At Lummus Park, people play volleyball and there’s a cluster of South Pacific-style thatched huts beneath the towering palm trees. You’ll also feel very weak and weedy when you walk past fitness buffs working out and posing along sections of the promenade. There’s a gay beach marked with rainbow flags, which flutter in the onshore breeze. There are areas where clothing seems almost optional. You’ll see watersports areas watched over by lifeguards in wooden, white and red watch towers, twenty feet above the sand. As you walk along the sand you pass through different zones. That’s why you’ll find larger properties further along the beach.” After the war, car ownership increased and people wanted bigger, better hotels. In 1941 though, all the hotels were taken over by the military and 500,000 troops were trained in Miami Beach. “Small hotels were quickly built using the latest building style – Art Deco. It offered paid vacation for the first time,” said Paula. “In 1932, President Roosevelt signed The New Deal in an attempt to kick-start the US economy. Fisher realised that the long beaches on his island offered an opportunity, as Miami didn’t have any. Miami began development when the railway extended through Florida. That’s a separate city to Miami, confusingly. “And that’s exactly what he did,” Paula said. I just want to see dirt fly.” He arrived in 1912 at what was then a swampy stretch of sand and decided he wanted to turn it into a paradise for his friends in the north and east. Paula told me he had a favourite expression: “I don’t worry about the cash. That made him rich and allowed him to indulge in his passion for building things. “He believed that, one day, people would wish to drive at night,” Paula told me. Car ownership was becoming popular and Fisher seized an opportunity in securing patent rights for the first acetylene headlights. His life story reads like the classic ‘American dream.’ He was born into poverty in Indiana in the 1870s. Paula explained that rich businessman Carl Fisher was the man responsible for developing the area. Marisa works for the company that owns the Shelborne South Beach Hotel where I’m staying. “Miami Beach definitely stands out because of its Art Deco feel, that you see throughout all of the architecture,” Marisa Marcus told me.
There are stunning Art Deco apartments and hotels alongside an incredible, long, wide expanse of sand. The fun, relaxed atmosphere is infectious.įor me, it’s the district’s design that stands out. Latin rhythms fill the air and dance beats blare out of passing limos.
I doubt I’d be allowed in, even if my name was down on the list. It’s the area that’s filled with trendy bars and fancy nightclubs, where clubbers queue on the pavement hoping to be allowed past the velvet rope. South Beach is also known as Miami Beach. One of its main thoroughfares, Ocean Drive, was celebrated in a Lighthouse Family song, too. But it’s possibly best known as the backdrop for 80’s series, Miami Vice. It provided the setting for Scarface and The Birdcage.
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South Beach has starred many times on TV and in the movies. Blog Destination Reports Florida Listen Again Miami North America USA 0 Comments 304 views 0Īs soon as I arrived in South Beach – the bustling, beachfront suburb near Miami – it felt familiar.