Week Six- Saving South Beach

A week ago Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story opened in theatres. Allegedly the movie discusses how unrestrained capitalism has led to this country’s current economic frustrations. This week for class M. Barron Stofik’s Saving South Beach traces how capitalism simultaneously jeopardized and revitalized a dying community known as Miami Beach and South Beach in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Stofik concludes her work by stating that “in the end, capitalism threatened to demolish South Beach; capitalism saved the hotels and apartments, and capitalism had wrought its extreme makeover,” (Stofik, 249). Ultimately, both Stofik and Moore were largely correct.

M. Barron Stofik’s Saving South Beach is a narrative history of how Miami Beach and South Beach were shaped by the three-decade debate over the Art Deco district. In the 1930s a variety of resorts and buildings were constructed to attract any potential customers not made destitute by the Great Depression. In 1966 the architectural style was titled Art Deco. However, by the 1970s many of the buildings were run down and dilapidated. They were also populated by elderly Jewish citizens and Cuban refugees living off of Social Security or pensions; this hurt the city’s possible image as a young, vibrant escape for tourists. Developers wanted to tear down the Art Deco buildings and build newer, sleeker, more expensive hotels and condominiums to attract new clientele. This would force many of the current residents to relocate to unspecified areas. Miami Beach residents saw this as a threat to their community and organized preservation groups to save the Art Deco buildings so that they could save their homes and neighborhoods. In conclusion there were victories and losses. Private hotel owners like Abe Resnick who did not see historic value in buildings only forty years old demolished a prime example of 1930s architecture, like The New Yorker. However, ultimately preservation won out over development and the TV show Miami Vice spiced up the city’s image. Contractors, forced by districting legislation, refurbished and renovated Art Deco buildings. Tourists started to once again flock to Miami Beach and South Beach. It was historic preservation that saved the area and injected millions of dollars in revenue to the city; all that development had been hoping to accomplish.

One lesson for public historians to learn is that of shared authority and how to work with developers and contractors. Barbara Capitman, along with others, started the historic preservation movement in Dade County. However, her brash behavior and “my way or the highway” attitude regularly resulted in conflict between herself, Abe Resnick, city officials, and others. In the end she was hardly ever elected to any position of power, despite her enthusiasm and commitment. Instead Nancy Liebman became the elected face of preservation in the community. Her kind smile won over opponents. The old adage “more flies with honey” certainly rang true for this story.

In the end this story was one of economics and two minorities that developers believed were disposable: elderly Jews on severely limited incomes and Cuban refugees. Legislation that saved Art Deco buildings forced contractors to seek economic opportunity within limitations that proved to save South Beach. This comes as no surprise, similar things happened in Denver, Charleston, Savannah, and other areas around the country that used history to attract consumers. However, unlike Boston or Atlanta that preserved buildings associated with people or events, South Beach did not have historic figures to justify the saving of buildings, only architectural uniqueness and community importance- a much harder sell. Stofik concludes her book by stating that most of the Jewish community has moved on, either through death or economic push outs. Similar fates awaited the Cubans but because they had created neighborhoods of families and kinships Cubans had been much harder to move and some were entering a time of economic stability and prosperity. Incredibly readable, Saving South Beach outlines how communities revolve around buildings and how the constructions become as much a part of the community as the people who inhabit them.