If you’re tuned into what’s hot, you’ve probably heard the siren call of the neon art deco dazzle of South Beach.
In earlier times, Baby Boomers yearned to go “where the boys are”–Ft. Lauderdale and later Daytona Beach–or thought California’s Venice Beach was cool. But in the mid-1990s, this 120 square blocks on the island of Miami Beach is where the action is–at least for awhile.
Don’t think of this as yet another Florida spring break getaway. Certainly college kids are here. The streets are filled with string bikinis, backward baseball caps and pecs the size of cocker spaniels.
But it’s also glitterati like Madonna and Prince or whatever he’s called these days. It’s photo shoots, more models than you can count–all built like pythons–Rollerblades; rum drinks; gay beach volleyball; “The Birdcage” movie; chemicals you never imagined in your 11th-grade lab; MTV; the rumble of Harleys on Ocean Drive; “Flash Gordon fantasy architecture”; short-shorts; Washington Street nightclubs that stay open until 5 a.m.; America’s most beautiful, most dissipated, most star-crazed Eurocash and Eurotrash; Cuban wheeler-dealers, Colombians, Nicaraguans.
South Beach is no rerun of the same-old-same-old–sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. It’s that, sure. But it’s a lot more. And it’s cranked up to hyperspeed, hyperglitz and hypersalsa reggae.
They call it SoBe. And it’s the place that breaks the rules.
South Beach is international. Half the people speak Spanish–Cubans and other Latin Americans. And it’s a get-there-or-be-square destination for Europeans, particularly Germans.
The Europeans, who think nothing of topless bathing, helped change South Beach’s unofficial policy on strapless tans. The cops now simply turn their heads . . . well, maybe they just don’t flash their badges.
It’s not the best place for kids. Beyond the beach, there’s not much for them to do except buy them a $2 Coke. Take them to Disney World, Cedar Point or Six Flags over something. South Beach is not dangerous for children, but it might be, well, awkward.
A young couple I know recently ventured out on the sand at South Beach with their three kids–ages 14, 12 and 9. Trudging along with their beach towels, umbrella and cooler, they suddenly encountered a bare-breasted woman.
The dad’s response: Gulp. “Hey kids, look at the ocean.”
South Beach has not always been Trend Center, USA.
Not so many years ago, it was a run-down slum, populated by drug dealers, criminals, Third World escapees and increasingly frightened retirees.
The area’s superb Art Deco architecture, almost all built between 1934 and 1941, and Mediterranean Revival, were considered undesirable kitsch. The so-called Flash Gordon modern buildings had been falling into disrepair since the 1950s. And, increasingly, they had devolved into crack houses, rat-choked retirement hotels and government-subsidized homes for the mentally ill.
What killed South Beach was the construction of mega, refrigerator-box hotels farther north on the island. South Beach’s small, low-rise hotels–built for budget-minded vacationers–could not compete. They had no pools, no air-conditioning and no restaurants.
But by the mid-1980s, a number of factors came together to turn the area around–architectural preservationists, the gay community and “Miami Vice.”
A movement was begun to save the remaining 800 Art Deco buildings, and the area was placed on the National Register of Historic Places–the youngest ever. Rehabilitation was begun.
The gay community, many of its members artists and entrepreneurs, started to move in during the late 1980s. They wanted cheap, hip places to live and set up clubs.
“The embryonic rebirth of the community can be attributed to the gay clubs,” said James King, 35, a five-year veteran waiter and self-styled area historian. One of the longtime clubs still on the scene is the Warsaw Ballroom.
The one-time barrio of hard times blossomed into a watercolorist’s palette, and the night life became vibrant–now with about 50 nightclubs and 100 restaurants.
“Miami Vice” came in 1984. It was television’s hottest series. And, every week, the world clicked into Don Johnson and South Beach. The show not only featured South Beach, it pumped millions into the neighborhood and even paid some owners to repaint their buildings in the pastel colors that gave the show its distinctive electric-pastel look.
Certainly the rehabilitation is not complete. Some buildings, even on showplace Ocean Drive, still lie in disrepair. But every day, visitors take organized tours through what has become an art deco wonderland.
South Beach became hotter as more and more big names moved in, tying into hotels, clubs and restaurants. In the News Cafe and Mezzaluna, their names are like mantra. Gloria Estefan, who is local royalty, and her Ocean Drive restaurant Lario’s and Hotel Cardozo.
Madonna with the Blue Room restaurant in the Delano Hotel, a place so cool it doesn’t have the name on the outside. Burt Reynolds made a stab at starting a restaurant but failed. Prince with the Glam Slam club, which was closed at the beginning of the year for lewd activity.
Ralph Lauren with the Astor Hotel. Sean Penn with a club called Bash. And designer Gianni Versace, who picked up a Mediterranean Revival palace on Ocean Drive. The list goes on.
Movies were shot there–“The Birdcage” with Robin Williams was the most recent. The list includes “True Lies” with Arnold Schwarzenegger, “The Specialist” with Sylvester Stallone and “Bad Boys.”
And in recent years, South Beach has become one of the national hubs for photographers, modeling agencies and, of course, uncountable models. One modeling agency estimated that 1,500 models live in the tiny South Beach area.
Owners of open-air veranda restaurants on Ocean Drive would urge the models to sit at their tables, on display to passing crowds.
Nice eyeballing. But for waiters who live on table turnover and tips, it’s a drag. “They just sit there all day long. All of them as skinny as a rail with just a glass of wine and a piece of lettuce,” King said.
By one report, South Beach at one time had 22 modeling agencies. It still has more than a dozen, including biggies like Ford and Elite.
So days of just strolling along Ocean Drive between 6th and 17th is a treat–to one side the veranda restaurants and bars, to the other a park fronting the beach, with a constant ebb and flow of Rollerbladers, strollers, gawkers, runners, bicyclists and oldsters trying not to be bowled over.
And while days may seem phantasmagoric, filled with buff bodies and Rollerblades, nights are much of what South Beach is all about.
The action does not start until late–10, 11, midnight–and then can run until almost dawn. Insiders say Fridays and Saturdays tend to be nights thick with “bridge and tunnel people”–visitors from the suburbs. The real action tends to be on Sundays and weeknights.
Many of the clubs are gay or have gay nights, including the Warsaw Ballroom, Twist and Amnesia.
As hot as South Beach has been, it’s likely to go on for awhile as the destination. But trendy is, by definition, short-lived. And signs already are appearing that it won’t be hot forever.
Real estate prices are jumping. Rents have hopped 20 percent a year for the last four years, making it much more expensive to live here. Building prices are soaring too. The asking price of one Art Deco office building on Collins Avenue rose from $800,000 in the late 1980s to $1.3 million last year.
“Rents are getting so high, people are moving to Miami,” said Joe Sokoloff, a lifetime resident who works in the Art Deco Welcome Center.
South Beach “has been the place to be for three or four years,” King said. “As a trend-setting neighborhood, its heyday is now.
“I’m not sick of it. But it’s getting to be old hat.”
