a good friend,Dan Mahoney,who
West-born Wolfson, along with business partner ran the Miami Daily News16 at that time.I
Stanley Meyer,established themselves more than a went to see him and asked him to eliminate
decade earlier,founding a chain of motion picture these ads which were offensive to the
theaters—Wometco Theaters—which included the Jewish people. Mahoney said: "Mitchell,
Lincoln Theater on Lincoln Road. His business I'm the second newspaper in town. The >
131 �;