Monday, March 14, 2022 – AFTER A BLEAK WINTER, GO TO MIAMI BEACH
MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
621st Issue
Let’s go to Florida 2
Miami and Miami Beach
Stephen Blank
Southeast Florida grew slowly. In 1830, after Florida became a US territory, Richard Fitzpatrick established a slave plantation. But the bloody Second Seminole War drove off Fitzpatrick and other settlers. A small army force replaced civilians with the establishment of Fort Dallas on the north bank of the River. Population grew slowly, and even at the turn of the century, what would become today’s Dade County contained fewer than 1,000 persons.
But, as we saw in the first part of this article, Florida had begun to attract the attention of wealthy Northerners, and new railroads grew a tourist industry. Southeast Florida would follow, driven by several remarkable individuals – names which anyone who visits Miami will recognize.
Julia Tuttle’s parents had come to Florida where her father became a state senator. When he died, Julia, widowed, purchased land where the city of Miami is now located. She converted the house built by Fitzpatrick’s slaves into her home, with sweeping views of the river and Biscayne Bay. William and Mary Brickell arrived in Miami at the outset of the 1870s and were successful Indian traders as well as shrewd real estate investors. They lived across the river from Julia Tuttle.
Tuttle knew that transportation was necessary to attract development. She persuaded Henry Flagler to extend his railway to Miami in exchange for hundreds of acres of prime Tuttle and the Brickell real estate. He agreed to build a magnificent hotel near the confluence of the river and Biscayne Bay. On April 22, 1896, the Florida East Coast Railway arrived. On July 28, 344 registered voters, many of whom were black laborers, voted to incorporate a new city, Miami.
Going was tough. Miami suffered from a devastating fire in 1896 and a yellow fever epidemic a few years later. Miami survived largely because of Flagler’s magnificent Royal Palm Hotel. Five stories tall (its rotunda in the center added another story), the yellow frame building was topped by a red mansard roof and counted among many prominent features a 578-foot-long verandah. The hotel had 350 guest rooms and accommodated 400 – 600 guests. The hotel had electric lights, two electric elevators and 200 bathrooms and an additional 100 rooms were available for maids and servants.
In the years before WWI, The Royal Palm became a popular winter resort for America’s Gilded Age princes. John Jacob Astor was the first of many distinguished guests arriving for the opening. Others included Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, Cyrus H. K. Curtis, JP Morgan, Edward F. Hutton, Charlie Schwab, and Gerard Lambert. The Royal Palm was the center of Miami social life.
The hotel’s season ran from January to March, but some visitors decided to make Miami a home or second home. Mansions were raised along Brickell Avenue, known as “Millionaire’s Row.” The most prominent was the Villa Serena, built by William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democrat presidential candidate. Bryan taught Sunday Bible classes at the Royal Palm hotel attracting, it is said, as many as 5,000 people.
Miami was booming when the Roaring Twenties began. The city’s population had climbed to nearly 30,000, a 440 percent increase over the figure for 1910. It represented the largest per capita increase of any municipality in the nation. Everglades Reclamation (or drainage) further stimulated a feverish real estate industry as speculators purchased millions of acres of reclaimed land from the State of Florida, then marketed it aggressively. The tactics of promoters who sold unwitting investors land that was underwater earned for Miami the reputation for marketing “land by the gallon.” When the property boom went bust, thousands of homes were destroyed, unfinished subdivisions were leveled, and the entire region was plunged into a severe economic depression three years before the rest of the nation.
Still, Miami fared better than many other communities. The advent of commercial aviation helped: Pan Am and Eastern put headquarters in the Magic City—and tourism resumed in the second half of the decade.
World War II in 1941 helped even more as the region became a huge training base for hundreds of thousands of members of the military. Many veterans who had trained here during the war had “sand in their shoes,” and returned as permanent residents. The post-WWII years saw a dramatic boom in population and commerce. Downtown Miami had become a world-famous destination, with shopping, entertainment, and a gorgeous waterfront. But the glow would face. Miami deteriorated as the Beach and growing suburbs offered more spacious living, as well as malls and shopping centers. Businesses closed and moved on to more lucrative neighborhoods, leaving the city core to mostly poor communities. Tourists avoided Miami City. But soon, that would change, and a new, more Latin city would emerge.
Miami Beach
What became Miami Beach was an uninhabited, 1600-acre, jungle-matted sand bar three miles out in the Atlantic, cut off from Miami by Biscayne Bay. The first structure on the oceanfront was the Biscayne House of Refuge, constructed in 1876 to provide aid for shipwreck survivors. When a plan to create ae a coconut plantation there failed, John Collins (soon linked with Julia Tuttle and Henry Flagler) bought out his partners.
Collins saw the potential in developing the beach as a winter resort and with several others, particularly entrepreneur Carl Fisher, began to promote the town. Until then, only day-trippers took a ferry from Miami, across the bay. The first hotel, Brown’s Hotel, was built in 1915 and, remarkably still exists at 112 Ocean Drive.
Miami Beach had grown to 2,800 acres when dredging and filling operations were completed. To connect Miami Beach to the mainland, Collins started work on a 2½-mile-long wooden bridge, the world’s longest wooden bridge at the time. When funds ran dry, Fisher provided financing to complete the Collins Bridge in return for land. That kicked off the island’s first real estate boom.
Opening of the Collins Bridge, 1913, then the longest wooden bridge in the world
Fisher promoted Miami Beach as an Atlantic City-style playground and winter retreat for the wealthy. By 1915, Collins and Fisher were living in mansions on the beach; three hotels had opened, an aquarium built, and an 18-hole golf course landscaped. Soon, grand hotels were built – the Flamingo Hotel, The Fleetwood Hotel, The Floridian, The Nautilus, and the Roney Plaza Hotel.
The Beach struggled through the bust and Great Depression, prospered during the War, and by the 1950s was enjoying rapid growth in summertime tourism, thanks to air conditioning and economy flights from northern cities. I remember well, each summer, a new top hotel opened – and finally, the last of the old Collins Avenue mansions, the Firestone Estate, was torn down to make way for the Fontainebleau. Air conditioning was ramped up so that summertime visitors could wear their fur collared sweaters comfortably.
https://www.oyster.com/miami-beach/hotels/fontainebleau-miami-beach/
Prejudice
Miami was a southern town and deeply driven by race. After incorporation, property deeds prohibited sale to Blacks everywhere except in one quarter, although Black Floridians comprised as much as a third of Miami’s population. From the late 19th century to the 1960s, segregation was the rule. In Miami Beach’s early days, the only Blacks allowed were hotels staff or servants. In 1936, Miami Beach required more than 5,000 seasonal workers at hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs, as well as domestic servants, to register with police and to be photographed and fingerprinted. Once registered, those workers, many Black, had to carry ID cards in the city.
Nonetheless, the Black community grew – but would decline sharply in the 1960s for various reasons, not least the construction of an extensive expressway system that ripped through the heart of the quarter and led to the displacement of 20,000 residents (about one-half of its population).
Early Miami and the Beach was also profoundly antisemitic. Carl Fisher, who developed the beach, prohibited Jews and blacks from staying in hotels or leasing apartments. Brochures advertised hotels and luxury apartments “Gentiles Only,” or “Always a View, Never a Jew,” or “Located near Protestant and Catholic Churches.” Jewish doctors were prohibited from working in hospitals. In 1947, religious discrimination was legally ended, but as late as 1953, on one of our drives from Pittsburgh to Miami, we were turned away from a hotel in Hollywood – “you would not be comfortable here.”
In fact, as Miami Beach became a summer resort, waves of Jews flowed in, many seeing it as perfect for retirement. Jews had been permitted to own land south of Fifth Street, which became the home of shabby-grand Art Deco apartment buildings and hotels, and then older Jewish retirees from the North and finally, one of the hottest resort centers in the US – South Beach. In 1980, more than 60 percent of Miami Beach’s population was Jewish, many in South Beach. During the 1980s, as Miami and South Beach underwent a profound transformation, many moved to newer Florida communities. In 1999, there were only 10,000 Jewish people living in Miami Beach. My mother complained that overnight the language in South Beach went from Yiddish to Spanish.
So much more to talk about. But the old clock on the wall says it’s time to go. Thanks for reading.
Stephen Blank
RIHS
February 17, 2022
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Send your answer to:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY
MADISON SQUARE PARK
ARON EISENPREISS, GLORIA HERMAN, M. FRANK, ANDY SPARBERG, KIM BRUCE, LAURA HUSSEY & HARA REISER ALL GOT IT!
ED LITCHER SENT US THIS:
North East view of Madison Square Park that was taken in between 1909 and 1925, with:
A statue of U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward in the foreground, which was dedicated in 1876, said to be the first New Yorker to be honored with a monument in the city.
Madison Square Garden II (1890 – 1925)
The MetLife building that was built in 1909 on the right side of the image.
FROM A READER
Thanks for the wonderful article on 186 Fifth Avenue. Stephen & I lived near there on 28th St. for 24 years & I always wondered the history of that building. I always found it very beautiful in an understated way–especially considering the many flashier buildings in the area. SO many mom & pop places have disappeared….. Have a great weekend– Best: Thom
STEPHEN BLANK
Sources
http://www.historymiami.org/fastspot/research-miami/topics/history-of-miami/index.htm
https://www.miamiandbeaches.com/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/miami-s-history-heritage
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1999-01-13-9901120465-story.html
https://thenewtropic.com/downtown-miami-history/
https://www.cntraveller.com/article/when-is-the-right-time-to-visit-miami
https://miami-history.com/miamis-first-luxury-hotel/
Funding Provided by:
Roosevelt Island Corporation Public Purpose Funds
Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD
Text by Judith Berdy
Edited by Deborah Dorff
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2022 (C)
PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
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