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    Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach
    Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach
    Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach
    Ebook229 pages1 hour

    Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach

    By Seth H Bramson

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    About this ebook

    Miami Beach is unrivaled in the annals of American resort history, and nobody in the country can tell its story better than renowned local historian and resident of Miami for more than six decades Seth H. Bramson. From the 1870 arrival of the Lums on an inhospitable mangrove sandbar to a modern-day hospitality mecca, enjoy this beachfront view of the people and places, booms and busts, reinventions and rebirths of one of the greatest resort cities on earth. Featuring nearly two hundred stunning images drawn mostly from previously unpublished private collections, this is truly a one-of-a-kind trip to Miami Beach.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2009
    ISBN9781625843340
    Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach
    Author

    Seth H Bramson

    Seth Bramson is Miami's foremost local historian. He is America's single most-published Florida history book author, with sixteen of his twenty-two books dealing directly with the villages, towns, cities, counties, people and businesses of the South Florida Gold Coast. Bob Jensen retired in Homestead as a Navy Commander after serving 28 years. He served in Germany, the Philippines, the US Embassy in Cyprus, Iceland, and twice at the National Security Agency and at Naval Security Group Headquarters in Washington D.C.

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      Book preview

      Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake - Seth H Bramson

      Bramson.

      INTRODUCTION

      The story of Miami Beach has been told no few times. Some of those tales have been intriguing (Polly Redford’s Billion-Dollar Sandbar a prime example), and one (Miami Beach in Rhyme) was marvelously unique in that it told the reader about Miami Beach in a series of poems. Yet another, The Miracle of Miami Beach, was written by Miami Beach’s first mayor, J.N. Lummus. It is possible, though, that Charles Edgar Nash’s The Magic of Miami Beach, published in 1938, just twenty-five years after the city’s incorporation, may have been the first. Each of those volumes was, to quote a beloved personage, fascinating!

      It is possible—even likely—that more words have been written about Miami Beach—its people, politics, hotels, restaurants, clubs, schools, streets and homes—than about any other place or city of its size in America. But this book is unlike any of the others, including my previous Images of America: Miami Beach, because once the formalities of chronology are dispensed with, this book moves on to a Miami Beach that most people have not thought about for years and, in many cases, have never seen: views and scenes of various streets; of and from the churches, temples and schools; and of the clubs, restaurants, hotels and businesses. In short, this book is not just about the history of the city but also the history of everything that contributed to its becoming what it is today, including so many of the people.

      Even casual Miami Beachphiles are aware of the city’s beginnings, starting with the arrival of the Lums in 1870, and while Miami Beach’s most famous pioneer names—Field and Osborne, Collins and Pancoast, the Lummus (Lum-miss, NOT Loom-miss) brothers, Carl Fisher, John Levi, Pete Chase, Henri Levy, Claude Renshaw, Steve Hannagan, Avery Smith, Dan Hardie, Jenny and Joe Weiss—readily roll off the tongue, this book focuses on those who have been previously overlooked. Indeed, names such as Bessie and Hyman Galbut and their four sons; Jesse Weiss, his daughter JoAnn Bass and her son, Steve Sawitz; the Tatum brothers; Hank Meyer; James Allison; and a multitude of Miami Beach characters will be brought to life so that readers may understand what they did to build a great city.

      The original visions of what the island across Biscayne Bay from the mainland would be used for included coconut, papaya, avocado, truck (produce) and citrus plantations—none of which, ultimately, were successful—and it would only be Carl Fisher’s faith in himself and his ability to build a city that would begin the evolution of what had been called East Miami, Altonia, Alton Beach and Ocean Beach into what it is today.

      The Jewish influence on the life of the city becomes important beginning in the 1920s with the opening, in 1921, of the first Jewish-owned hotel, the Nemo, at First Street and Collins Avenue. Prior to the construction of Miami Beach’s first temple, Beth Jacob, which opened in 1929 at 311 Washington Avenue, services were being conducted on the third floor of the David Court Hotel, at 56 Washington Avenue, likely beginning sometime in late 1927. Additionally, the part that Miami Beach High School and the Hebrew Academy played and plays in the life of Miami Beach is looked at, along with the misguided thinking that allowed an untoward number of the city’s clubs and hotels—some of them into the 1970s—to exclude Jewish patrons with advertising that included such couched phrases as Restricted Clientele or A guest list that is suitably restricted in their advertising.

      The range of hotels, clubs and restaurants was astounding for a resort city that effectively shut down from mid-April through early December almost from its beginnings until the early 1950s. The effect on the freestanding nightclubs of the introduction of the modified American plan (two meals daily included with the room) by so many Miami Beach hotels—and, later, the effect of the high-rise apartment houses and condos on the hotels—will also be noted.

      Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake is not just about the history of Miami Beach. It is also about the life and times, the ups and downs, the reinventions and the rebirths of one of the greatest resort cities on earth and a city that is today one of the world’s hottest destinations.

      Besides the immense resource that is my collection (the largest private collection of Greater Miami/Miami Beach memorabilia in America), numerous other entities and individuals were called upon to participate in this effort, and almost all of them did so warmly and willingly, giving the book a singular cachet for its uniqueness and originality.

      So sit back, relax and join me for a trip through time, nostalgia and memories as page after page brings back thoughts and images of a place that, while it certainly has changed, continues to exert a powerful hold on anybody who has ever lived on or visited it. To this day, there is nothing and no place like Miami Beach, Florida.

      BCF (BEFORE CARL FISHER)

      What was it like before the commercial era arrived? The word paradise comes readily to mind, but the fact and truth is that while there was certainly an element of romance and intrigue to that beautiful and not insubstantial sandbar (technically, Miami Beach is actually one of the most northerly of the islands that parallel the lower east coast of Florida and continue all the way southwest to Cayo Hueso—Key West), it was covered with inhospitable flora and potentially deadly fauna, well removed from being a

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