Miami Beach, Florida
Encyclopedia
Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County
, Florida
, United States
, incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality
is located on a barrier island
between the Atlantic Ocean
and Biscayne Bay
, the latter which separates the Beach from Miami city proper
. The neighborhood of South Beach
, comprising the southernmost 2.5 mi2 of Miami Beach, along with Downtown Miami
and the port
collectively form the commercial center of South Florida
. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 87,779. Miami Beach has been one of America's pre-eminent beach resorts since the early 20th century.
was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
. The Art Deco District is the largest collection of Art Deco
architecture in the world and comprises hundreds of hotels, apartments and other structures erected between 1923 and 1943. Mediterranean, Streamline Moderne and Art Deco are all represented in the District. The Historic District is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean
on the East, Lenox Court on the West, 6th Street on the South and Dade Boulevard along the Collins Canal to the North. The movement to preserve the Art Deco District's architectural heritage was led by former interior designer Barbara Capitman, who now has a street in the District named in her honor.
As of November 2009 the mayor is Matti Herrera Bower. The commissioners are Michael Gongora, Jerry Libbin, Jorge Exposito, Nathan Garg, Ed Tobin, Deede Weithorn, and Jonah Wolfson.
As of November 2010 the mayor is still Matti Herrera Bower. She won with 59.47% of the vote. The commissioners are Deede Weithorn, Wilfredo "Willy" Gort, and Marc Sanoff. http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/FL/Dade/34142/48398/en/summary.html#
and easily overwhelmed the beach dwellers.
who is believed to have been shipwrecked nearby, and taken as a slave to well known powerful Indian sorcerer who was descended of the tribe living along the Miami Beach area prior to the Tequesta. During his captivity, Cabaza de Vaca spoke of the areas’ tempestuous beauty, stark blue seas, and tranquility interspaced by violent hurricanes. But aside from his remarks and a few tales of European sailors, the area was wholly unknown to the wider world, thereby leaving the Tequesta Indians in their own world of raid, counter-raid, and periodic cannibalism which kept almost all other outsiders from the area.
Although the Spaniards continued to visit the area and established small temporary trading, fishing, and coast watch settlements, they never succeeded in creating a permanent colonial settlement due to their limited resources and the violence of the local Indians. However, Dutch
, English
, and French
settlers fleeing Spanish genocide of their colonies in Northern Florida, the Carolinas, and the West Indies, did manage to create relations with the local Tequesta as fellow persecuted nationals of the Spanish, thereby succeeding in creating small settlements in the area over the next centuries which became centered upon Coconut Grove. In turn, with the rise of the English, Dutch, and French Buccaneers who were sent to circumnavigate Spanish control of the Americas, Miami Beach soon became a small secret refuge for various privateers. Nonetheless, the area remained a mostly unexplored backwater of Spanish and European colonial policy.
and Privateer
ing activities. Henceforth, the areas numerous inlets, small harbors, temporary portages, and swampland became a place of wild buccaneering, Indian trading posts, and general outlawry, governed by its own local codes of conduct.
terrorists, and a small but surviving group of mixed European and Indian farmers and tradesman put the place on the maps of European colonialists as Coconut Grove. However, with the slow decline of the Spanish Empire, and the all pervasive might of the British Navy, and more commercially safe developments in the British colonies to the north, the areas principal standing as a smuggler and pirate center stagnated, causing much of the small town to slowly retreated into nature. But for the use of St. Augustine
to the north, and the continued growth of shipping commerce and subsequent wrecks the area would’ve disappeared back into swampland, but instead enterprising British sailors and traders from the Bahamas came to South Florida and the Florida Keys
in the early 19th Century, to hunt for the remains of an international array of ill-fated ships that crashed onto the treacherous Great Florida reef or to trade with the local small and mixed group of Indians and Europeans. Yet even with this new arrival of commerce the future was grim for the area.
However, this slow decline into swamp was checked and reversed with the final end to the Spanish Empire and its replacement with a new English Republic, the United States
. Following centuries of savage warfare by black Maroon
s and Spanish backed Indians upon the British settlers and their American descendents, a new nation had arisen in northern Florida coalesced around Anglophobic and anti-American hostile Indians and escaped Black slaves, but also including Spaniards and enslaved British women and children. Together, these people and their descendents, became known as the Seminoles. In turn, backed by Spanish Armies and arms, this mixed nation of Seminoles, Black maroons, and Spaniards would pour from St. Augustine to raid, rape, and pillage advancing American settlements in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. British and subsequently, American diplomats and war leaders had checked the Spanish raids until a low level cold war had existed on the border of Spanish Florida
and the State of Georgia thereby fixing Spanish gaze from polyglot and mostly subversive community of Coconut Grove and Miami Beach northward toward the Americans. Thus, Miami remained a stagnate but convenient way station where both sides could trade, negotiate, and commerce in secret. Yet, with the independence of America, a new more aggressive policy was implemented as covert raids, Filibuster
missions, and strong diplomacy finally forced the Spanish to relinquish Florida in its entirety. In 1821, the Spanish flag was lowered and the Stars and Stripes raised over Florida. (Florida became a U.S.Territory in 1821, but did not become a State until 1845.)
the barrier island (actually still a peninsula) that would become Miami Beach in 1915. Until then, however, the first structure to be built on this uninhabited oceanfront was the Biscayne House of Refuge, constructed in 1876 by the U.S. Lifesaving Service at approximately 72nd Street. Its purpose was to provide food, water, and a return to civilization for people who were shipwrecked. The next step in the development of the future Miami Beach was the planting of a coconut plantation along the shore here in the 1880s by New Jersey entrepreneurs Ezra Osborn and Elnathan Field, but this was a failed venture. One of the investors in the project was agriculturist John S. Collins, who achieved success by buying out other partners and planting different crops, notably avocadoes, on the land that would later become Miami Beach. Meanwhile, across Biscayne Bay, the City of Miami was established in 1896 with the arrival of the railroad, and developed further as a port when the shipping channel of Government Cut was created in 1905, cutting off Fisher Island from the south end of the Miami Beach peninsula.
Collins' family members saw the potential in developing the beach here as a resort. This effort got underway in the early years of the 20th century by the Collins/Pancoast family, the Lummus brothers (bankers from Miami), and Indianapolis entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher. Until then, the beach here was only the destination for day-trips by ferry from Miami, across the bay. There were bath houses and food stands here, but no hotel until Brown's Hotel was built in 1915 (still standing, at 112 Ocean Drive). Much of the interior land mass here at that time was a tangled jungle of mangroves, and clearing it was a herculean effort. The Town of Miami Beach was chartered on March 26, 1915; it grew to become a City in 1917. Carl Fisher was the main promoter of Miami Beach's development in the 1920s as the site for wealthy industrialists from the north and midwest to build their winter homes here. In addition, Fisher built five hotels here (none still surviving). In the 1920s, Fisher and others literally created much of Miami Beach as landfill by dredging Biscayne Bay; this manmade territory includes Star, Palm, and Hibiscus Islands, the Sunset Islands, much of Normandy Isle, and all of the Venetian Islands except Belle Isle. The Miami Beach peninsula became an island in April 1925 when Haulover Cut was opened, connecting the ocean to the bay, north of present-day Bal Harbour. The great hurricane of Sept. 17-18, 1926, put an end to this prosperous era of the Florida Boom, but in the 1930s, Miami Beach still attracted tourists, and investors constructed the mostly small-scale, stucco hotels and rooming houses, for seasonal rental, that comprise much of the present "Art Deco" historic district.
This community, long sympathetic toward first the British and then the Americans, quickly called for help, and the United States Marine Corps
and navy vessels were dispatched to aid the hard pressed community. After several years, the United States Navy and Marines had pushed the Seminoles out of the coastal areas of Florida and Miami Beach, whilst the earlier community which had been spread out along the beach and inner harbor, had congregated around Miami Beach and the safety of American arms and the sea. Finally, in 1836, the United States Army backed by Marines launched a series of offensives which finally drove the Seminole and their Black and Indian allies out of Miami, permanently securing the countryside with the establishment of Fort Dallas
. For the next twenty years, American soldiers, marines, and seaman fought the Seminoles to secure and protect what remained of the community. At war's end, what remained of the Tequesta and their intermixed descendents had either joined with the Seminoles and remained in the Everglades
or had been incorporated into the American protected community of Coconut Grove. In turn, these troops brought with them various families and camp followers which brought added numbers to the Coconut Grove community thereby advancing the boundaries of the small settlement with their newer neighborhood. Thus, by 1850, Miami was a collection of old Anglo-Dutch-French refugees and Buccaneers, Tequesta Indians, Anglo-Bahamians, and American adventurers and soldiers. However, the areas’ notoriety as a long Buccaneer, Pirate, and Smugglers haunt became little more than a colorful past as the American Army’s new Fort Dallas and troops as well as its new Navy port, and Marines quickly put an end to all but the most harmless smuggling.
The area's next greatest change came thanks to a visionary Cleveland widow and noted Gilded Era socialite, named Julia Tuttle
, who purchased 640 acres of a former Confederate plantation on the north bank of the Miami River in 1891, moving her family into the abandoned Fort Dallas buildings. Within four years, Tuttle—the "mother of Miami"—convinced fellow friend and Standard Oil
co-founder Henry Flagler to extend his railroad to Miami, build a luxury hotel, and lay out a new town. The railroad arrived in 1896. The City of Miami
was incorporated on July 28 that same year.
, Jacksonville, Florida
, and New Orleans, Louisiana
, Miami had a previous history of rowdy even outlawed behavior by a group of adventurers of mixed European and Indian nationality which had only been quieted and integrated with wider American and Southern culture in the middle 19th century. This new group was to reverse those gains as large numbers of Irish
and German Catholics as well as typical Northern Yankee
Americans arrived. The old Southern establishment already long crippled by the Civil War was quickly brushed aside, with the election of Miami's first mayor who also was an Irish Catholic. However, most of the early merchants remained Southern or of old Judeo-American background so Southern they became notorious in later years for their disdain and discrimination toward Jews from New York City. Additionally, the old Coconut Grove community of mixed American, Black, Indian, Anglo-Bahamians remained in politics controlling one-third of the city's incorporators. Backed by real estate boosterism, Greater Miami never lacked for forward thinkers, including John Collins
(a New Jersey Quaker) and Prest-O-Lite king Carl Fisher, who together in 1913 embarked on an agriculture venture on a spit of oceanfront beach and started a bridge across the bay.
. Even then, Pan Am advertised Miami as the "Gateway to the Americas." However, much as elsewhere the Depression significantly hit the fortunes of the North-Eastern elite and just as quickly as Miami Beach’s high-flying escapades made for movies on the silver screens so did it depart. Although the native elite of Coconut Grove and Miami Beach had certainly lost on much of the wealth creation of the Northern elite, the native Miami Beach establishment had been fairly integrated into the development and expansion of Miami Beach. Thus, whilst the loss of the money and elegance provided by the Northern elite was felt economically, Miami Beach still retained its old ways and community.
However, in the destitute period of the Great Depression
, Miami Beach attracted a new group, who found its numerous vacant vacation homes and elegant hotels, and still extant working class world and old line but almost decrepit families tracing back centuries, almost impossible to resist. Thus, did the North-East’s immigrant communities of Italian
s, Irish
and predominantly Jews
, come to Miami Beach and take-over and sub-divide its large hotels and mansions into smaller hotels and town homes and finally force most of the remaining old line families to sell out their ancestral land and homes. In turn, with land so cheap, the new Jewish and Italian businessmen, bought most of the remaining farmland and beach front portages for small craft dating from the buccaneers and which dotted the inner harbor of Miami, and in turn paved them over with buildings of stark modern lines along lower Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive to create Miami Beach‘s world famous Art Deco district.
With this came the final end of old Coconut Grove, which from the 1500’s had been a haunt of shipwrecked adventurers, notorious pirates, famous buccaneers, imperviously strong refugees and survivors of the Counter-Reformation
and the Seminole Indian wars. Public Houses which claimed descent as Privateer dens were torn down, piers which had repaired many a sole surviving ship of a fleet destroyed by storm, and almost ancient plantation houses, all were destroyed and its former citizens thrown to the wind. Although, the changes are seen as a travesty today and a huge loss of Miami Beach‘s culture, the building boom helped bring the area out of the Depression and forty years later would become the world-famous Art Deco District, which includes the internationally renowned South Beach area.
and World War II
brought the geopolitical importance of Miami Beach back into the mindset of America’s leadership and new military facilities were established. In turn, this brought in another 100,000 people to Greater Miami and the Beaches when the Army Air Corps and the navy established major training centers. Many of these servicemen made the area their permanent home after the war. By the end of the 1950s, South Florida had doubled its pre-war population.
Thus, after thirty years of change starting with the great buy-out of the Coconut Grove elite during the Great Depression, most of Miami Beach had become principally a Jewish and black enclave. But even this period would quickly end as the Mariel Boat Lift brought in hundreds of thousands of a new class of Cubans, many of whom were professional criminals. In total, starting in the 1960s more than half a million Cuban exiles fled to Miami to start a new life, adding onto the hundreds of thousands of Americans suburban settlers, and the hundreds of thousands of early immigrants from the North East, resulting in the permanent change of Miami Beach from an exclusive community of wealthy North Eastern Americans and old South Florida natives to a large, heavily suburbanized metropolis of Americans from across the country and naturalized Americans from across old Europe, Cuba, and the West Indies.
(also known as SoBe, or simply The Beach, the area from 1st street to about 25th street) is one of the more popular areas of Miami Beach. Topless sunbathing is legal on certain designated areas of the beach. Before the TV show Miami Vice
helped make the area popular, SoBe was under urban blight, with vacant buildings and a high crime rate. Today, it is considered one of the richest commercial areas on the beach, yet poverty and crime still remain in some places near the area.
Miami Beach, particularly Ocean Drive
of what is now the Art Deco District, was also featured prominently in the 1983 feature film Scarface
and the 1996 comedy The Birdcage
.
The New World Symphony Orchestra
is based in Miami Beach, under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas
.
Lincoln Road
, running east-west between 16th and 17th Streets, is a nationally known spot for outdoor dining, bicycling, rollerblading and shopping and features and galleries of well known designers, artists and photographers such as Romero Britto
, Peter Lik
, and Jonathan Adler
.
s and yeshiva
s, the first of which being the Landow Yeshiva, a Chabad institution in operation for over 30 years. In addition, there is also a liberal Jewish community containing such famous synagogue
s as Temple Emanu-El (Miami Beach, Florida)
and Cuban Hebrew Congregation
. It is also a magnet for Jewish families, retirees, and particularly snowbirds
when the cold winter sets in to the north. They range from the Modern Orthodox
to the Haredi
and Hasidic
– including many rebbe
s who vacation there during the North American winter.
There are a number of kosher restaurants and even kollel
s for post-graduate Talmud
ic scholars, such as the Miami Beach Community Kollel. Miami Beach had roughly 60,000 people in Jewish households, 62 percent of the total population, in 1982, but only 16,500, or 19 percent of the population, in 2004, said Ira Sheskin, a demographer at the University of Miami who conducts surveys once a decade
.
Miami Beach is home to the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach
.
Miami Beach is home to numerous gay bars and gay-specific events, and five service and resource organizations. The passage of progressive civil rights laws, election of outspokenly pro-gay Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower, and the introduction of Miami Beach's Gay Pride Celebration, have reinvigorated the local LGBT community in recent years, which some argued had experienced a decline in the late 2000s. A handful of anti-gay attacks and some instances of Miami Beach Police brutality against gay men have been at odds with Miami Beach's longstanding image as a welcoming place for gay people.
Miami Beach is home to some of the country's largest fundraisers that benefit both local and national LGBT nonprofits. As of 2011, some of the largest LGBT events in Miami Beach are:
In 2008, the new Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower created a Gay Business Development Ad Hoc Committee, with a mission to bring recommendations to the Mayor and City Commission on initiatives to be implemented and supported by the City regarding a variety of issues to ensure the welfare and future of the Miami Beach LGBT community.
While being a gay mecca of the 1980s and 1990s, Miami Beach never had a city sanctioned Gay Pride
Parade until April 2009. With strong support from the newly elected mayor Matti Bower., Miami Beach had its first Gay Pride Festival in April 2009. It is now an annual event. The 2010 Pride drew tens of thousands of people.
In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) began looking into instances of Miami Beach Police Department (MBPD) targeting gay men for harassment. In February 2010, the ACLU announced that it will sue the City of Miami Beach for an ongoing targeting and arrests of gay men in public. According to the ACLU, Miami Beach police have a history of arresting gay men for simply looking “too gay”.
The incidents between gay men and MBPD resulted in negative publicity for the city. At the meeting with the local gay leaders, Miami Beach Police Chief Carlos Noriega claimed that the incidents were isolated, and promised increased diversity training for police officers. He also announced that captain, who is a lesbian, would soon be reassigned to internal affairs to handle complaints about cops accused of harassing gays. Some members of the committee were skeptical of Noriega's assertion that the recent case wasn't indicative of a larger problem in the MBPD, and provided examples of other cases.
In January 2010, Miami Beach passed a revised Human Rights Ordinance that strengthens enforcement of already existing human rights laws and adds protections for transgendered people, making Miami Beach’s human rights laws some of the most progressive in the state. Both residents of, and visitors to, Miami Beach have been able to register as domestic partners since 2004; in 2008 this benefit was extended to all of Miami-Dade County.
In 2010, the Miami-Dade Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, with support from the City of Miami Beach, opened an LGBT Visitor Center at Miami Beach's Old City Hall.
event held each June in Basel, Switzerland, combines an international selection of top galleries with a program of special exhibitions, parties and crossover events featuring music, film, architecture and design. Exhibition sites are located in the city's Art Deco District, and ancillary events are scattered throughout the greater Miami metropolitan area.
Miami Beach is home to the New World Symphony, established in 1987 under the artistic direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. In January 2011, the New World Symphony made a highly publicized move into a new building designed by Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry
. Gehry is famous for his design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain
, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall
in Los Angeles, California. The new Gehry building offers Live Wallcasts™, which allow visitors to experience select events throughout the season at the half-acre, outdoor Miami Beach SoundScape through the use of visual and audio technology on a 7000 square feet (650.3 m²) projection wall.
The Miami City Ballet, a ballet company founded in 1985, which is housed in a 63000 square feet (5,852.9 m²) building near Miami Beach's Bass Museum of Art.
The Miami Beach Festival of the Arts is an annual outdoor art festival that was begun in 1974.
In November 2007 and 2009, a multi-media art festival ("Sleepless Night") was held based on Nuit Blanche
. The festival returns on November 5, 2011.http://www.sleeplessnight.org
Miami Beach is located at 25.813025°N 80.134065°W (25.813025, −80.134065).
According to the United States Census Bureau
, the city has a total area of 18.7 square miles (48.5 km2), of which 7.0 square miles (18.2 km2) is land and 11.7 square miles (30.2 km2) (62.37%) is water.
(Köppen Am), with hot humid summers and warm winters. There is a marked wet season during the summer months, with dry winters that feature much lower humidity. Miami Beach is one of only a handful of U.S. locales that has never recorded snow or snow flurries in its weather history.
Miami Beach's location on the Atlantic Ocean
, near its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico
, make it extraordinarily vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms. It has experienced two direct hits from major hurricanes in recorded weather history; the 1926 Miami hurricane
and Hurricane Cleo
in 1964. The area has seen indirect contact from hurricanes Betsy
(1965), Andrew
(1992), Irene
(1999), Michelle
(2001), Katrina
(2005), and Wilma
(2005).
by month in degrees Fahrenheit for Miami Beach based on historical measurements.
As of 2000, there were 46,194 households out of which 14.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 27.4% were married couples
living together, 8.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 60.3% were non-families. 48.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.8% had someone living alone who was sixty-five years of age or older. The average household size was 1.87 and the average family size was 2.76.
In the city the population was spread out with 13.4% under the age of 18, 7.8% from 18 to 24, 38.2% from 25 to 44, 21.3% from 45 to 64, and 19.2% who were sixty-five years of age or older. The median age was thirty-nine years. For every 100 females there were 105.0 males. For every 100 females age eighteen and over, there were 105.4 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $27,322, and the median income for a family was $33,440. Males had a median income of $33,964 versus $27,094 for females. The per capita income
for the city was $27,853. About 17.0% of families and 21.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.2% of those under age 18 and 24.5% of those age sixty-five or over.
As of 2000, speakers of Spanish
as a first language
accounted for 55% of residents, while English
made up 33%, Portuguese
was at 3.4%, French
was at 1.7%, German
at 1.1%, Italian
1%, and Russian
was 0.85% of the population. Due to the large Jewish community, Yiddish
was spoken at the home of 0.81% of the population, and Hebrew
was the mother tongue of 0.74%.
As of 2000, Miami Beach had the 22nd highest concentration of Cuba
n residents in the United States, at 20.5% of the population. It had the 28th highest percentage of Colombia
n residents, at 4.4% of the city's population, and the 14th highest percentage of Brazil
ian residents, at 2.2% of the its population (tied with Hillside, New Jersey
and Hudson, Massachusetts
.) It also had the 27th largest concentration of Peru
vian ancestry, at 1.85%, and the 27th highest percentage of people of Venezuela
n heritage, at 1.79%. Miami Beach also has the 33rd highest concentration of Honduran
ancestry (1.03%) and the 41st-highest percentage of Nicaragua
n residents, which made up 1% of the population.
(MDT). Along with neighborhoods such as Downtown
and Brickell
, public transit is heavily used in Miami Beach, and is a vital part of city life. Although Miami Beach has no direct Metrorail stations, numerous Metrobus lines, connect to Downtown Miami
and Metrorail (i.e., the 'S' bus line). The 'South Beach Local' or 'SBL' is one of the most heavily-used lines in Miami, and connects all major points of South Beach to other major bus lines in the city. Metrobus ridership in Miami Beach is high, with some of the routes, such as the L and S alone being the busiest Metrobus routes.
The Airport-Beach Express (Route 150), operated by MDT, is a direct-service bus line that connects Miami International Airport
to major points in South Beach. The ride costs $2.35, and runs every 30 minutes from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. seven days a week.
has grown in popular in Miami Beach. Due to its dense, urban nature, and pedestrian-friendly streets, many Miami Beach residents get around by bicycle.
In March 2011 a public bike sharing program named Decobike was launched, one of only a handful of such programs in the United States. The program is operated by a private corporation, Decobike, LLC, but is partnered with the City of Miami Beach in a revenue sharing model. Once fully implemented, the program hopes to have around 1000 bikes accessible from 100 stations throughout Miami Beach, from around 85th Street on the north side of Miami Beach all the way south to South Pointe Park
.
serves Miami Beach.
Private schools include Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy, St. Patrick Catholic School
, Landow Yeshiva – Lubavitch Educational Center (Klurman Mesivta High School for Boys and Beis Chana Middle and High School for Girls), and Mechina High School.
School of Architecture
has a sister campus at 420 Lincoln Road
in South Beach
, with classroom spaces for FIU architecture, art, music and theater graduate students
Brampton
, Canada
Almonte
, Spain
Marbella, Spain
Fortaleza
, Brazil
Santa Marta
, Colombia
Ceský Krumlov
, Czech Republic
Nahariya
, Israel
Pescara
, Italy
Fujisawa
, Japan
Cozumel
, Mexico
Ica
, Peru
Miami-Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the state of Florida. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 2,496,435, making it the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
is located on a barrier island
Barrier island
Barrier islands, a coastal landform and a type of barrier system, are relatively narrow strips of sand that parallel the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from a few islands to more than a dozen...
between the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and Biscayne Bay
Biscayne Bay
Biscayne Bay is a lagoon that is approximately 35 miles long and up to 8 miles wide located on the Atlantic coast of South Florida, United States. It is usually divided for purposes of discussion and analysis into three parts: North Bay, Central Bay, and South Bay. Its area is...
, the latter which separates the Beach from Miami city proper
City proper
City proper is defined as a "locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government", or the area within the corporate limits. This definition has been consistently used since the United Nations...
. The neighborhood of South Beach
South Beach
South Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...
, comprising the southernmost 2.5 mi2 of Miami Beach, along with Downtown Miami
Downtown Miami
Downtown Miami is an urban residential neighborhood, and the central business district of Miami, Miami-Dade County, and South Florida in the United States...
and the port
Port of Miami
The Dante B. Fascell Port of Miami is a seaport located in Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida, United States. It is connected to Downtown Miami by Port Boulevard, a bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway. The port is located on Dodge Island, which is the combination of three historic islands that have...
collectively form the commercial center of South Florida
South Florida metropolitan area
The South Florida metropolitan area, also known as the Miami metropolitan area, and designated the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area by the U.S...
. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 87,779. Miami Beach has been one of America's pre-eminent beach resorts since the early 20th century.
Description
In 1979 Miami Beach's Art Deco Historic DistrictMiami Beach Architectural District
The Miami Beach Architectural District is a U.S. historic district located in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida...
was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. The Art Deco District is the largest collection of Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
architecture in the world and comprises hundreds of hotels, apartments and other structures erected between 1923 and 1943. Mediterranean, Streamline Moderne and Art Deco are all represented in the District. The Historic District is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
on the East, Lenox Court on the West, 6th Street on the South and Dade Boulevard along the Collins Canal to the North. The movement to preserve the Art Deco District's architectural heritage was led by former interior designer Barbara Capitman, who now has a street in the District named in her honor.
Government
Miami Beach is governed by a mayor and six commissioners. The mayor runs commission meetings and the mayor and all commissioners have equal voting power. The mayor serves for terms of two years with a term limit of three terms and commissioners serve for terms of four years and are limited to two terms. Commissioners are voted for by region and every two years three commission seats are voted upon. A city manager is responsible for administering governmental operations.As of November 2009 the mayor is Matti Herrera Bower. The commissioners are Michael Gongora, Jerry Libbin, Jorge Exposito, Nathan Garg, Ed Tobin, Deede Weithorn, and Jonah Wolfson.
As of November 2010 the mayor is still Matti Herrera Bower. She won with 59.47% of the vote. The commissioners are Deede Weithorn, Wilfredo "Willy" Gort, and Marc Sanoff. http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/FL/Dade/34142/48398/en/summary.html#
Pre-history
Prior the establishment of the state of Florida and the Spanish colony, the first inhabitants of the area now known as Miami Beach were American Indians. At the time of Spanish discovery, the Tequesta Indians, who were related to the Arawak Indians of the Caribbean, had displaced a previous primitive Indian tribe known principally for their bead and shell craftsmanship. However, these Indians suffered the same fate as their relatives on the other West Indian islands who fell prey to the conquering nation of the Arawak Indians. Locally known as the Tequesta, these Indians were a far more aggressive, warlike tribe, known for their ferocity and cannibalismCannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
and easily overwhelmed the beach dwellers.
Spanish history
Miami Beach became known to Europeans primarily through the adventures of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de VacaÁlvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a Spanish explorer of the New World, one of four survivors of the Narváez expedition...
who is believed to have been shipwrecked nearby, and taken as a slave to well known powerful Indian sorcerer who was descended of the tribe living along the Miami Beach area prior to the Tequesta. During his captivity, Cabaza de Vaca spoke of the areas’ tempestuous beauty, stark blue seas, and tranquility interspaced by violent hurricanes. But aside from his remarks and a few tales of European sailors, the area was wholly unknown to the wider world, thereby leaving the Tequesta Indians in their own world of raid, counter-raid, and periodic cannibalism which kept almost all other outsiders from the area.
Although the Spaniards continued to visit the area and established small temporary trading, fishing, and coast watch settlements, they never succeeded in creating a permanent colonial settlement due to their limited resources and the violence of the local Indians. However, Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
settlers fleeing Spanish genocide of their colonies in Northern Florida, the Carolinas, and the West Indies, did manage to create relations with the local Tequesta as fellow persecuted nationals of the Spanish, thereby succeeding in creating small settlements in the area over the next centuries which became centered upon Coconut Grove. In turn, with the rise of the English, Dutch, and French Buccaneers who were sent to circumnavigate Spanish control of the Americas, Miami Beach soon became a small secret refuge for various privateers. Nonetheless, the area remained a mostly unexplored backwater of Spanish and European colonial policy.
Early refugees
Starting in the late 17th century, the Brethren of the Coasts established a small but permanent harbor and ship repair facility in the area, whilst the local Tequesta, decimated by disease, intermarried with various European and black refugees of the area and assimilated with other larger Indian tribes to the north and south. Thus, Miami Beach became a covert encampment for the PiracyPiracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
and Privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
ing activities. Henceforth, the areas numerous inlets, small harbors, temporary portages, and swampland became a place of wild buccaneering, Indian trading posts, and general outlawry, governed by its own local codes of conduct.
Smuggling era and Coconut Grove
While the buccaneering days of the West Indies mostly came to an end by the late 1700s, minor pirates, European and American adventurers, black MaroonMaroon
Maroon, marooning, or marooned may refer to:* Maroon , a dark shade of red* Maroon , runaway slaves, of African origin, in the Americas* Marooning, the act of leaving someone on a deserted island-Music:...
terrorists, and a small but surviving group of mixed European and Indian farmers and tradesman put the place on the maps of European colonialists as Coconut Grove. However, with the slow decline of the Spanish Empire, and the all pervasive might of the British Navy, and more commercially safe developments in the British colonies to the north, the areas principal standing as a smuggler and pirate center stagnated, causing much of the small town to slowly retreated into nature. But for the use of St. Augustine
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine is a city in the northeast section of Florida and the county seat of St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United...
to the north, and the continued growth of shipping commerce and subsequent wrecks the area would’ve disappeared back into swampland, but instead enterprising British sailors and traders from the Bahamas came to South Florida and the Florida Keys
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...
in the early 19th Century, to hunt for the remains of an international array of ill-fated ships that crashed onto the treacherous Great Florida reef or to trade with the local small and mixed group of Indians and Europeans. Yet even with this new arrival of commerce the future was grim for the area.
However, this slow decline into swamp was checked and reversed with the final end to the Spanish Empire and its replacement with a new English Republic, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Following centuries of savage warfare by black Maroon
Maroon
Maroon, marooning, or marooned may refer to:* Maroon , a dark shade of red* Maroon , runaway slaves, of African origin, in the Americas* Marooning, the act of leaving someone on a deserted island-Music:...
s and Spanish backed Indians upon the British settlers and their American descendents, a new nation had arisen in northern Florida coalesced around Anglophobic and anti-American hostile Indians and escaped Black slaves, but also including Spaniards and enslaved British women and children. Together, these people and their descendents, became known as the Seminoles. In turn, backed by Spanish Armies and arms, this mixed nation of Seminoles, Black maroons, and Spaniards would pour from St. Augustine to raid, rape, and pillage advancing American settlements in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. British and subsequently, American diplomats and war leaders had checked the Spanish raids until a low level cold war had existed on the border of Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida refers to the Spanish territory of Florida, which formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire. Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined boundaries, la Florida was a component of...
and the State of Georgia thereby fixing Spanish gaze from polyglot and mostly subversive community of Coconut Grove and Miami Beach northward toward the Americans. Thus, Miami remained a stagnate but convenient way station where both sides could trade, negotiate, and commerce in secret. Yet, with the independence of America, a new more aggressive policy was implemented as covert raids, Filibuster
Filibuster
A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
missions, and strong diplomacy finally forced the Spanish to relinquish Florida in its entirety. In 1821, the Spanish flag was lowered and the Stars and Stripes raised over Florida. (Florida became a U.S.Territory in 1821, but did not become a State until 1845.)
Early American history
This caused a new and rapid change in the area of present day Miami, one from a small mostly covert settlement of mixed mostly Anglo-American settlers and Indians to a larger more American town. But before this occurred came a generation of warfare which almost led to the final genocide of the small community. With the exclusionary barriers raised by Spanish imperial policy eliminated and with Spanish Arms departing, the Seminoles lost their key support and centuries of righteous hatred toward them by the Americans was unleashed. Several wars, campaigns, and unrelenting advancement quickly pushed the Seminoles and their allies out of northern Florida and southward towardthe barrier island (actually still a peninsula) that would become Miami Beach in 1915. Until then, however, the first structure to be built on this uninhabited oceanfront was the Biscayne House of Refuge, constructed in 1876 by the U.S. Lifesaving Service at approximately 72nd Street. Its purpose was to provide food, water, and a return to civilization for people who were shipwrecked. The next step in the development of the future Miami Beach was the planting of a coconut plantation along the shore here in the 1880s by New Jersey entrepreneurs Ezra Osborn and Elnathan Field, but this was a failed venture. One of the investors in the project was agriculturist John S. Collins, who achieved success by buying out other partners and planting different crops, notably avocadoes, on the land that would later become Miami Beach. Meanwhile, across Biscayne Bay, the City of Miami was established in 1896 with the arrival of the railroad, and developed further as a port when the shipping channel of Government Cut was created in 1905, cutting off Fisher Island from the south end of the Miami Beach peninsula.
Collins' family members saw the potential in developing the beach here as a resort. This effort got underway in the early years of the 20th century by the Collins/Pancoast family, the Lummus brothers (bankers from Miami), and Indianapolis entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher. Until then, the beach here was only the destination for day-trips by ferry from Miami, across the bay. There were bath houses and food stands here, but no hotel until Brown's Hotel was built in 1915 (still standing, at 112 Ocean Drive). Much of the interior land mass here at that time was a tangled jungle of mangroves, and clearing it was a herculean effort. The Town of Miami Beach was chartered on March 26, 1915; it grew to become a City in 1917. Carl Fisher was the main promoter of Miami Beach's development in the 1920s as the site for wealthy industrialists from the north and midwest to build their winter homes here. In addition, Fisher built five hotels here (none still surviving). In the 1920s, Fisher and others literally created much of Miami Beach as landfill by dredging Biscayne Bay; this manmade territory includes Star, Palm, and Hibiscus Islands, the Sunset Islands, much of Normandy Isle, and all of the Venetian Islands except Belle Isle. The Miami Beach peninsula became an island in April 1925 when Haulover Cut was opened, connecting the ocean to the bay, north of present-day Bal Harbour. The great hurricane of Sept. 17-18, 1926, put an end to this prosperous era of the Florida Boom, but in the 1930s, Miami Beach still attracted tourists, and investors constructed the mostly small-scale, stucco hotels and rooming houses, for seasonal rental, that comprise much of the present "Art Deco" historic district.
This community, long sympathetic toward first the British and then the Americans, quickly called for help, and the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
and navy vessels were dispatched to aid the hard pressed community. After several years, the United States Navy and Marines had pushed the Seminoles out of the coastal areas of Florida and Miami Beach, whilst the earlier community which had been spread out along the beach and inner harbor, had congregated around Miami Beach and the safety of American arms and the sea. Finally, in 1836, the United States Army backed by Marines launched a series of offensives which finally drove the Seminole and their Black and Indian allies out of Miami, permanently securing the countryside with the establishment of Fort Dallas
Fort Dallas
Fort Dallas is a urban park in the Lummus Park Historic District of Miami, Florida, just west of Downtown. It once acted as a military base during the Seminole Wars, located on the banks of the Miami River in what is now Downtown, Miami, Florida, United States....
. For the next twenty years, American soldiers, marines, and seaman fought the Seminoles to secure and protect what remained of the community. At war's end, what remained of the Tequesta and their intermixed descendents had either joined with the Seminoles and remained in the Everglades
Everglades
The Everglades are subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee...
or had been incorporated into the American protected community of Coconut Grove. In turn, these troops brought with them various families and camp followers which brought added numbers to the Coconut Grove community thereby advancing the boundaries of the small settlement with their newer neighborhood. Thus, by 1850, Miami was a collection of old Anglo-Dutch-French refugees and Buccaneers, Tequesta Indians, Anglo-Bahamians, and American adventurers and soldiers. However, the areas’ notoriety as a long Buccaneer, Pirate, and Smugglers haunt became little more than a colorful past as the American Army’s new Fort Dallas and troops as well as its new Navy port, and Marines quickly put an end to all but the most harmless smuggling.
Tranquil era and early expansion
For the next few generations, protected from the Seminole Indians by the Everglades and the fort, and by foreign powers by the sea and the US Navy, Miami Beach settled into a more tranquil and peaceful era of quiet but colorful small shopkeepers, merchants, and a few enterprising ship captains, while the remainder moved to the countryside or other parts of Florida and the United States. Nonetheless, with the Seminole threat still existent, periodic petty piracy still occasional, and the geopolitical location of importance, Miami Beach periodically entered the national narrative with swamp rangers, small night-raids, a few daring smuggling operations, and eccentric American plantation owners and notables. Yet, aside from a few minor raids during the War Between the States, the area enjoyed one of its few periods of peace throughout its centuries of Buccaneer campaigns, Spanish-Indian wars, Seminole-Indian raids, and general lawlessness. Thus, with the arrival of the Americans and the State of Florida, Miami Beach had left its earlier period of frontier town and pirate haunt to a more tranquil time of peace and general prosperous small town. Indeed, by the late 1800s, the peacefulness of the area resulted in the abandonment of Fort Dallas and the break-up of much of the Navy port. Thankfully, the next era of change was peaceful enough that these military losses were not too far felt.The area's next greatest change came thanks to a visionary Cleveland widow and noted Gilded Era socialite, named Julia Tuttle
Julia Tuttle
Julia DeForest Tuttle, was an entrepreneur, citrus farmer and businesswoman who was largely responsible for, and the original owner of, the land upon which Miami, Florida, was built...
, who purchased 640 acres of a former Confederate plantation on the north bank of the Miami River in 1891, moving her family into the abandoned Fort Dallas buildings. Within four years, Tuttle—the "mother of Miami"—convinced fellow friend and Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
co-founder Henry Flagler to extend his railroad to Miami, build a luxury hotel, and lay out a new town. The railroad arrived in 1896. The City of Miami
City of Miami
This article is about the streamliner. For the city in Florida, see Miami.The City of Miami was a seven-car coach streamliner inaugurated by Illinois Central Railroad on December 18, 1940. Its route was from Chicago to Miami a total distance of ....
was incorporated on July 28 that same year.
Coconut Grove golden era
The railroad, advertising by Tuttle’s robber-baron businesses, and general boosterism, brought in a new group of people to the newly established city. Much like other Southern coastal areas such Mobile, AlabamaMobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
, Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
, and New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
, Miami had a previous history of rowdy even outlawed behavior by a group of adventurers of mixed European and Indian nationality which had only been quieted and integrated with wider American and Southern culture in the middle 19th century. This new group was to reverse those gains as large numbers of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
and German Catholics as well as typical Northern Yankee
Yankee
The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...
Americans arrived. The old Southern establishment already long crippled by the Civil War was quickly brushed aside, with the election of Miami's first mayor who also was an Irish Catholic. However, most of the early merchants remained Southern or of old Judeo-American background so Southern they became notorious in later years for their disdain and discrimination toward Jews from New York City. Additionally, the old Coconut Grove community of mixed American, Black, Indian, Anglo-Bahamians remained in politics controlling one-third of the city's incorporators. Backed by real estate boosterism, Greater Miami never lacked for forward thinkers, including John Collins
John Collins
- Arts :*John Churton Collins , English literary critic*John Collins , bass guitarist for Powderfinger*John Collins , of The New Pornographers and The Smugglers...
(a New Jersey Quaker) and Prest-O-Lite king Carl Fisher, who together in 1913 embarked on an agriculture venture on a spit of oceanfront beach and started a bridge across the bay.
Great Depression and the new immigrant elite
During the Depression, Pan American Airways launched the era of modern aviation with "Flying Clippers" from Miami's Dinner KeyDinner Key
Dinner Key is a marina complex in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida along the shore of Biscayne Bay on South Bayshore Drive. It was originally an island, but was connected to the mainland in 1914 by filling in the intervening space...
. Even then, Pan Am advertised Miami as the "Gateway to the Americas." However, much as elsewhere the Depression significantly hit the fortunes of the North-Eastern elite and just as quickly as Miami Beach’s high-flying escapades made for movies on the silver screens so did it depart. Although the native elite of Coconut Grove and Miami Beach had certainly lost on much of the wealth creation of the Northern elite, the native Miami Beach establishment had been fairly integrated into the development and expansion of Miami Beach. Thus, whilst the loss of the money and elegance provided by the Northern elite was felt economically, Miami Beach still retained its old ways and community.
However, in the destitute period of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Miami Beach attracted a new group, who found its numerous vacant vacation homes and elegant hotels, and still extant working class world and old line but almost decrepit families tracing back centuries, almost impossible to resist. Thus, did the North-East’s immigrant communities of Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
s, Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
and predominantly Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, come to Miami Beach and take-over and sub-divide its large hotels and mansions into smaller hotels and town homes and finally force most of the remaining old line families to sell out their ancestral land and homes. In turn, with land so cheap, the new Jewish and Italian businessmen, bought most of the remaining farmland and beach front portages for small craft dating from the buccaneers and which dotted the inner harbor of Miami, and in turn paved them over with buildings of stark modern lines along lower Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive to create Miami Beach‘s world famous Art Deco district.
With this came the final end of old Coconut Grove, which from the 1500’s had been a haunt of shipwrecked adventurers, notorious pirates, famous buccaneers, imperviously strong refugees and survivors of the Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
and the Seminole Indian wars. Public Houses which claimed descent as Privateer dens were torn down, piers which had repaired many a sole surviving ship of a fleet destroyed by storm, and almost ancient plantation houses, all were destroyed and its former citizens thrown to the wind. Although, the changes are seen as a travesty today and a huge loss of Miami Beach‘s culture, the building boom helped bring the area out of the Depression and forty years later would become the world-famous Art Deco District, which includes the internationally renowned South Beach area.
Suburbanization
With this new modern era also came new waves of Americans. Both World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
brought the geopolitical importance of Miami Beach back into the mindset of America’s leadership and new military facilities were established. In turn, this brought in another 100,000 people to Greater Miami and the Beaches when the Army Air Corps and the navy established major training centers. Many of these servicemen made the area their permanent home after the war. By the end of the 1950s, South Florida had doubled its pre-war population.
Cuban refugees
When Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, no one dreamed that the revolution would change Miami as much as Cuba. The Cuban exiles who were just beginning to pour into the area were bringing the next change to Miami with them. Although most of the Cuban exiles in the early 1960s did come in significant numbers, their make-up as mostly upper-class and middle class Cubans of principally European descent, mostly only encouraged Miami’s American citizens to move for houses on the outskirts for reasons of better housing rather than out of fear of foreign manners and crime. However, starting in the 1970s, school integration, new arrivals of Black Americans and Caribbeans brought in a new crime wave and fear of children’s lives leading to a wave of white-flight of what remained of Miami Beach’s American community.Thus, after thirty years of change starting with the great buy-out of the Coconut Grove elite during the Great Depression, most of Miami Beach had become principally a Jewish and black enclave. But even this period would quickly end as the Mariel Boat Lift brought in hundreds of thousands of a new class of Cubans, many of whom were professional criminals. In total, starting in the 1960s more than half a million Cuban exiles fled to Miami to start a new life, adding onto the hundreds of thousands of Americans suburban settlers, and the hundreds of thousands of early immigrants from the North East, resulting in the permanent change of Miami Beach from an exclusive community of wealthy North Eastern Americans and old South Florida natives to a large, heavily suburbanized metropolis of Americans from across the country and naturalized Americans from across old Europe, Cuba, and the West Indies.
Miami Vice
In contrast to the early era of silver screen representations of Miami Beach, with its breezy lifestyle of patrician wealth mixed with haunted memories of honorable buccaneering days and plantation lifestyle, this new era of human vacuous life, stark neighborhood lifestyle, media glamour, criminal racketeering, felonies, smuggling, and vice, became typified in numerous movies and television shows. Starting in the 1930s with the displacement of the Coconut Grove Elite, onto the new suburbs of Miami during the post-war era, and into the 1960s and 1980s of Cuban and Caribbean immigration, Miami Beach had suffered mind-boggling change to become what many call the "Capital of the Americas." Once an elegant place of plantation houses, beachfront hotels served by seaplanes, interspaced with open land, small farms, and quaint seafaring communities, Miami and Miami Beach had descended into a area of poverty and stark modernity. However, the 1980s and early 1990s brought a multi-billion dollar infusion of investment capital that produced a beautiful new Miami downtown skyline, a reborn Miami Beach, a modernized transportation infrastructure and a new way of life that features betters aspects of modern art, culture, sports and entertainment, all with a mostly international Latin accent. Although it has changed almost beyond recognition, Miami Beach has thrived amidst change and overcome many difficulties. Today, Greater Miami airport has overtaken New York's JFK airport as the nation's leading gateway for international arrivals with 5.1 million international travelers arriving in the U.S. through Miami in 1994. Thus, Greater Miami and the City of Miami Beach continue to be an international Mecca for travel, business and to establish a home.Image and cultural depictions
South BeachSouth Beach
South Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...
(also known as SoBe, or simply The Beach, the area from 1st street to about 25th street) is one of the more popular areas of Miami Beach. Topless sunbathing is legal on certain designated areas of the beach. Before the TV show Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
helped make the area popular, SoBe was under urban blight, with vacant buildings and a high crime rate. Today, it is considered one of the richest commercial areas on the beach, yet poverty and crime still remain in some places near the area.
Miami Beach, particularly Ocean Drive
Ocean Drive (South Beach)
Ocean Drive is a street in South Beach—the southern part of Miami Beach, Florida. It is known for its Art Deco hotels. Ocean Drive is also the location of the famed , one of the most photographed houses in North America. The street is the center of the city's Art Deco District, which is home to...
of what is now the Art Deco District, was also featured prominently in the 1983 feature film Scarface
Scarface (1983 film)
Scarface is a 1983 American epic crime drama movie directed by Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone, produced by Martin Bregman and starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana...
and the 1996 comedy The Birdcage
The Birdcage
The Birdcage is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Mike Nichols, and stars Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, and Christine Baranski. The script was written by Elaine May...
.
The New World Symphony Orchestra
New World Symphony Orchestra
The New World Symphony is the United States' only full-time orchestral academy preparing musicians for careers in symphony orchestras and ensembles...
is based in Miami Beach, under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.-Early years:...
.
Lincoln Road
Lincoln Road
Lincoln Road is a pedestrian road running east-west between 16th Street and 17th Street in Miami Beach, Florida, United States. Once open to vehicular traffic, it now hosts a pedestrian row of shops, restaurants, galleries, and other businesses between Washington Avenue and Alton...
, running east-west between 16th and 17th Streets, is a nationally known spot for outdoor dining, bicycling, rollerblading and shopping and features and galleries of well known designers, artists and photographers such as Romero Britto
Romero Britto
Romero Britto is a Brazilian Neo-pop artist, painter, serigrapher, and sculptor. He combines elements of cubism, pop art and graffiti painting in his work. He is known for his contemporary work. Britto has lived in Miami, Florida since 1989...
, Peter Lik
Peter Lik
Peter Lik is a self-taught Australian landscape photographer. While traveling in Alaska in 1984, Lik began to experiment with panoramic cameras. He is known for his limited editions and his work has been compared to that of legendary photographer Ansel Adams...
, and Jonathan Adler
Jonathan Adler
Jonathan Adler is a Jewish-American designer renowned for his "happy chic" approach to home furnishings and interior design...
.
Jewish population
Miami Beach is home to a number of Orthodox Jewish communities with a network of well-established synagogueSynagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
s and yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
s, the first of which being the Landow Yeshiva, a Chabad institution in operation for over 30 years. In addition, there is also a liberal Jewish community containing such famous synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
s as Temple Emanu-El (Miami Beach, Florida)
Temple Emanu-El (Miami Beach, Florida)
Temple Emanu-El is a historic synagogue located in the South Beach district of Miami Beach, Florida. It is the oldest and largest Conservative congregation in Miami Beach. The original sanctuary was constructed in 1947 as the "Miami Beach Jewish Center" at a cost of $1 million, with additions for...
and Cuban Hebrew Congregation
Cuban Hebrew Congregation
Temple Beth Shmuel or "Cuban Hebrew Congregation of Miami" is a synagogue used by Ashkenazi Jewish Cuban expatriates in Miami Beach, Florida. The synagogue was founded in 1961 and its current location opened in 1975, with an expansion in 1982. The congregation is led by Rabbi Richard S. Chizever...
. It is also a magnet for Jewish families, retirees, and particularly snowbirds
Snowbird (people)
The term snowbird is used to describe people from the U.S. Northeast, U.S. Midwest, or Canada who spend a large portion of winter in warmer locales such as California, Arizona, Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, or elsewhere along the Sun Belt region of the southern and southwest United States,...
when the cold winter sets in to the north. They range from the Modern Orthodox
Modern Orthodox Judaism
Modern Orthodox Judaism is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law, with the secular, modern world....
to the Haredi
Haredi Judaism
Haredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
and Hasidic
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
– including many rebbe
Rebbe
Rebbe , which means master, teacher, or mentor, is a Yiddish word derived from the Hebrew word Rabbi. It often refers to the leader of a Hasidic Jewish movement...
s who vacation there during the North American winter.
There are a number of kosher restaurants and even kollel
Kollel
A kollel is an institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature. Like a yeshiva, a kollel features shiurim and learning sedarim ; unlike a yeshiva, the student body of a kollel are all married men...
s for post-graduate Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
ic scholars, such as the Miami Beach Community Kollel. Miami Beach had roughly 60,000 people in Jewish households, 62 percent of the total population, in 1982, but only 16,500, or 19 percent of the population, in 2004, said Ira Sheskin, a demographer at the University of Miami who conducts surveys once a decade
Decade
A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten. This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas and dies , which is not correct....
.
Miami Beach is home to the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach
Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach
The Holocaust Memorial of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation is a Holocaust memorial at 1933-1945 Meridian Avenue, in Miami Beach, Florida. It was conceived by a committee of Holocaust survivors in 1984, formally established in 1985 as the Holocaust Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization...
.
LGBT community
After decades of economic and social decline, an influx of gay men and lesbians moving to South Beach in the late-1980s to mid-1990s helped contribute to Miami Beach's revitalization. The newcomers purchased and restored dilapidated Art Deco hotels and clubs, started numerous businesses, and built political power in city and county government. As South Beach became more popular as a national and international tourist destination, there have been occasional clashes between cultures and disputes about whether South Beach is as "gay friendly" as it once was.Miami Beach is home to numerous gay bars and gay-specific events, and five service and resource organizations. The passage of progressive civil rights laws, election of outspokenly pro-gay Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower, and the introduction of Miami Beach's Gay Pride Celebration, have reinvigorated the local LGBT community in recent years, which some argued had experienced a decline in the late 2000s. A handful of anti-gay attacks and some instances of Miami Beach Police brutality against gay men have been at odds with Miami Beach's longstanding image as a welcoming place for gay people.
Miami Beach is home to some of the country's largest fundraisers that benefit both local and national LGBT nonprofits. As of 2011, some of the largest LGBT events in Miami Beach are:
- The Winter Party
- The White Party
- The Miami Recognition Dinner
- The Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
- Aqua Girl
In 2008, the new Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower created a Gay Business Development Ad Hoc Committee, with a mission to bring recommendations to the Mayor and City Commission on initiatives to be implemented and supported by the City regarding a variety of issues to ensure the welfare and future of the Miami Beach LGBT community.
While being a gay mecca of the 1980s and 1990s, Miami Beach never had a city sanctioned Gay Pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
Parade until April 2009. With strong support from the newly elected mayor Matti Bower., Miami Beach had its first Gay Pride Festival in April 2009. It is now an annual event. The 2010 Pride drew tens of thousands of people.
In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
(ACLU) began looking into instances of Miami Beach Police Department (MBPD) targeting gay men for harassment. In February 2010, the ACLU announced that it will sue the City of Miami Beach for an ongoing targeting and arrests of gay men in public. According to the ACLU, Miami Beach police have a history of arresting gay men for simply looking “too gay”.
The incidents between gay men and MBPD resulted in negative publicity for the city. At the meeting with the local gay leaders, Miami Beach Police Chief Carlos Noriega claimed that the incidents were isolated, and promised increased diversity training for police officers. He also announced that captain, who is a lesbian, would soon be reassigned to internal affairs to handle complaints about cops accused of harassing gays. Some members of the committee were skeptical of Noriega's assertion that the recent case wasn't indicative of a larger problem in the MBPD, and provided examples of other cases.
In January 2010, Miami Beach passed a revised Human Rights Ordinance that strengthens enforcement of already existing human rights laws and adds protections for transgendered people, making Miami Beach’s human rights laws some of the most progressive in the state. Both residents of, and visitors to, Miami Beach have been able to register as domestic partners since 2004; in 2008 this benefit was extended to all of Miami-Dade County.
In 2010, the Miami-Dade Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, with support from the City of Miami Beach, opened an LGBT Visitor Center at Miami Beach's Old City Hall.
The arts
Each December, the City of Miami Beach hosts Art Basel Miami Beach, one of the largest art shows in the United States. Art Basel Miami Beach, the sister event to the Art BaselArt Basel
Art Basel is an international contemporary art fair held each June in Basel, Switzerland. Similar to the Venice Biennale, it has been called "the Olympics of the art world". Art Basel features nearly 300 leading galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa...
event held each June in Basel, Switzerland, combines an international selection of top galleries with a program of special exhibitions, parties and crossover events featuring music, film, architecture and design. Exhibition sites are located in the city's Art Deco District, and ancillary events are scattered throughout the greater Miami metropolitan area.
Miami Beach is home to the New World Symphony, established in 1987 under the artistic direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. In January 2011, the New World Symphony made a highly publicized move into a new building designed by Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
. Gehry is famous for his design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, built by Ferrovial, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. It is built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Atlantic Coast. The...
, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...
in Los Angeles, California. The new Gehry building offers Live Wallcasts™, which allow visitors to experience select events throughout the season at the half-acre, outdoor Miami Beach SoundScape through the use of visual and audio technology on a 7000 square feet (650.3 m²) projection wall.
The Miami City Ballet, a ballet company founded in 1985, which is housed in a 63000 square feet (5,852.9 m²) building near Miami Beach's Bass Museum of Art.
The Miami Beach Festival of the Arts is an annual outdoor art festival that was begun in 1974.
In November 2007 and 2009, a multi-media art festival ("Sleepless Night") was held based on Nuit Blanche
Nuit Blanche
Nuit Blanche is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival. A Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for...
. The festival returns on November 5, 2011.http://www.sleeplessnight.org
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...
, the city has a total area of 18.7 square miles (48.5 km2), of which 7.0 square miles (18.2 km2) is land and 11.7 square miles (30.2 km2) (62.37%) is water.
Climate
It has a Tropical monsoon climateTropical monsoon climate
Tropical monsoon climate, occasionally also known as a tropical wet climate or tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate in climate classification, is a relatively rare type of climate that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category "Am."Tropical monsoon climates have monthly...
(Köppen Am), with hot humid summers and warm winters. There is a marked wet season during the summer months, with dry winters that feature much lower humidity. Miami Beach is one of only a handful of U.S. locales that has never recorded snow or snow flurries in its weather history.
Miami Beach's location on the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
, near its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
, make it extraordinarily vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms. It has experienced two direct hits from major hurricanes in recorded weather history; the 1926 Miami hurricane
1926 Miami Hurricane
The 1926 Miami hurricane was a Category 4 hurricane that devastated Miami in September 1926. The storm also caused significant damage in the Florida Panhandle, the U.S. state of Alabama, and the Bahamas...
and Hurricane Cleo
Hurricane Cleo
Hurricane Cleo was the third named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 1964 Atlantic hurricane season. Cleo was one of the longest-lived storms of the season...
in 1964. The area has seen indirect contact from hurricanes Betsy
Hurricane Betsy
Hurricane Betsy was a Category 4 hurricane of the 1965 Atlantic hurricane season which caused enormous damage in the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana. Betsy made its most intense landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River, causing significant flooding of the waters of Lake Pontchartrain into...
(1965), Andrew
Hurricane Andrew
Hurricane Andrew was the third Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the United States, after the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and Hurricane Camille in 1969. Andrew was the first named storm and only major hurricane of the otherwise inactive 1992 Atlantic hurricane season...
(1992), Irene
Hurricane Irene (1999)
Hurricane Irene was a hurricane that produced somewhat heavy damage across southern Florida during the 1999 Atlantic hurricane season. The ninth tropical storm and the sixth hurricane of the season, Irene developed in the western Caribbean Sea on October 13 from a tropical wave. It moved northward,...
(1999), Michelle
Hurricane Michelle
Hurricane Michelle was the thirteenth named storm and the strongest tropical cyclone of the 2001 Atlantic hurricane season. Michelle developed from a tropical wave that moved across the Atlantic, and formed into Tropical Depression Fifteen on the October 29. The depression slowly intensified as...
(2001), Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
(2005), and Wilma
Hurricane Wilma
Hurricane Wilma was the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. Wilma was the twenty-second storm , thirteenth hurricane, sixth major hurricane, and fourth Category 5 hurricane of the record-breaking 2005 season...
(2005).
Water temperature
This chart shows the average coastal water temperature for the Atlantic OceanAtlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
by month in degrees Fahrenheit for Miami Beach based on historical measurements.
| January | February | March | April 1–15 | April 16–30 | May 1–15 | May 16–31 | June 1–15 | June 16–30 | July 1–15 | July 16–31 | August 1–15 | August 16–31 | September 1–15 | September 16–30 | October 1–15 | October 16–31 | November | December |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 71 | 73 | 75 | 78 | 78 | 80 | 81 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 86 | 86 | 84 | 84 | 83 | 83 | 79 | 76 | 73 |
Surrounding areas
Demographics
| Miami Beach Demographics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 Census United States Census, 2010 The Twenty-third United States Census, known as Census 2010 or the 2010 Census, is the current national census of the United States. National Census Day was April 1, 2010 and is the reference date used in enumerating individuals... |
Miami Beach | Miami-Dade County | Florida |
| Total population | 87,779 | 2,496,435 | 18,801,310 |
| Population, percent change, 2000 to 2010 | |||
| Population density | 11,511.1/sq mi | 1,315.5/sq mi | 350.6/sq mi |
| White or Caucasian (including White Hispanic) | 87.4% | 73.8% | 75.0% |
| (Non-Hispanic White or Caucasian Non-Hispanic Whites Non-Hispanic Whites or White, Not Hispanic or Latino are people in the United States, as defined by the Census Bureau, who are of the White race and are not of Hispanic or Latino origin/ethnicity. Hence the designation is exclusive in the sense that it defines who is not included as opposed to who is... ) |
40.5% | 15.4% | 57.9% |
| Black or African-American | 4.4% | 18.9% | 16.0% |
| Hispanic or Latino (of any race) | 53.0% | 65.0% | 22.5% |
| Asian | 1.9% | 1.5% | 2.4% |
| Native American or Native Alaskan | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.4% |
| Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Two or more races (Multiracial) Multiracial American Multiracial Americans, US residents who identify themselves as of "two or more races", were numbered at around 9 million, or 2.9% of the population, in the census of 2010. However there is considerable evidence that the real number is far higher. Prior to the mid-20th century many people hid their... |
2.7% | 2.4% | 2.5% |
| Some Other Race | 3.2% | 3.2% | 3.6% |
As of 2000, there were 46,194 households out of which 14.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 27.4% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
living together, 8.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 60.3% were non-families. 48.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.8% had someone living alone who was sixty-five years of age or older. The average household size was 1.87 and the average family size was 2.76.
In the city the population was spread out with 13.4% under the age of 18, 7.8% from 18 to 24, 38.2% from 25 to 44, 21.3% from 45 to 64, and 19.2% who were sixty-five years of age or older. The median age was thirty-nine years. For every 100 females there were 105.0 males. For every 100 females age eighteen and over, there were 105.4 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $27,322, and the median income for a family was $33,440. Males had a median income of $33,964 versus $27,094 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...
for the city was $27,853. About 17.0% of families and 21.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.2% of those under age 18 and 24.5% of those age sixty-five or over.
As of 2000, speakers of Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
as a first language
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
accounted for 55% of residents, while English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
made up 33%, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
was at 3.4%, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
was at 1.7%, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
at 1.1%, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
1%, and Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
was 0.85% of the population. Due to the large Jewish community, Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
was spoken at the home of 0.81% of the population, and Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
was the mother tongue of 0.74%.
As of 2000, Miami Beach had the 22nd highest concentration of Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n residents in the United States, at 20.5% of the population. It had the 28th highest percentage of Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n residents, at 4.4% of the city's population, and the 14th highest percentage of Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian residents, at 2.2% of the its population (tied with Hillside, New Jersey
Hillside, New Jersey
Hillside is a township in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 21,404.Hillside was incorporated as a township on April 3, 1913, from portions of Union Township, based on the results of a referendum held on April 29, 1913.The town...
and Hudson, Massachusetts
Hudson, Massachusetts
Hudson is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 19,063 at the 2010 census. The town is located in central Massachusetts, about a 40-minute drive, or about , west of Boston, and about a 20-minute drive, or about , northeast of Worcester.Before its...
.) It also had the 27th largest concentration of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian ancestry, at 1.85%, and the 27th highest percentage of people of Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
n heritage, at 1.79%. Miami Beach also has the 33rd highest concentration of Honduran
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
ancestry (1.03%) and the 41st-highest percentage of Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
n residents, which made up 1% of the population.
Transportation
Public Transportation in Miami Beach is operated by Miami-Dade TransitMiami-Dade Transit
Miami-Dade Transit is the primary public transit authority of Miami, Florida, United States and the greater Miami-Dade County area. It is the largest transit system in Florida and the 12th-largest transit system in the United States....
(MDT). Along with neighborhoods such as Downtown
Downtown Miami
Downtown Miami is an urban residential neighborhood, and the central business district of Miami, Miami-Dade County, and South Florida in the United States...
and Brickell
Brickell
Brickell is an urban neighborhood in Miami, Florida, United States. A neighborhood of greater Downtown Miami, Brickell is Miami and South Florida's major financial district.-Background:...
, public transit is heavily used in Miami Beach, and is a vital part of city life. Although Miami Beach has no direct Metrorail stations, numerous Metrobus lines, connect to Downtown Miami
Downtown Miami
Downtown Miami is an urban residential neighborhood, and the central business district of Miami, Miami-Dade County, and South Florida in the United States...
and Metrorail (i.e., the 'S' bus line). The 'South Beach Local' or 'SBL' is one of the most heavily-used lines in Miami, and connects all major points of South Beach to other major bus lines in the city. Metrobus ridership in Miami Beach is high, with some of the routes, such as the L and S alone being the busiest Metrobus routes.
The Airport-Beach Express (Route 150), operated by MDT, is a direct-service bus line that connects Miami International Airport
Miami International Airport
Miami International Airport , also known as MIA and historically Wilcox Field, is the primary airport serving the South Florida area...
to major points in South Beach. The ride costs $2.35, and runs every 30 minutes from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. seven days a week.
Bicycling
In recent years, bicyclingBicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
has grown in popular in Miami Beach. Due to its dense, urban nature, and pedestrian-friendly streets, many Miami Beach residents get around by bicycle.
In March 2011 a public bike sharing program named Decobike was launched, one of only a handful of such programs in the United States. The program is operated by a private corporation, Decobike, LLC, but is partnered with the City of Miami Beach in a revenue sharing model. Once fully implemented, the program hopes to have around 1000 bikes accessible from 100 stations throughout Miami Beach, from around 85th Street on the north side of Miami Beach all the way south to South Pointe Park
South Pointe Park
South Pointe Park, known locally as South Pointe, is a county urban park in metropolitan Miami, in the Miami Beach neighborhood of South Beach, Florida.-History:...
.
Education
Miami-Dade County Public SchoolsMiami-Dade County Public Schools
Miami-Dade County Public Schools is a public school district serving Miami-Dade County, Florida. Founded in 1885, it is the largest school district in Florida and the Southeastern United States, and the fourth largest in the United States, with a student enrollment of 380,006 as of July 5, 2010...
serves Miami Beach.
- North Beach Elementary
- South Pointe Elementary
- Biscayne Elementary
- Feinberg/Fisher K - 8 Center
- Treasure Island Elementary in nearby North Bay Village
- Ruth K. Broad/ Bay Harbor Elementary in nearby Bay Harbor Islands
- Nautilus Middle School (which is the only Public middle school for the Miami Beach area)
- Miami Beach Senior High School (which is the only Public high school for the Miami Beach area)
Private schools include Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy, St. Patrick Catholic School
St. Patrick Catholic School (Miami Beach, Florida)
St. Patrick Catholic School, also called St. Patrick Parish School, is a private Catholic school located at 3700 Garden Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida. It is the parish school for the St. Patrick Catholic Church.-History:...
, Landow Yeshiva – Lubavitch Educational Center (Klurman Mesivta High School for Boys and Beis Chana Middle and High School for Girls), and Mechina High School.
Colleges and universities
The Florida International UniversityFlorida International University
Florida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...
School of Architecture
Florida International University School of Architecture
The FIU School of Architecture is the architecture school at Florida International University, located in Miami, Florida in the United States. It is one of the university's 26 schools and colleges and is a school within the College of Architecture and the Arts. The school was founded in the...
has a sister campus at 420 Lincoln Road
Lincoln Road
Lincoln Road is a pedestrian road running east-west between 16th Street and 17th Street in Miami Beach, Florida, United States. Once open to vehicular traffic, it now hosts a pedestrian row of shops, restaurants, galleries, and other businesses between Washington Avenue and Alton...
in South Beach
South Beach
South Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...
, with classroom spaces for FIU architecture, art, music and theater graduate students
Neighborhoods
- Bayshore
- Sunset Islands I & II
- Sunset Islands III & IV
- Sunset Harbour
- Biscayne Point
- Stillwater Drive Neighborhood
- City Center
- Collins ParkCollins ParkThe Collins Park Neighborhood in Miami Beach sits on the north eastern point of the South Beach Historic District. It’s boundaries are 17th street to the south, 25th Street to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Washington Avenue, Dade County Boulevard and Pinetree Drive to the west.The...
- Collins Park
- Fisher Island (A small portion of the island)
- Flamingo/Lummus
- Flamingo Park
- Flamingo Park West
- North Ocean Drive Area
- South BeachSouth BeachSouth Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...
- La Gorce
- Allison Island
- Aqua Allison Island
- La Gorce Island
- La Gorce Pine Tree
- Lower North Bay Road Neighborhood
- Middle North Bay Road Neighborhood
- Nautilus
- Alton Road Neighborhood
- Lakeview/Surprise Lake
- Orchard Park
- North Shore
- Little Buenos AiresLittle Buenos AiresLittle Buenos Aires is a neighborhood that occupies the northern part of Miami Beach. Its boundaries are generally considered to be between 65th & Collins Avenue and 85th & Collins. A once poor area of Miami Beach, many Argentine immigrants settled in the area in the late 1990s, sparking its...
- Normandy Fountain
- Park View Island
- Little Buenos Aires
- Normandy IslesNormandy Isles Historic DistrictNormandy Isles Historic District is a U.S. Historic District. It is roughly bounded by Normandy Shores Golf Course, Indian Creek, Biscayne Bay, Rue Versailles, 71st Street, and Rue Notre Dame in Miami Beach, Florida, United States. On November 12, 2008, it was added to the U.S. National Register of...
- Normandie Sud
- Normandy Shores
- Oceanfront
- South Pointe
- SoFi (South of Fifth)
- Star IslandStar Island (Florida)Star Island is an island neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. In Biscayne Bay, the island is south of the Venetian Islands and just east of Palm and Hibiscus islands.-Background:...
, Palm IslandPalm Island (Florida)Palm Island is a man-made island located in Biscayne Bay in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States, just south of Hibiscus Island. It is a residential neighborhood with relatively high property values, solely accessible by land via the MacArthur Causeway.-Education:Palm Island is zoned to...
, & Hibiscus IslandHibiscus IslandHibiscus Island is a neighborhood on an man-made island located in Biscayne Bay, in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. Hibiscus Island lies just north of Palm Island. It is an exclusive residential neighborhood with relatively high property values... - Venetian IslandsVenetian Islands, Miami Beach, FloridaThe Venetian Islands are a chain of artificial islands in Biscayne Bay in the cities of Miami and Miami Beach, Florida. The islands are, from west to east: Biscayne Island , San Marco Island , San Marino Island , Di Lido Island , Rivo Alto Island , and Belle Isle...
, including Belle IsleBelle Isle, Miami Beach, FloridaBelle Isle is an artificial island and neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the easternmost of the Venetian Islands, a chain of artificial islands in Biscayne Bay in the cities of Miami and Miami Beach. It is home to apartment buildings, a portion of the Venetian Causeway, a...
- Biscayne Island
- Di Lido IslandDi Lido Island, Miami Beach, FloridaDi Lido Island is an artificial island in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the third island from the east of the Venetian Islands, a chain of artificial islands in Biscayne Bay in the cities of Miami and Miami Beach. It is between San Marino Island and Rivo Alto Island. It...
- Rivo Alto IslandRivo Alto Island, Miami Beach, FloridaRivo Alto Island is an artificial island and neighborhood Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is one of the Venetian Islands, a chain of artificial islands in Biscayne Bay in the cities of Miami and Miami Beach. It is between Di Lido Island and Belle Isle...
- San Marco Island
- San Marino Island
- West Avenue/Bay Road
- Lincoln West
Points of interest
- Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theatre
- Eden Roc (hotel)Eden Roc (hotel)The Eden Roc Renaissance Hotel Miami Beach is a resort and spa located at 4525 Collins Avenue on Miami Beach, Florida. It was designed by Morris Lapidus, in the Miami Modern style, and opened in 1956...
- Flagler Monument IslandFlagler Monument IslandFlagler Memorial Island is an artificial island that was built in 1920 along with the other Venetian Islands of Miami and Miami Beach, Florida, complete with a monument visible from the Flamingo Hotel in Miami Beach. A high obelisk with allegorical sculptures at its base stands as a monument to...
- Fontainebleau Hotel
- Versace Mansion (Casa Casuarina)Gianni VersaceGianni Versace was an Italian fashion designer and founder of Gianni Versace S.p.A., an international fashion house, which produces accessories, fragrances, makeup and home furnishings as well as clothes. He also designed costumes for the theatre and films, and was a friend of Madonna, Elton John,...
- Holocaust MemorialHolocaust Memorial on Miami BeachThe Holocaust Memorial of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation is a Holocaust memorial at 1933-1945 Meridian Avenue, in Miami Beach, Florida. It was conceived by a committee of Holocaust survivors in 1984, formally established in 1985 as the Holocaust Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization...
- Lincoln RoadLincoln RoadLincoln Road is a pedestrian road running east-west between 16th Street and 17th Street in Miami Beach, Florida, United States. Once open to vehicular traffic, it now hosts a pedestrian row of shops, restaurants, galleries, and other businesses between Washington Avenue and Alton...
- Miami Beach Architectural DistrictMiami Beach Architectural DistrictThe Miami Beach Architectural District is a U.S. historic district located in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida...
- Miami Beach Botanical GardenMiami Beach Botanical GardenThe Miami Beach Botanical Garden is a 4.5 acres botanical garden in Miami Beach, Florida, USA. In addition to a conservatory, it includes over a dozen varieties of subtropical palms, bromeliads, Japanese garden, topiary, and orchids. There is no charge for admission. The Garden is open Tuesday to...
- Ocean DriveOcean Drive (South Beach)Ocean Drive is a street in South Beach—the southern part of Miami Beach, Florida. It is known for its Art Deco hotels. Ocean Drive is also the location of the famed , one of the most photographed houses in North America. The street is the center of the city's Art Deco District, which is home to...
- South BeachSouth BeachSouth Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...
- Wolfsonian-FIU Museum
Historical
- George AdeGeorge AdeGeorge Ade was an American writer, newspaper columnist, and playwright.-Biography:Ade was born in Kentland, Indiana, one of seven children raised by John and Adaline Ade. While attending Purdue University, he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity...
, writer - Moses AnnenbergMoses AnnenbergMoses "Moe" Louis Annenberg was an American newspaper publisher, who purchased The Philadelphia Inquirer, the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the United States. in 1936. The Inquirer has the sixteenth largest average weekday U.S...
, newspaper publisher - Desi ArnazDesi ArnazDesi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...
, entertainer - John Jacob AstorJohn Jacob AstorJohn Jacob Astor , born Johann Jakob Astor, was a German-American business magnate and investor who was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States...
, businessman - Walter Briggs, Sr., entrepreneur, owner of The Detroit Tigers
- Al CaponeAl CaponeAlphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
, mobster - John S. CollinsJohn S. CollinsJohn Stiles Collins was an American Quaker farmer from Moorestown Township, New Jersey who moved to southern Florida and attempted to grow vegetables and coconuts on the swampy, bug-infested stretch of land between Miami and the ocean, a barrier island which became Miami Beach.Although the farming...
, horticulturist - Kent CooperKent CooperKent Cooper served with the Associated Press for 41 years, including positions as general manager from 1925 to 1943 and concluding his career as executive director. Cooper is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York.Cooper Glacier in Antarctica is named for him.-External links:* *...
, Associated Press - James M. CoxJames M. CoxJames Middleton Cox was the 46th and 48th Governor of Ohio, U.S. Representative from Ohio and Democratic candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1920....
, Governor of Ohio and presidential candidate - Harvey FirestoneHarvey FirestoneHarvey Samuel Firestone was an American businessman, and the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, one of the first global makers of automobile tires.-Family background:...
, Firestone Tires - Carl Graham Fisher, developer of Miami Beach
- Frank GannettFrank GannettFrank Ernest Gannett is the founder of Gannett media corporation.-Biography:Gannett was born in South Bristol, New York, United States, graduated from Bolivar High School , Bolivar, NY in 1893, and graduated from Cornell University. At the age of 30, he purchased his first newspaper, the Elmira...
, Gannett Media Corporation - Jackie GleasonJackie GleasonJackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
, comedian and actor - Gabriel HeatterGabriel HeatterGabriel Heatter was an American radio commentator whose World War II-era sign-on became both his catchphrase and his caricature...
, radio commentator - John D. HertzJohn D. HertzJohn Daniel Hertz, Sr. was an American businessman, thoroughbred racehorse owner, and philanthropist.-Biography:...
, Hertz Rental Cars - Howard HughesHoward HughesHoward Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
, businessman - S.S. Kresge, retailer
- Albert LaskerAlbert LaskerAlbert Davis Lasker was an American businessman who is often considered to be the founder of modern advertising. He was born in Freiburg, Germany when his American parents Morris and Nettie Heidenheimer Davis Lasker were visiting their homeland; he was raised in Galveston, Texas, where Morris was...
, businessman - Nunnally JohnsonNunnally JohnsonNunnally Hunter Johnson was an American filmmaker who wrote, produced, and directed motion pictures.Johnson was born in Columbus, Georgia. He began his career as a journalist, writing for the Columbus Enquirer Sun, the Savannah Press, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and the New York Herald Tribune...
, film director - Ring LardnerRing LardnerRinggold Wilmer Lardner was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical takes on the sports world, marriage, and the theatre.-Personal life:...
, writer - Bernarr MacFaddenBernarr MacfaddenBernarr Macfadden was an influential American proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories...
, bodybuilder, owner of the Deauville Hotel - James Cash Penney, department store magnate
- Irving Jacob ReuterIrving Jacob ReuterIrving Jacob Reuter was an automotive leader in the early 1900s. In 1925 he was named general manager and president of Oldsmobile after rising through the ranks at Remy Electric and then General Motors after the two companies merged in 1918....
, General Motors - Grantland RiceGrantland RiceGrantland Rice was an early 20th century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio.-Biography:...
, sportswriter - Knute RockneKnute RockneKnute Kenneth Rockne was an American football player and coach. He is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in college football history...
, football player and coach - Damon RunyonDamon RunyonAlfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the...
, newspaperman and writer - Nicholas SchenckNicholas SchenckNicholas M. Schenck was a motion picture mogul and impresario.One of seven children, Schenck was born to a Jewish household in Rybinsk, a Volga River village in Tsarist Russia...
, MGM studios - Dutch SchultzDutch SchultzDutch Schultz was a New York City-area Jewish American gangster of the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in organized crime-related activities such as bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket...
, mobster - Albert WarnerAlbert WarnerAaron "Albert" Warner was a Polish-born American film executive who was one of the founders of Warner Bros. Studios. He established the production studio with his brothers Harry, Sam, and Jack Warner...
, Warner Brothers studio founder - Walter WinchellWalter WinchellWalter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
, columnist - Garfield WoodGarfield WoodGarfield ‘Gar’ Arthur Wood was an American inventor, entrepreneur, motorboat builder and racer who held the world water speed record on several occasions. He was the first man to travel over 100 miles per hour on water....
, inventor
Post-World War II
- Ellen BarkinEllen BarkinEllen Barkin is an American film, television and theatre actress.-Early life:She was born Ellen Rona Barkin in Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, the daughter of Evelyn , a hospital administrator who worked at Jamaica Hospital, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman...
, actress - Edna BuchananEdna BuchananEdna Buchanan is an American journalist and author best known for her crime mystery novels.She was born in Paterson, New Jersey and attended Montclair State College. As one of the first female crime journalists in Miami, she wrote for the Miami Beach Daily Sun and the Miami Herald as a general...
, journalist - Luther CampbellLuther CampbellLuther R. Campbell , also known as Luke Skyywalker, Uncle Luke or Luke, is a record label owner, rap performer , and actor...
, rap performer - Frank CostelloFrank CostelloFrank Costello was an Italian New York City gangster who rose to the top of America's underworld, controlled a vast gambling empire across the United States and enjoyed political influence.Nicknamed the "Prime Minister of the Underworld", he became one of the most powerful and influential Mafia...
, mobster - Terry CousinTerry CousinTerry Sean Cousin is an American football cornerback who is currently a free agent. He was signed by the Chicago Bears as an undrafted free agent in 1997...
, football player, The Miami Dolphins - Frank EricksonFrank EricksonFrank Erickson was born in New York in to parents of Swedish and Irish descent. After the death of his father, he grew up in an orphanage....
, bookmaker - Gloria EstefanGloria EstefanGloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...
, entertainer - Joan FieldJoan Field-Biography and career:Joan Field was born in Long Branch, New Jersey. She began violin studies at the age of 5. She was a pupil of Franz Kneisel, Albert Spalding and Michel Piastro in the United States and spent 4 years in Paris during her teens studying with Marcel Chailley, Jacques Thibaud and...
, concert violinist - Roy FirestoneRoy FirestoneRoy Firestone is an American sports commentator and journalist. Firestone is a graduate of Miami Beach High School and the University of Miami.-Television career:...
, sportscaster and entertainer - Andy GarciaAndy GarcíaAndrés Arturo García Menéndez , professionally known as Andy García, is a Cuban American actor. He became known in the late 1980s and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III, The Untouchables, Internal Affairs and When a Man Loves a Woman...
, actor - Barry GibbBarry GibbBarry Alan Crompton Gibb, CBE , is a singer, songwriter and producer. He was born in the Isle of Man to English parents. With his brothers Robin and Maurice, he formed The Bee Gees, one of the most successful pop groups of all time. The trio got their start in Australia, and found their major...
and Maurice GibbMaurice GibbMaurice Ernest Gibb, CBE was a musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. He was born on the Isle of Man, the twin brother of Robin Gibb, and younger brother to Barry. He is best known as a member of the singing/songwriting trio the Bee Gees, formed with his brothers...
, singers, members of The Bee Gees - Mitch GlazerMitch GlazerMitchell A. Glazer is an American movie producer, writer, and actor.-Biography:Glazer was born in Key Biscayne, Florida and was raised in Miami, the son of Leonard and Zelda Glazer, an English teacher. Glazer is a relative of Sidney Glazier and Tom Glazer. He attended Miami Beach High School. He...
, writer and producer - Thomas HarrisThomas HarrisThomas Harris is an American author and screenwriter, best known for a series of suspense novels about his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter...
, writer - Maida HeatterMaida HeatterMaida Heatter is a pastry chef and cookbook author who influenced the way in which Americans prepare desserts. The daughter of the famous radio commentator Gabriel Heatter, Maida Heatter graduated from New York's Pratt Institute in fashion design and began a career as a illustrator of...
, chef and author - Kim HunterKim HunterKim Hunter was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire...
, actress - Dan GelberDan GelberDan Gelber is a former prosecutor, a candidate for Attorney General of Florida and is a member of the Florida Senate, representing the 35th District. He is a Democrat and previously represented the 106th District of the Florida House from 2000 - 2008...
, judge and Florida state senator - Chubby JacksonChubby JacksonGreig Stewart 'Chubby' Jackson was an American jazz double-bassist and band leader.Born in New York City, Jackson began at the age of seventeen as a clarinetist, but quickly changed to bass....
, jazz musician - Larry KingLarry KingLawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
, television host - Gerald KoganGerald KoganGerald Kogan is a former Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. He was born in New York City on May 23, 1933.-References:...
, Chief Justice, Florida Supreme Court - Morris LapidusMorris LapidusMorris Lapidus was the architect of Neo-baroque Miami Modern hotels that has since come to define the 1950s resort-hotel style synonymous with Miami and Miami Beach....
, architect - Meyer LanskyMeyer LanskyMeyer Lansky , known as the "Mob's Accountant", was a Polish-born American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States...
, mobster - William LehmanWilliam Lehman (Florida politician)William H. Lehman was a United States Representative from Florida.Born in Selma, Alabama, he graduated from Dallas Academy and Selma High School, 1930. He received a B.S...
, U.S. Representative - Jennifer LopezJennifer LopezJennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
, entertainer - Sheila MacRaeSheila MacRaeSheila MacRae is an English actress and author. She was born Sheila Margaret Stephens. She appeared in such films as Pretty Baby , Caged , Backfire , and Sex and the Single Girl ....
, actress - Mark MedoffMark MedoffMark Medoff is an American playwright, screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor, and professor. His play Children of a Lesser God received both the Tony Award and the Olivier Award...
, playwright, screenwriter and director - Bob MoverBob MoverMover, Bob is an alto, tenor and soprano jazz saxophonist and a vocalist. His father was a musician who played professionally including stints with the Charlie Spivak orchestra...
, jazz musician - Murph the Surf, surfer and criminal
- Chad Ochocinco, football player, The Cincinnati Bengals
- Brett RatnerBrett RatnerBrett Ratner is an American film director, film producer and music video director. He is best known for directing the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Tower Heist. He was also a producer on the Fox drama series, Prison Break.- Early life :Ratner was...
, film director - Martha RayeMartha RayeMartha Raye was an American comic actress and standards singer who performed in movies, and later on television....
, entertainer, night club owner - Samari RolleSamari RolleSamari Toure Rolle is a retired American football cornerback. He was drafted by the Tennessee Oilers in the second round of the 1998 NFL Draft. He played college football at Florida State....
, football player, The Baltimore Ravens - Elliot Roosevelt, Miami Beach mayor, son of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- Stephen M. RossStephen M. RossStephen M. Ross is an American real estate developer. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of The Related Companies, L.P., a New York City-based real estate development company. It is jointly owned by his business partner, Jorge M. Perez. He owns 95% of the Miami Dolphins NFL football franchise and...
, real estate developer, owner of The Miami Dolphins - Mickey RourkeMickey RourkePhilip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
, actor - Robert RubinRobert RubinRobert Edward Rubin served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during both the first and second Clinton administrations. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs eventually serving as a member of the Board, and Co-Chairman from 1990-1992...
, former United States Secretary of the Treasury - Porfirio RubirosaPorfirio RubirosaPorfirio Rubirosa Ariza was a Dominican diplomat and adherent of Rafael Trujillo. He made his mark as an international playboy, for his jet setting lifestyle, and his legendary prowess with women...
, diplomat - Duane StarksDuane StarksDuane Lonell Starks is a former American football cornerback. He was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens 10th overall in the 1998 NFL Draft...
, football player, The Baltimore Ravens - Daniel TaradashDaniel TaradashDaniel Taradash was an American screenwriter.Taradash's credits include Golden Boy , From Here to Eternity , Rancho Notorious , Don't Bother to Knock , Désirée , Picnic , Storm Center , which he also directed, Bell, Book and Candle , Morituri , Hawaii...
, screenwriter - Dave ThomasDave Thomas (cornerback)David Garfield Thomas is a former professional American football defensive back who played nine seasons in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the New York Giants...
, football player, The Dallas Cowboys - Michael Tilson ThomasMichael Tilson ThomasMichael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.-Early years:...
, conductor - Neal WalkNeal WalkNeal Eugene Walk is a former American college and professional basketball player who was a center in the National Basketball Association for seven seasons during the late 1960s and 1970s. Walk played college basketball for the University of Florida, and still remains the Florida Gators' all-time...
, NBA basketball player - Barbara WaltersBarbara WaltersBarbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
, television journalist - Louis WolfsonLouis WolfsonLouis Elwood Wolfson was a Wall Street financier and one of the first modern corporate raiders, labeled by Time Magazine as such in a 1956 article...
, financier, racehorse owner - Mitchell Wolfson, Jr.Mitchell Wolfson, Jr.Mitchell "Micky" Wolfson, Jr. is a businessman, collector, philanthropist, and founder of the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach, Florida, and Nervi, Italy....
, businessman, philanthropist - Mana ZuccaMana ZuccaMana-Zucca was an American actress, singer, pianist and composer born in New York City.-Life:Mana-Zucca was born Augusta Zuckerman in New York City on December 25, 1885. She was a child prodigy who began composing at an early age. At the age of eight, she performed as piano soloist in the...
, composer
Sister cities
Miami Beach has 11 sister citiesTown twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...
Brampton
Brampton, Ontario
Brampton is the third-largest city in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada and the seat of Peel Region. As of the 2006 census, Brampton's population stood at 433,806, making it the 11th largest city in Canada. It is also one of Canada's fastest growing municipalities, with an average...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
Almonte
Almonte, Spain
-External links:* - Sistema de Información Multiterritorial de Andalucía* - Digital News for Almonte, El Rocío and Matalascañas...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Marbella, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Fortaleza
Fortaleza
Fortaleza is the state capital of Ceará, located in Northeastern Brazil. With a population close to 2.5 million , Fortaleza is the 5th largest city in Brazil. It has an area of and one of the highest demographic densities in the country...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
Santa Marta
Santa Marta
Santa Marta is the capital city of the Colombian department of Magdalena in the Caribbean Region. It was founded in July 29, 1525 by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, which makes it the oldest remaining city in Colombia...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
Ceský Krumlov
Český Krumlov
Český Krumlov is a small city in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, best known for the fine architecture and art of the historic old town and Český Krumlov Castle...
, Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
Nahariya
Nahariya
Nahariya is the northernmost coastal city in Israel, with an estimated population of 51,200.-History:Nahariya was founded by German Jewish immigrants from the Fifth Aliyah in the 1930s...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
Pescara
Pescara
Pescara is the capital city of the Province of Pescara, in the Abruzzo region of Italy. As of January 1, 2007 it was the most populated city within Abruzzo at 123,059 residents, 400,000 with the surrounding metropolitan area...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Fujisawa
Fujisawa, Kanagawa
is a city located in Kanagawa, Japan. As of 2010, the city had an estimated population of 407,731 and a population density of 5,870 people per km². The total area is 69.51 km²-Geography:...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
Cozumel
Cozumel
Cozumel is an island in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen, and close to the Yucatan Channel. Cozumel is one of the ten municipalities of the state of Quintana Roo...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
Ica
Ica (city)
The city of Ica is the capital of the Ica Region in southern Peru. While the area was long inhabited by varying cultures of indigenous peoples, the Spanish conquistador Gerónimo Luis de Cabrera claimed its founding in 1563. As of 2005, it had an estimated population of over 219,856...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
See also
- Neighborhoods of Miami Beach, Florida
- List of upscale shopping districts
- South Florida
- Miami-Dade County
- Miami Beach Police DepartmentMiami Beach Police DepartmentThe Miami Beach Police Department is the police department of the U.S. city of Miami Beach, Florida, patrolling the entire Miami Beach area, although they sometimes cooperate with the county-wide Miami-Dade Police Department. The Miami Beach Police are famous for their bicycle patrols, which wear...
- Miami Modern ArchitectureMiami Modern ArchitectureMiami Modernist Architecture or better known as MiMo, is a style of architecture from the 1950s and 1960s that originated in Miami, Florida as a resort vernacular unique to Miami and Miami Beach...
- John S. CollinsJohn S. CollinsJohn Stiles Collins was an American Quaker farmer from Moorestown Township, New Jersey who moved to southern Florida and attempted to grow vegetables and coconuts on the swampy, bug-infested stretch of land between Miami and the ocean, a barrier island which became Miami Beach.Although the farming...
- Carl G. FisherCarl G. FisherCarl Graham Fisher was an American entrepreneur. Despite having severe astigmatism, he became a seemingly tireless pioneer and promoter of the automotive, auto racing, and real estate development industries...
- Collins BridgeCollins BridgeThe Collins Bridge was a bridge that crossed Biscayne Bay between Miami and Miami Beach, Florida. At the time it was completed, it was the longest wooden bridge in the world. It was built by farmer and developer John S. Collins with financial assistance from automotive parts and racing pioneer...
- Rosie the ElephantRosie the ElephantRosie, an Asian elephant, was an instrumental figure in the history of the U.S. city of Miami Beach, Florida. Her appearance in publicity photos helped to contribute to the area's early reputation for being a place that a visitor had to see to believe....
- A Hole in the Head (1959 film)
- The Bellboy (1960 film)
- Fair Game (1995 film)
- Doral HotelDoral HotelThe Doral-On-The-Ocean opened in 1963 on the famous Millionaire's Row, on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, Florida. Also known as the Doral Beach Hotel, it was named for its founder and his wife, DORIS and AL Kaskel. It was long considered the most elegant and luxurious hotel in the area. The Doral...
- Ocean DriveOcean Drive (South Beach)Ocean Drive is a street in South Beach—the southern part of Miami Beach, Florida. It is known for its Art Deco hotels. Ocean Drive is also the location of the famed , one of the most photographed houses in North America. The street is the center of the city's Art Deco District, which is home to...
- Julia Tuttle Causeway
- Macarthur CausewayMacArthur CausewayThe General Douglas MacArthur Causeway is a six-lane causeway which connects Downtown, Miami, Florida and South Beach, Miami Beach via Biscayne Bay....
- Venetian CausewayVenetian CausewayThe Venetian Causeway crosses Biscayne Bay between Miami on the mainland and Miami Beach on a barrier island in south Florida. The man-made Venetian Islands and non-bridge portions of the causeway were created by materials which came from the dredging of the bay. The Venetian Causeway follows the...
- Spring BreakSpring breakSpring break – also known as March break, Study week or Reading week in the United Kingdom and some parts of Canada – is a recess in early spring at universities and schools in the United States, Canada, mainland China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the United...
- 8th & Ocean8th & Ocean8th & Ocean is an American reality series about a group of models living in Miami, Florida that premiered on MTV on March 7, 2006. The series aired for ten episodes, ending its run on May 9, 2006. The creators of 8th & Ocean are also responsible for Laguna Beach, a show also airing on MTV...
Further reading
- Kennedy, Patricia, Miami Beach, Arcadia Publishing, Images of America series, 2006
- Lavender, Abraham D., Miami Beach in 1920: The Making of a Winter Resort, Arcadia Publishing, The Making of America Series, 2002
Photos
- Miami Beach Architecture Photos
- The lifeguard towers of Miami Beach
- Photographs of Miami Beach From the State Library & Archives of Florida
- Photos of Miami Beach, Miami and surrounding areas
Other
- Miami Design Preservation League – Non-profit Organization for the preservation of Miami Beach Architectural History
- Miami's Southeast Coast – Biscayne Bay Watershed – Florida DEP