Miami Beach, Florida - Watershed Boynton Beach

Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on a variety of natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which separates the Beach from Miami city proper. The neighborhood of South Beach, comprising the southernmost 2.5 square miles (6.5 km²) of Miami Beach, along with downtown Miami and the port, collectively form the commercial center of South Florida. As of the 2010 census, Miami Beach had a total population of 87,779. It has been one of America's pre-eminent beach resorts since the early 20th century.

In 1979, Miami Beach's Art Deco Historic District 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.

Government

Miami Beach is governed by a ceremonial mayor and six commissioners. Although the mayor runs commission meetings, the mayor and all commissioners have equal voting power and are elected by popular election. 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 citywide and every two years three commission seats are voted upon.

A city manager is responsible for administering governmental operations. An appointed city manager is responsible for administration of the city. The City Clerk and the City Attorney are also appointed officials.

History

In 1870, a father and son, Henry and Charles Lum, purchased the land for 75 cents an acre. The first structure to be built on this uninhabited oceanfront was the Biscayne House of Refuge, constructed in 1876 by the United States Life-Saving 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 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 avocados, 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 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. By 1912, Collins and Pancoast were working together to clear the land, plant crops, supervise the construction of canals to get their avocado crop to market, and set up the Miami Beach Improvement Company. There were bath houses and food stands, but no hotel until Brown's Hotel was built in 1915 (still standing, at 112 Ocean Drive). Much of the interior land mass at that time was a tangled jungle of mangroves. Clearing it, deepening the channels and water bodies, and eliminating native growth almost everywhere in favor of land fill for development was a herculean effort.

With loans from the Lummus brothers, Collins had begun work on a 2½-mile long wooden bridge, the world's longest wooden bridge at the time, to connect the island to the mainland. When funds ran dry and construction work stalled, Indianapolis millionaire and recent Miami transplant Fisher intervened, providing the financing needed to complete the bridge the following year in return for a land swap deal. That transaction kicked off the island's first real estate boom. Fisher helped by organizing an annual speed boat regatta, and by promoting Miami Beach as an Atlantic City-style playground and winter retreat for the wealthy. By 1915, Lummus, Collins, Pancoast, and Fisher were all living in mansions on the island, three hotels and two bath houses had been erected, an aquarium built, and an 18-hole golf course landscaped.

The Town of Miami Beach was chartered on March 26, 1915; it grew to become a City in 1917. Even after the town was incorporated in 1915 under the name of Miami Beach, many visitors thought of the beach strip as Alton Beach, indicating just how well Fisher had advertised his interests there. The Lummus property was called Ocean Beach, with only the Collins interests previously referred to as Miami Beach.

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 and build their winter homes here. Many other Northerners were targeted to vacation on the island. To accommodate the wealthy tourists, several grand hotels were built, among them: The Flamingo Hotel, The Fleetwood Hotel, The Floridian, The Nautilus, and the Roney Plaza Hotel. In the 1920s, Fisher and others created much of Miami Beach as landfill by dredging Biscayne Bay; this man-made 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 1926 Miami hurricane 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.

Post World War American history

Suburbanization

After World War II, a wave of immigrants entered the area from the Northern United States. Miami Beach, like the rest of South Florida, went through a population explosion, adding tens of thousands of persons in only a few decades.

After Castro's rise to power in 1959, a wave of Cuban refugees entered South Florida and dramatically changed the demographic make-up of the area.

Modern American history

Image and cultural depictions

South Beach (also known as SoBe, or simply the Beach), the area from Biscayne Street (also known as South Pointe Drive) one block south of 1st Street to about 23rd Street, is one of the more popular areas of Miami Beach. Topless sunbathing by women is illegal, but is officially tolerated on South 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 parallel 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.

Jewish population

Miami Beach is home to a number of Orthodox Jewish communities with a network of well-established synagogues and yeshivas, 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 synagogues as Temple Emanu-El 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 rebbes who vacation there during the North American winter. Till his death in 1991, the Nobel laureate writer Isaac Bashevis Singer lived in the northern end of Miami Beach and breakfasted often at Sheldon's drugstore on Harding Avenue.

There are a number of kosher restaurants and even kollels for post-graduate Talmudic 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.

On December 3, 2013, several buildings in Miami Beach including a Jewish Women's prayer center were found vandalized with hate messages such as "kkk"

LGBT community

After decades of economic and social decline, an influx of gays 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 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 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.

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 Basel 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 the New World Center 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(TM), 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 7,000-square-foot (650 m²) projection wall.

The Miami City Ballet, a ballet company founded in 1985, which is housed in a 63,000-square-foot (5,900 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.

Geography

Miami Beach is located at 25°48?47?N 80°08?03?W (25.813025, -80.134065).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.7 sq mi (48.5 km²), of which 7.0 sq mi (18.2 km²) is land and 11.7 sq mi (30.2 km²) (62.37%) is water.

Climate

Miami Beach has a tropical climate, more specifically a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am), with hot humid summers and warm dry winters, although located north of the Tropic of Cancer. Other than the Florida Keys, Miami Beach has the warmest winter weather in the United States (mainland). The warm and sunny weather in Miami Beach and South Florida attracts millions of travelers from around the world from November through April. Sea surface temperatures range from 74 F in winter to 86 F in the spring/summer/fall months. Miami Beach has the warmest ocean surf in the United States mainland annually.

Like much of Florida, there is a marked wet and dry season in Miami Beach. The tropical rainy season runs from May through September, when showers and late day thunderstorms are common. The dry season is from November through April, when few showers, sunshine, and low humidity prevail. The island location of Miami Beach however, creates fewer convective thunderstorms, so Miami Beach receives less rainfall in a given year than neighboring areas such as Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Proximity to the moderating influence of the Atlantic gives Miami Beach lower high temperatures and higher lows than inland areas of Florida. Other than the Florida Keys (and Key West), Miami Beach is the only U.S. city (mainland) to never report 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. Though direct strikes from hurricanes are rare (Miami has experienced only 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).

Water temperature

This chart shows the average coastal water temperature for the Atlantic Ocean by month in degrees Fahrenheit for Miami Beach based on historical measurements.

Surrounding areas

Demographics

As of 2010, there were 67,499 households out of which 30.1% were vacant. In 2000, 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 2000, the city 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 39 years. For every 100 females there were 105.0 males. For every 100 females age eighteen and over, there were 105.4 males.

In 2000, 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 at home accounted for 54.90% of residents, while those who spoke exclusively English made up 32.76%. Speakers of Portuguese were 3.38%, French 1.66%, German 1.12%, Italian 1.00%, and Russian 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 0.75%.

As of 2000, Miami Beach had the 22nd highest concentration of Cuban residents in the United States, at 20.51% of the population. It had the 28th highest percentage of Colombian residents, at 4.40% of the city's population, and the 14th highest percentage of Brazilian residents, at 2.20% of the its population (tied with Hillside, New Jersey and Hudson, Massachusetts.) It also had the 27th largest concentration of Peruvian ancestry, at 1.85%, and the 27th highest percentage of people of Venezuelan heritage, at 1.79%. Miami Beach also has the 33rd highest concentration of Honduran ancestry at 1.21% and the 41st highest percentage of Nicaraguan residents, which made up 1.03% of the population.

Transportation

Public Transportation in Miami Beach is operated by Miami-Dade Transit (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 (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 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.

Bicycling

Since the late 20th century, cycling has grown in popularity 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 bicycle sharing system 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.

Array

Education

Miami-Dade County Public Schools serves Miami Beach.

• North Beach Elementary
• Treasure Island Elementary
• South Pointe Elementary
• Mater Beach Academy
• Biscayne Elementary
• Fienberg/Fisher K - 8 Center
• Nautilus Middle School
• Miami Beach Senior High School

Private schools include Rabbi 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.

Colleges and universities

The Florida International University 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

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Neighborhoods

South Beach

• Belle Isle
• City Center
• Di Lido Island
• Flagler Monument Island
• Flamingo/Lummus
• Hibiscus Island
• Palm Island
• Rivo Alto Island
• San Marino Island
• Star Island
• South Pointe
• SoFi

Mid Beach

• Oceanfront
• Bayshore
• Nautilus

North Beach

• Biscayne Point
• Isle of Normandy
• La Gorce
• North Shore

Points of interest

• Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theatre
• Eden Roc (hotel)
• Flagler Monument Island
• Fontainebleau Hotel
• Versace Mansion (Casa Casuarina)
• Holocaust Memorial
• Lincoln Road
• Miami Beach Architectural District
• Miami Beach Botanical Garden
• Ocean Drive
• South Beach
• Wolfsonian-FIU Museum

Notable residents

Historical

• George Ade, writer
• Moses Annenberg, newspaper publisher
• Desi Arnaz, entertainer
• Walter Briggs, Sr., entrepreneur, owner of The Detroit Tigers
• Al Capone, mobster
• John S. Collins, horticulturist
• Kent Cooper, Associated Press
• James M. Cox, Governor of Ohio and presidential candidate
• Harvey Firestone, Firestone Tires
• Carl Graham Fisher, developer of Miami Beach
• Frank Gannett, Gannett Media Corporation
• Gabriel Heatter, radio commentator
• Jerry Herman, Broadway composer
• John D. Hertz, Hertz Rental Cars
• S.S. Kresge, retailer
• Albert Lasker, businessman
• Nunnally Johnson, film director
• Ring Lardner, writer
• Bernarr MacFadden, bodybuilder, owner of the Deauville Hotel
• Alex Omes, co-founder of Ultra Music Festival
• Yaxeni Oriquen-Garcia, IFBB professional bodybuilder
• James Cash Penney, department store magnate
• Irving Jacob Reuter, General Motors
• Grantland Rice, sportswriter
• Knute Rockne, football player and coach
• Damon Runyon, newspaperman and writer
• Nicholas Schenck, MGM studios
• Dutch Schultz, mobster
• Betty Viana-Adkins, IFBB professional bodybuilder
• Albert Warner, Warner Brothers studio founder
• Walter Winchell, columnist
• Garfield Wood, inventor

Sister cities

Miami Beach has 12 sister cities

• Brampton, Canada
• Almonte, Spain
• Marbella, Spain
• Fortaleza, Brazil
• Santa Marta, Colombia
• ?eský Krumlov, Czech Republic
• Nahariya, Israel
• Pescara, Italy
• Fujisawa, Japan
• Cozumel, Mexico
• Ica, Peru
• Basel, Switzerland

See also

• 8th & Ocean
• Collins Bridge
• Causeways
  • Julia Tuttle Causeway
  • Macarthur Causeway
  • Venetian Causeway
• Doral Hotel
• List of upscale shopping districts
• Miami Beach Police Department
• Miami Modern Architecture
• Miami-Dade County
• Ocean Drive

• John S. Collins
• Carl G. Fisher
• Rosie the Elephant

• A Hole in the Head, 1959 comedy film
• The Bellboy, 1960 comedy film
• Fair Game, 1995 film

• Spring Break

• South Beach Tow
• List of tallest buildings in Miami Beach

References

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. 

Gallery

External links

Official sites

• City of Miami Beach

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

Interesting Informations

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