Thoughts on promoting a sense of place.

By Antolín García Carbonell, R.A.

The Bay

Biscayne Bay has been an attraction to visitors since the 16^th century when Spanish galleons stopped to replenish their water tanks before crossing the Atlantic. Julia Tuttle saw its potential as the heart of a great city while visiting her father, Charles Torrey Simpson studied its mangroves and migrating birds and taught us how to live in the tropics, Vivian Larramore Rader wrote poems about the clouds that cast shadows on its waters and the moon in her backyard’s mango trees and validated our sense of place, Christo and Jean Claude wrapped its islands in pink polypropolyne and made it into a work of art. They all changed how we view Miami’s greatest asset. They all lived or worked in North East Miami.

The River

Little River provided the easiest access from the bay, past the mangroves onto dry land on the coastal ridge. The Tekesta paddled their canoes upstream to a mound in today’s El Portal, American settlers in the 1870’s used to take their citrus to market before the railroads came, bootleggers in the 1920’s used it to bring in liquor, boatyards still sell recreational craft from its north bank and throughout, manatees have swum upstream in season.

The Settlements

Dry land with waterfront access has always been desirable in South Florida. Lemon City, along N.E. 61^st Street was the only place in the upper bay where this happened naturally. In 1889, this became our first urban center. The Florida East Coast Railroad in 1896 built stations at Buena Vista ( N.E. 36^th Street) , Lemon City (N.E. 59^th Street), Little River (N.E. 79^th Street), and Biscayne (N.E. 103^rd Street). These stations became the core our earliest settlements.

The Road

The U.S. Army blazed the Military Trail between Fort Lauderdale and Fort Dallas on the Miami River along the coastal ridge in 1857, building the first bridge over Little River. In 1892, Dade County built its first paved road between Lantana and Lemon City using this same general alignment. In 1925, the U.S. government built the highway now known as U.S. 1. It incorporated the alignment of the 1892 county road between N.E. 90^th Street and N.E. 61^st Street. At N.E. 55^th Street, it met up with a privately developed road called Biscayne Boulevard. It is still known as Biscayne Boulevard from downtown Miami to the Broward county line.

The People

Julia Tuttle: Fell in love with South Florida while visiting her father, Ephraim Sturvestant at his Biscayne farm between Biscayne Bay and the Military Trail around N.E. 100^th Street. She eventually settled in Miami and acquired land all over North East Miami that became part of the deal that brought the Florida East Coast Railroad to Miami.

Charles Torrey Simpson: Built a house he designed in 1903 on land he owned along N.E. 69th Street between the Lantana-Lemon City Road and Biscayne Bay. He catalogued the mangroves along the bay and Little River and documented the many varieties of plants growing in his neighborhood, promoting their use to newcomers. He hosted nature photographer John Kunkle Small and David Fairchild and his father-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell at his home, the Sentinnels. In later years, the first meetings to save a portion of the Everglades as a park took place in this house. The ecological movement in South Florida started on N.E. 69^th Street. Only one tree he planted survives on the grounds of the Palm Bay Club.

Vivian Larramore Rader: Moved to Miami in 1920 and became poetry editor for the Miami News, publishing a weekly column, Miami Muse. After she was named Florida’s Poet laureate in 1930, she started regular poetry readings and workshops at her homes, first on N.E. 35^th Street and then at 8260 East Dixie Highway until she died in 1974. Mrs. Rader promoted Florida imagery in poetry, validating its use as a literary place making device. Her workshops prefigured the creative writing programs now offered in academic settings.

Christo and Jean-Claude: Fell in love with the islands in Biscayne Bay in the early 80’s and conceived the Surrounded Islands project, taking their cue for the pink polypropolyne petals, from among other sources, Architect Laurinda Spear’s Pink House on Biscayne Bay at N.E. 93^rd Street. The Surrounded Islands, along with Art-Deco and later Miami Vice, contributed to turning Miami’s image around after the riots and drug wars of the early 80’s. The islands involved in this project have been restored and replanted with native vegetation by Miami-Dade County’s Department of Environmental Regulation. The neighborhoods of north East Miami have numerous parks and 3 boat ramps for the public to view and visit these islands.

The Institutions

Cushman School: Founded in 1924 by the Cushman family, and displaced to its present location the following year by construction of Biscayne Boulevard it has maintained its high educational standards for over 80 years. Cushman family members still live in Belle Meade. Its main school building, designed by Architect T.R. Pancoast received historic designation prior to the creation of the MiMo-Biscayne Boulevard Historic District. º

Playboy Club: In 1963 Playboy Club founder Hugh Heffner opened the first franchise of his Chicago Club at the former Saratoga Inn on Biscayne Boulevard next to the Little River Bridge. The club’s non-discrimination policy set it at odds with Miami’s white establishment in the waning days of Jim Crow. While in its early years it provided a venue for top entertainment, by the mid 1960’s, it had become a catalyst for attracting prostitutes and later drug dealers from their previous haunts on N.W. 79^th Street to the sidewalks and motels of Biscayne Boulevard. The club finally closed in 1978. Only a retaining wall remains of the original building.

The Architecture

In the summer of 2006 the city of Miami 27 blocks of Biscayne Boulevard Miami’s first commercial historic district. There are 115 buildings within its boundaries, but only 65 are classified as contributing. The MiMo-Biscayne Boulevard Historic Designation Report contains extensive descriptions and histories of individual buildings, building types and styles. Some of the adjacent neighborhoods constitute historic districts, but residential examples of the same architectural styles are present throughout North East Miami. The main styles are:

Mediterranean Revival: Most of these residences and commercial buildings are clustered around the Cushman School in Morningside between 55^th and 60^th Streets.

Art Deco: There is a cluster of 3-story hotels and 2-story mixed use buildings between N.E. 71^st and 74^th Streets.

MiMo: Approximately 16 out of over 20 motels designed in this style survive long the length of Biscayne Boulevard. The surviving dynamic, multi-colored neon signs on pylons or building facades constitutes the most memorable architectural component of this district.