The Rough Guide to Miami - Softcover

Chilcoat, Loretta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843531372 ISBN 13: 9781843531371

Publisher: Rough Guides, 2003

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INTRODUCTION

Miami is a gorgeous, gaudy city, resting on the edge of the Caribbean like a tropical paradise, at least climate-wise. The people on the beach are as tan and toned as they are on TV, and the weather rarely dips below balmy; there are lazy palm trees everywhere, and wide, golden beaches spacious enough to seem empty even on a sweltering Sunday in high season. And, for a place built on holidays and hype, Miami lives up to, and revels in, every clich�: sleek Art Deco hotels; pumping, hedonistic nightlife; caf�s full of aspiring models – you’ll likely see all these things even during a brief stay. Miami’s not all beaches and beautiful people, though; what few visitors expect is the city’s diversity, exhibited in its glorious tropical gardens and excellent modern art museums, plus vibrant Cuban and Haitian immigrant communities.

Founded little more than a century ago, Miami has grown up fast from its beginning as a humble trading post, first losing its backwater feel with the extension of Henry Flagler’s railroad in 1896. In the 1920s, local businessmen aggressively seized the chance to capitalize on the new vogue for vacations in the sun, and a hotel building boom in Miami Beach ensued, producing some of the greatest Art Deco masterpieces in the country. Aside from a brief period during World War II, Miami remained a prime vacation destination until the early 1960s, when the first wave of Cuban refugees arrived, fleeing a newly installed Fidel Castro and his communist regime. This set the stage for a further flood of immigrants from Cuba and other Latin American countries; indeed, more than half of Miami-Dade County’s current population was born overseas. Because of this, to many further north, Miami is seen as barely part of the US, a place that’s tropically lawless and suspiciously bilingual.Yet at the heart of the city is a glorious contradiction: to Venezuelans, Peruvians and other new Latin arrivals, it’s a quintessentially American town, ordered, safe and filled with opportunity.

In some ways, both sides are right. In addition to dealing with its transformation into a multi-ethnic metropolis over the course of a few furious decades, Miami endured violent, headline-grabbing race riots, an alarming murder rate that was at one point the nation’s highest, and a role as a prominent port-of-entry for the drug trade. However, by the 1990s the situation was improving, thanks to a stronger local economy and a number of city revitalization projects. Miami’s makeover as a hip, hot city was cemented when South Beach was "discovered" by fashion photographers, bringing swarms of beautiful people, both models and visitors, in their wake. Some of that glamorous sheen has already, perhaps inevitably, worn off, but so have some of the more damaging parts of the city’s reputation – making for a constant and welcome defying of expectations for the casual visitor.

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About the Author:

Mark Ellwood has contributed to several other North American Rough Guide titles, including California, USA, San Francisco and Florida. He writes regularly for newspapers and magazines, both in the US and UK.

NEIGHBORHOODS AND ORIENTATION

Radiating out from the mouth of the Miami River and stretched along the sandbanks sheltering Biscayne Bay from the ocean, Miami is an enormous city, comprised of dozens of small, dense districts. While its central neighborhoods are minutes’ drive from each other, Greater Miami is a large city that’s only getting larger. In fact, Metro-Dade County is the size of Rhode Island, and the sprawling suburbs in its western district are some of the fastest-growing in America.

Miami’s most famous district is South Beach, where Art Deco buildings and decadent lifestyle made headlines and much money for the city during the 1990s. It’s still likely to be the place where you spend the most time: a huge number of the city’s hotels are grouped together here, and the strip of Art Deco buildings along Ocean Drive is iconically Miami. The rest of Miami Beach – both central and north – is often ignored, condemned for its forest of monolithic condo buildings. That’s a shame, as the area is home to notable Miami Modern architecture such as the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels, as well as some of the best beaches in the city, especially further north in Sunny Isles Beach and Haulover Park.

Across Biscayne Bay from Miami Beach, downtown prominently displays the Latin heart of the city, bustling with Spanish-speaking businesses and small Cuban lunch counters; most major sights can be found along its central artery, Flagler Street. To the north of downtown stand two neighborhoods poised to explode: concerted effort by developers has pumped the Design District full of showrooms, housewares stores, and witty modern architecture; meanwhile, Little Haiti, with its deep history and vibrant immigrant culture, makes few tourist concessions – and for that reason alone is attracting increasing numbers of travelers. Southwest from downtown, just across the river, lies Little Havana, a residential neighborhood of sherbert-colored houses that became the first home of Cuban refugees as they arrived in America. It’s still the immigrant heart of the city, though with an increasingly diverse Latin population. Southeast from here, the Rickenbacker Causeway leads out from downtown to Key Biscayne, a tony island on the bay whose smart central village is sandwiched between Miami’s two best parks.

On the city’s southern extreme stands Coconut Grove, the earliest settlement in the area and an artsier, more bohemian place than much of Miami. It’s not the counterculture hotbed it once was, but it is home to two of the city’s most intriguing sights – the Barnacle and Villa Vizcaya. West from here, the city of Coral Gables – which technically isn’t Miami at all – is a Spanish-inspired confection of Mediterranean Revival mansions and grand civic amenities. The brainchild of one man, George Merrick, it’s an eccentric exercise in ego and enthusiasm – not to mention home to many second-generation Cuban-Americans.

To the south, as the suburb of South Miami blends with the outskirts of neighboring Homestead, there are several major gardens and animal parks amid the vast stretches of farmland. Here you’ll also find the beginning of the road that snakes down past the Everglades, leading to the laid-back islands collectively known as the Florida Keys, capped by the old town of Key West. North of Miami, an easy day-trip is Fort Lauderdale, a once hard-partying town that’s now peaceful and gleaming.

Miami has two area codes: the original t305 has been joined by t786. If dialing from one code to another, you’ll need to dial the full number even for local calls. Note, too, that although the Keys share the same code, calling Key West from Miami is charged as a long distance call.

CLIMATE AND WHEN TO VISIT

Miami’s weather is tropically warm throughout the year: its tender winters have brought snowbirds down from the Northeast for more than a hundred years. High season is January through March, when the weather hovers around 80�F (27�C) and rainfall and humidity are low; it’s also when crowd-pulling events like the Winter Music Conference and the Miami Film Festival are held.

June through August is often unbearably hot, plus stiflingly humid, and hotel rates are not surprisingly rock-bottom. The hurricane season is traditionally May through October, with the occasional flurry in November. Don’t fret, though: warning systems are now sophisticated enough that even should a heavy storm roll in while you’re there, you’ll be alerted in ample time. The best times to visit may well be the shoulder seasons – April, May, October and November; the weather’s good, if not flawless, and the hotel bargains still plentiful.

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