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    Miami Beach
    Miami Beach
    Miami Beach
    Ebook191 pages52 minutes

    Miami Beach

    By Seth Bramson

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    About this ebook

    Miami Beach began its rise to the top of the world's resort scene when Carl Fisher, builder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, arrived prior to 1920. The lure of "The World's Playground" was impossible to ignore for many, as hotels and restaurants flourished, even through the Great Depression. The images in this volume evoke poignant memories of Miami Beach's great past, almost inevitable downturn, and return to life with the discovery of South Beach and a renewed interest in art deco. Among the vintage views, most of which have never before been published, are early Lincoln Road and Washington Avenue; Miami Beach High School; Parham's; Junior's; Wolfies; Pumperniks; the first hotel on Miami Beach, Brown's; the Roney Plaza; the Fontainebleau; and, of course, the people who helped create this modern paradise.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439633311
    Miami Beach
    Author

    Seth Bramson

    Seth Bramson, whose family moved to Miami Beach in 1946, is known nationally as the foremost authority on the history of transportation in, and travel to, Florida. He is the company historian of the Florida East Coast Railway; his book, Speedway to Sunshine, one of the most popular and in-demand railroad history titles ever published, is the railway�s official history. His collection of Miami area memorabilia and Floridiana is the largest such private collection in America. A faculty member of Barry University in Miami Shores, Bramson is the author of three books and more than 60 articles on Florida�s local and transportation history.

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      Book preview

      Miami Beach - Seth Bramson

      today.

      INTRODUCTION

      It must be a true story, for nobody ever could come up with a fairy tale or fable to match the incredible real-life saga of the building, growth, fame, decline, and rebirth of one of the world’s greatest resorts, known for many years as the world’s playground. Also the epicenter of the art deco movement, Miami Beach has preserved an entire district of buildings in that unique architectural style.

      The story began to unfold in 1870 when Henry B. Lum and his 15-year-old son, Charles, after coming to Florida for the first time in 1868, made their way by sailboat from Key West to what would become Miami Beach. Finding three coconut trees growing on the weed-, mosquito-, rat-, and rabbit-infested island, they came up with the idea of developing a coconut plantation. Although they would not return for 12 years, they bought a good deal of land from the government for 35¢ an acre and were able to talk fellow New Jerseyites Ezra Osborn and Elnathan T. Field into investing with them. Eventually paying between 75¢ and $1.25 an acre, they would own most of a 100-mile strip of land along the east coast from Cape Florida to just north of Jupiter, and they planted somewhere in the vicinity of 155,000 coconuts along the beach. Lum and his son soon sold out to Osborn and Field, leaving them with control of the oceanfront acreage.

      On a trip back to New Jersey, Field would run across his old friend John S. Collins, who invested $5,000 with him and who would eventually buy Osborn out, so that Field and Collins were partners in the venture. Collins then interested his son-in-law, Thomas J. Pancoast, in the project, and Pancoast, in turn, would make a considerable investment with his father-in-law.

      Collins, realizing that a bridge to connect the then-named Ocean Beach to the mainland was a necessity, began building what would be, upon its completion, the longest wooden bridge in the world. But about halfway across, Collins ran out of money.

      Through a series of extraordinary coincidences, Collins would make the acquaintance of one Carl Graham Fisher, who is generally considered to be the founder and builder of Miami Beach.

      Fisher, the builder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, inventor and owner of Prest-o-Lite Corporation, and developer of the Lincoln Highway, had accumulated, even in modern dollars, a fortune, and he would eventually spend most of that fortune building Miami Beach.

      Although traveling extensively and involved with other priorities initially, Fisher placed his friend John H. Levi in charge of operations on the beach, and they would both be present at the opening of the Collins Bridge on June 12, 1913.

      There would soon be several companies selling Miami Beach land, and they would all be consolidated into the Miami Beach Improvement Company. Eventually, the first hotel, Brown’s, would be built at what became First Street and Ocean Drive, and four great bathing casinos would, for many years, be part of the landscape. Each of them—Smith’s, Hardie’s, Cook’s, and the St. John’s (later Fisher’s, the Roman Pools, and the Everglades Club)—would have their partisans.

      A canal was dug from immediately south of the Collins Bridge (later the Venetian Causeway) on a diagonal across the island, and a lake was dug out with its south end being just north of what is now 23rd Street. To memorialize Collins, Fisher named the canal after him, and the great oceanfront drive that would stretch from the south end of Miami Beach to the north end of Sunny Isles would also bear the Collins name. Fisher named the body of water after Pancoast, who built his home at the north end of the lake.

      As Fisher poured millions of dollars into the beach, others became both interested in and part of the development. Doc Dammers, who would gain his fame as the salesman supreme for George Merrick in Coral Gables, began with Fisher. While Levi was responsible for much of the work, and Fisher spent every possible moment supervising, Charles W. (Pete) Chase Sr. would take over for Dammers and become the head of Fisher’s sales organization and the founder of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce.

      J. N. Lummus would become the first mayor of Miami Beach. The island was incorporated as a town in 1915 and as a city on May 1, 1917. Lummus and his brother would eventually have a beautiful oceanfront park named for them, and it would be J. N. who would help persuade the county commission to support a second causeway that would connect Miami and the beach. The County (later MacArthur) Causeway opened February 17, 1920.

      The great story unfolds from there. Fisher and Chase, through New York connections, had heard about a publicist with the magic touch. Whatever he takes on, they were told, becomes a success, and so it was that the great publicist Steve Hanagan, the inventor of the pretty girls in bathing suits (known as cheesecake) frolicking on Miami Beach in mid-winter gambit, would spread the news far and wide that Miami Beach was the world’s greatest resort.

      Following World War II, a building boom of previously unimagined proportions took hold, and Collins Avenue, from one end to the other with scant and very short breaks for public beaches, would be lined with hotels and, later, apartment houses. The magnificent Collins Avenue mansions would be toppled, and in their places, hotels such as the Saxony, Fontainebleau, Eden Roc, Doral, and many more would rise.

      The late 1960s would see the downturn and the 1970s were a depressing time for the once heralded resort, but in the very late 1970s and early 1980s, Barbara Capitman and her son, Andrew, would see the beauty and importance of the art deco style. Through their efforts, almost all of what is now called SoBe, South Beach, would become the nation’s first art deco historic district.

      To add to the rebirth, the Jewish Museum of Florida, under the direction of Marcia Zerevitz, was founded, and a long-term lease in Miami Beach’s first synagogue, Temple

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