1672-13 History-City of Miami Beach •
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE i6 E A C N
75 SPECTACULAR YEARS
MARK MIAMI BEACH HISTORY
Miami Beach -75-, the year-long celebration observing the city's
75-year history, being marked this year, spotlights seven decades of
dealing with wildly-assorted characters and events rivalling any city
in the world. From Rosie the Elephant to Ringo the Beatle; princes,
presidents and prime ministers, Russian ballet masters, Metropolitan
Opera tenors, GI Joe, Pulitzer prize winners and Nobel laureates,
national political conventions and Miss Universe contests.
Miami Beach has been called the billion dollar sandbar, the
electric island, the nation's winter playground and the international
resort for the jet set.
It all started on March 26, 1915, when 33 voters (out of a
permanent population of around 300) met to incorporate the City of
Miami Beach -- a place that was just emerging from a mosquito-ridden
mangrove swamp in the middle of Biscayne Bay.
THE PIONEERS
The genesis of Miami Beach was in 1909 when John Collins, a Quaker
farmer from New Jersey, bought out a failing coconut plantation on the
low-lying island. He decided to build a wooden bridge to the mainland,
roughly along the route of today's MacArthur Causeway, to properly
develop his farmlands. Collins financed his bridge with loans from two
Miami banker brothers, J. E. and J. N. Lummus, who as part of the
deal also invested in some land on the island. Collins ran out of
money before his bridge was completed.
Enter Carl Fisher, probably the single most important figure in
the history of Miami Beach. Fisher, an Indianan who had made a fortune
as a manufacturer of auto headlights and established a home in Miami,
lent Collins the $50,000 or so he needed to finish his bridge. In
return, Fisher got an 1,800-foot strip of land across the island,
including what later became the famed Lincoln Road. Fisher began
transforming a swamp into a city.
He spent millions of dollars to pump sand from the shallow
Biscayne Bay bottom and fill in the mangrove swamps. He carved out the
route of Lincoln Road. He and other investors built substantial homes.
He took a scraggy bathing casino at what is now 23rd St. and Collins
Avenue and transformed it into the luxurious Roman Pools. Farther down
the beach, Joe and Jennie Weiss established a restaurant in their home
(it's now Joe's Stone Crabs) .
The stage was set. Combining the holdings of Fisher, Collins and
the Lummus brothers, the City of Miami Beach was incorporated and J. N.
Lummus was named its first mayor.
A SWlBUlSf:.-< TION
1920 Meridian Avenue, Miami Beach,Florida 33139 Phone: (305)534-8255 Fax:538-4336
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THE ROARING TWENTIES
The era of the 1920s was a swinging, exciting time for Miami
Beach. It became famous for boom, bust and bathing beauties.
Fisher was busy carving out Lincoln Road, building golf courses,
tennis courts and even a polo field to amuse the thousands of tourists
he foresaw. With his flair for publicity, he imported an elephant
named Rosie, to do some of the heavy hauling at his construction sites.
He hired famed publicist Steve Hannegan to beat the drums for Miami
Beach and Hannegan deluged the nation's press with photos of the
bathing beauties who became a Miami Beach trademark.
By 1925, Miami Beach was one devil-may-care island of short
skirts, short hair and long romantic nights under a tropical moon.
N. B. T. Roney built the towered Roney Plaza hotel, at 23rd and
Collins, which for more than 20 years was host to the nation's biggest
names in the business, political, entertainment and sports worlds.
Fisher and other developers pumped new islands out of the bay -- Star,
Palm, Hibiscus, LaGorce, Indian Creek and others. Millionaires came
down to establish palatial oceanfront homes and estates.
The last half of the 1920s was a different story. The real estate
and building boom began collapsing. The final blow, literally, came on
the night of September 17/18, 1926, when a hurricane with devastating
130-mph winds ravaged Miami and Miami Beach.
By the season of 1928-29, winter visitors were beginning to
return.
THE GOLDEN DAYS
The thirties may well have been the golden days of Miami Beach.
The city was beginning to lure more and more millionaires and well-
heeled investors. in 1931, Col. Henry Doherty, the oil magnate,
bought the posh Roney Plaza and hired premier New York publicist Carl
Byoir to further promote the "winter playground." Celebrities, oil
tycoons, railroad magnates and Wall Street financiers leased lush
suites at the Roney.
By the middle of the 1930s, Miami Beach tourism was picking up
appreciably. New airlines like Pan Am, •Eastern, National and Delta
brought Miami Beach closer to major tourist markets.
Miami Beach rushed a building program of new hotels and
apartments. Today, more than 150 of these curve-and-circle "moderne"
style buildings erected between 1935 and 1940 form the city's noted Art
Deco district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
MIAMI BEACH GOES TO WAR
In 1941, Miami Beach went to war as thoroughly as any community in
the United States. Its complex of hotels and restaurants, designed for
pleasure-bound tourists, were ready as instant barracks and mess halls
for war-bound servicemen. Its outdoor playgrounds for golfers, polo
players and other sportsmen, were transformed into drill fields.
During the war years, nearly 150 luxury hotels with more than 70,000
rooms were taken over by the Army Air Forces as training centers.
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World War II and the GIs it brought here marked a turning point in
the history of Miami Beach. No longer was it just a smalltown winter
resort. Thousands of veterans from other parts of the U. S. who had
trained at Miami Beach returned to become permanent residents.
Other events, little noticed at the time, were to have a profound
effect on Miami Beach, occurred in the last half of the 1940s.
<> In 1946 the famed Roney Plaza became one of the first hotels
to install a complete air conditioning system.
<> In 1949 TV arrived when station WTVJ went on the air.
A NEW FACE TO THE WORLD
The 1950s were a decade in which Miami Beach presented a new face
to the world. This change stemmed from a number of factors:
<> An increasing permanent population spurred by returning ex-GIs
and retirees engendered a growing spirit of community pride.
<> Air conditioning became widespread and transformed Miami Beach
from a winter resort to a year-round playground. Hotels that
previously had simply closed down after the winter season began to stay
open all year, and Miami Beach joined with airlines to offer attractive
summer vacation packages at bargain prices.
<> The electronic age dawned. Miami Beach and television seemed
made for each other. It started with Arthur Godfrey. The popular
national entertainer was lured to Miami Beach by his friend, Hank
Meyer, the famed publicist who had succeeded Hannegan, Byoir, et al. as
chief Miami Beach drumbeater. Godfrey's first radio/television
simulcast from the Kenilworth Hotel in 1953 claimed the largest
audience ever reached over the airways. Godfrey was followed by a
parade of other national shows originating from Miami Beach. . Millions
of viewers here and in other countries saw Miami Beach.
<> The Miami Beach Convention Center, with its allied Theater of
the Performing Arts, opened in 1957.
<> Development in the city's tourist and convention industry
surged. The Fontainebleau, for years a monumental symbol of the
sophistication and luxury of Miami Beach, opened in 1954. There were
more -- the Eden Roc, Deauville, Doral Beach, others.
A TIME OF TURMOIL
The 1960s were a time of turmoil and triumphs for Miami Beach.
<> Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, only 250 miles from Collins
Avenue.
<> More arid more Cubans sought refuge in South Florida. Miami
Beach for the first time had a substantial Cuban colony.
<> The Beatles made their TV debut in America in a show
nationally televised from Miami Beach.
<> The Republican party chose Miami Beach for its 1968 national
convention.
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A PAUSE TO REFRESH
In the 1970s, Miami Beach paused to consider where it was and
where it wanted to go. Some events gave hints of what was to develop.
<> Both the Republican AND Democratic national conventions were
held in the Convention Center.
<> The city widened its reputation as a showplace. Comedian
Jackie Gleason packed up his entire television company in New York and
brought it to Miami Beach.
<> Multimillionaire developer Stephen Muss bought the
Fontainebleau Hotel and launched a $30 million renovation program.
<> Preservationists, spearheaded by Barbara Capitman and, today,
Nancy Liebman, both of the Miami Design Preservation League, rallied to
save the architectural and design treasures of the South Beach Art Deco
buildings. The Art Deco District was enrolled on the National Register
of Historic Places.
THE CULTURAL EVOLUTION
Sweeping cultural changes -- social as well as artistic --
impacted heavily on the community in the 1980s.
The resident and tourist mix changed dramatically. A younger,
more affluent crowd diluted the traditional preponderance of retirees.
More and younger tourists from Europe and Asia found a vacation in
glamorous Miami Beach affordable.
Much of the new look centered on South Beach, where it had all
begun three-quarters of a century ago. Investors spent millions of
dollars to acquire and renovate the cherished "moderne" hotels of the
1930s. Preservationists succeeded in saving others for the future.
The lush South Pointe complex of modern condominiums, shops and beach
amenities towered on South Beach.
Arts and entertainment took new vigor. On Lincoln Road, the Miami
City Ballet, dedicated tb fostering South Florida performing talent,
and the New World Symphony were flanked by artist ateliers.
Television and movies continue to be Miami Beach allies. In the
1980s, Miami Vice, with its frequent scenes of the community, became
one of the top-rated national TV shows.• Local and Hollywood producers
used the city as a backdrop.
Miami Beach's emerging status as a new world center is being
increasingly recognized by the international business community.
Substantial investments have been reported by interests from Europe,
Latin America, Asia and other overseas areas.
On Miami Beach's Diamond Anniversary, many more diamonds would
seem to lie ahead.
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FURTHER INFORMATION: Susan Brustman/Fran Sommers
(305) 573-0658
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IAMI
BEACH
MIAMI BEACH HISTORY
Bibliography
Capitman, Barbara Baer, Deco Delights. New York: (E. P. Dutton,
1988).
Carson, Ruby Leach, "Forty Years of Miami Beach," (Reprinted from
Tequesta magazine, No. 15, 1955).
Fisher, Jane, Fabulous Hoosier, (New York: R. M. McBride & Co. ,
1947).
Kofoed, John C. (Jack), Moon Over Miami, (New York: Random House,
1955) .
Lummus, John Newton, The Miracle of Miami Beach, (Miami, FL:
Miami Post Publishing Co. , 1940).
McCarthy, Joe, "The Man Who Invented Miami Beach," (American
Heritage magazine, December, 1975) .
Mehling, Harold, The Most of Everything, (New York: Harcourt
•
Brace, 1960).
Nash, Charles Edgar, The Magic of Miami Beach, (Philadelphia:
David McKay Company, 1938).
Pancoast, J. Arthur, "A Successful Failure," (Tropic magazine,
September, 1914) .
Redford, Polly, Billion Dollar Sandbar, (New York: E. P. Dutton,
1970) .
Root, Keith, Miami Beach Art Deco Guide, (Miami Beach: Miami
Design Preservation League, 1987).
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A tiEBRAAI
1920 Meridian Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida 33139 Phone: (305)534-8255 Fax:538-4336