Happy Presidents Day, Florida!

Brass band awaiting Grover Cleveland's arrival in Lakeland, Florida, 1894 (Florida State Archives)


Today, a U.S. president overlooks Florida at his own peril, but even before this state was a political battleground , our nation's leaders found their way here on a regular basis.

First was Andrew Jackson, who was Territorial governor of Florida before Florida was a state and before Jackson was president. Neither Jackson nor his wife Rachel were particularly fond of Florida, in fact, The Hermitage's website says that they "despised the climate."

Several places in Florida are named after presidents, including Polk County, which honors our 11th president, James K. Polk. Fort Pierce began as an actual fort, named after Lt. Col. Benjamin Pierce, the brother of President Franklin Pierce. The Herbert Hoover Dike holds the waters of Lake Okeechobee, and is named after the president who authorized the money to build the earthen dam after devastating hurricanes swepth through the Everglades in the 1920s. Manned space flights launch from the Kennedy Space Center, named after the president who challenged us to travel to the moon, not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

Dr. Mudd, who treated John Wilkes Booth's leg and was himelf accused of plotting against Abraham Lincoln, was held prisoner at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. Fort Jefferson was named after our 3rd president, Thomas Jefferson.

Many presidents enjoyed fishing or hunting trips to Florida as breaks from the rigors of office. Several went as far as having second homes or "little White Houses" here - the Kennedy's had a family compound in Palm Beach, Nixon had a waterfront home on Key Biscayne, and Truman favored Key West.

So for all these presidents and more who have traveled to our sunny state, we wish you an Happy Presidents Day!

Most Endangered Historic Sites - Miami Marine Stadium

Today the National Trust for Historic Preservation released their 2009 list of the Most Endangered Historic Sites in the United States. On the list is Miami Marine Stadium. To learn more about the stadium, or to help preserve this landmark, visit the Friends of Miami Marine Stadium's website, http://www.marinestadium.org/.

Should we Floridians be proud or ashamed that Florida landmarks make this list so often? In 2008, it was Vizcaya and Bonnet House. In 2007, it was Hialeah Park Race Course. We skipped 2006, but there was the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in 2005.

Florida News Stories

"Swamp Buggy fever...No antidote!" (Marco Eagle, October 19, 2008) "It was pure muck after the potatoes were dug up, perfect!"

"Using old curbs, Trilby house rises piece by piece " (St. Petersburg Times, October 20, 2008) "The Tudor-style stone cottage nestled on a bluff on a bend in the Withlacoochee River looks like something straight out of Harry Potter. With its English garden, tower, sun-faded blue columns and heavy front door handmade from 1,000-year-old pecky cypress hauled a century ago from a Florida swamp...."

"Woman returns to Breakers 65 years after her birth there" (Palm Beach Post, October 7, 2008)
"The Breakers 'a different world' for mom who gave birth there 65 years ago" (Sun Sentinel, October 8, 2008)

"Biscayne National Park celebrates 40 years" (Miami Herald, October 12, 2008)

"Distant Shores" (Biscayne Times) "Biscayne Bay may be our area’s most prominent feature, but just try getting close to it."

Alfred Browning Parker

The University of Florida is celebrating the life and continuing career of Alfred Browning Parker, noted for his Tropical Modern architecture. The exhibit "Of the Master's Hand" will be on display at the Reitz Union on the UF cumpus through October 3, followed by the exhibit "Promises of Paradise: Staging Mid-Century Miami" opening at the Harn Museum on October 11.

Alfred Browning Parker website: http://www.alfredbparker.com/home.html

"The Master of Coconut Grove": Article in Summer 2008 issue of Modernism magazine (free registration required)

"UF names endowment after alumnus, renowned Miami architect" (InsideUF, Sept. 17, 2008)

House du Rivage: a film maker looks at her experience of living in an Alfred Browing Parker house, and expands into an examination of the role architecture plays in our lives.

"Architect Teaches 'Green' Techniques: A 1940''s Architect Continues To Make 'Miami Modern Homes' Using 'Green'" with video clip

DOCOMOMO/US Florida

Stuff for a Rainy Day

While waiting for Tropical Storm Fay to pass on by...

"Hemingway Knocked Wallace Stevens into a Puddle and Bragged About It" from Littoral

"Hialeah Park and Joseph Widener, 1932" from Colin's Ghost

"Winters in Fort Myers weren't always a wonderland for Edison" from News-Press.com, August 17, 2008

"The Master of Coconut Grove" from Modernism magazine

"Painter in a Savage Land: The Strange Saga of the First European Artist in North America" a book excerpt from the Wall Street Journal, July17, 2008

Fairchild Tropical Gardens

On Old Cutler Road in Coral Gables are two wonderful parks, Matheson Hammock Park and Fairchild Tropical Gardens. Both are the creations of landscape architect William Lyman Phillips on land donated by Colonel and Mrs. Robert H. Montgomery. The tropical gardens were named in honor of David Fairchild.

Created in the 1930s and 1940s with the help of Civilian Conservation Corps workers, Phillips envisioned the Fairchild Tropical Gardens as a sort of outdoor museum with long galleries allowing both distant and close views of pieces. The gardens also served a scientific botanical purpose of allowing study of tropical plant species.


Here is the visitor center:















And the Gate House (at the original entrance):
















The Bailey Palm Glade, named in honor of Liberty Hyde Bailey:
















The Garden Club of America Ampitheater:

And a maintenance problem that Phillips didn't face:

Green iguanas have taken over the grass and wall in front of the amphitheater.


Further Reading:

Historic Landscapes of Florida, by Rocco Ceo and Joanna Lombard. Published by Deering Foundation and University of Miami School of Architecture, 2001.

Pioneer of Tropical Landscape Architecture: William Lyman Phillips in Florida, by Faith Reyher Jackson. Published by University Press of Florida, 1997.

Mayor Anton Cermak's Ill-fated Trip to Miami

Just a few feet away from the war memorial in Miami's Bayfront Park is this marker in a patch of grass.

On February 15, 1933, President-Elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke at Bayfront Park in Miami. In the crowd was Guiseppe Zangara, an Italian-born naturalized out-of-work bricklayer with anarchist tendencies. Zangara attended the rally with the intention of killing FDR, but he lost his balance at the crucial moment and ended up shooting Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak and four other people instead. Zangara was quickly arrested, and soon found guilty of assault and attempted murder. When Cermak died March 6, Zangara was found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death. Evidently the legal process was quite different then, as the execution took place March 20 at Raiford.

The University of Miami's Digital Library includes scanned FBI documents relating to the investigation of the assassination attempt. In a February 16, 1933, letter it is revealed that FDR was on Vincent Astor's yacht shortly before giving his speech in Bayfront Park.

Miami's Bayfront Park

Like many other coastal cities, Miami is located at the confluence of a river and the ocean, but the buildings can overwhelm the water. Downtown Miami does have a waterfront park, although US 1, Biscayne Boulevard, and the Metromover form a barrier between the buildings and the green space.

Bayfront Park offers quite the assortment of entertainment options, from open-air ampitheaters to trapzee lessons and hot-air balloon rides.

Bayfront Park has had a long history as a public space, all the way back to the 1920s. But it's been a tumultous past, with numerous reinventions. The most recent design is by Isamu Noguchi, dating to the 1980s. His scuptures dot the park, including one titled Slide Mantra that people obviously have been sliding down.

Dade County's World War II memorial is also located in Bayfront Park.

Sculpture at Fairchild Tropical Gardens

The work of three modern artists is on display at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, through May 31, 2008. Artworks by Fernando Botero, Roy Lichtenstein, and Dale Chihuly are scattered amongst the gardens, which are works of art themselves.


Man on Horse, by Fernando Botero



















Gilded Ikebana with Scarlet Stem and Blue Frog Foot, by Dale Chihuly



















Head, by Fernando Botero



















Niijima Floats, by Dale Chihuly



















Coup de Chapeau II, by Roy Lichtenstein



















Red Reeds, by Dale Chihuly



















Modern Head, by Roy Lichtenstein

Old Horse Racing Photos

Borrowing an idea from Railbird, I looked through the Florida Photographic Archives for old racing photos. Some highlights:

• color postcard of Gulfstream's paddock before the renovations
• a 1939 Marion Post Wolcott photo of the Hialeah toteboard (love the bugler in the lower left corner)
• Really Rugged (sire of Rugged Lark) sold as a two-year-old for $32,000 at a 1962 auction at Hialeah ractrack
• 1932 photograph of the starting line at Hialeah, using a barrier rather than starting gates. The Totalisator in the background was the first used in the United States.
• 1960s/1970s (based on the boots) photograph of a woman bugler calling the horses to the post at a Miami racetrack

Virginia Key Beach Park Re-Opens

Celebrate the Grand Re-Opening of Virginia Key Beach Park, established as a beach for African-American living in Miami in 1945!

"Freedom Beach" (Multi-media report from Miami Herald)

"Historic Virginia Key Beach Park truly is one of the special places..." (Miami Herald, February 17, 2008)

"Virginia Key Beach reopens with a splash" (Miami Herald, February 22, 2008)

Virtual Wanderings Through Florida

Various interesting sites I've happened across lately...

Miami: Reflections on the River. You can watch videos about the Miami River, and even make your own to add to the site.

Florida's Lost Tourist Attractions. 50+ homages to roadside attractions that have passed.

Historical Tampa. A Google Map showing former locations of historic buildings, site, and landmarks in Tampa.

St. Petersburg Times' Special Report on Spring Training in St. Petersburg

Spanish River Papers. Available through the Boca Raton Historical Society's website, pdf copies of their journal, dating from 1973 to 1993.

Florida Videos on the Web

Neal Hecker, with Program Services at WPBT/Channel 2 in Miami brought this website to my attention: uVu, described as "uVu is a video sharing website and companion digital broadcast channel powered by WPBT Channel 2, South Florida’s PBS station. The website consists of video content created and submitted to the site by individuals, community groups and cultural/educational institutions, which allows the community to experience, at any time, the important happenings of South Florida."

Here's a few of the videos that caught my attention, but I'm sure you'll find your own favorites.

Roadtrip to Yoder's Restaurant

MiMo Architecture

Palm Beach's Famous Doorways

Florida's Key Deer

Tour of Versailles in Little Havana

Stone Crabs

Miami Bungalows

Florida News

"Cold Snap Has Iguanas Falling From Trees In South Florida" (Tampa Tribune, January 4, 2008)

"'Fountain Of Youth' Memories Bubble In Bay" (Tampa Tribune, January 5, 2008: "Not far from where the Tampa Bay Rays hope to build a new ballpark, something is bubbling to the surface.")

"A merman rests" (St. Petersburg Times, January 4, 2008)

"A look back at Sarasota's rare snowfalls" (mysuncoast.com, January 2, 2008)

"Looking back on 1968" (Gainesville Sun, January 6, 2008: about the University of Florida)

"Preserving Melbourne's past" (Florida Today, January 6, 2008)

"Secrets of Miami Circle, known as America's Stonehenge, lie buried" (Orlando Sentinel, January 2, 2008)

"The secret islands of Pasco County" (Miami Herald, January 6, 2008)

"Tampa youth retrieves Epiphany cross in Tarpon Springs" (St. Petersburg Times, January 6, 2008)

"Florida city pushes to preserve charm of brick streets" (Savannah Morning News, December 28, 2007: about St. Augustine)

It's Cold Outside!

Well, maybe it was only a two cat night, not a three dog night, but temperatures in Florida dropped well into the freezing zone yesterday and this morning. Here in Tampa, we saw numbers in the 20s, and word is still out on how the strawberry crop fared.

It's not the coldest it's ever been here, and for youse guys up North, it's practically beach weather. But for Floridans, sub-freezing temperatures threaten livelihoods. Which is in part why Governor Crist declared a state of emergency, allowing farmers to get their crops out of the fields and to market more quickly. But, speaking optimistically, this 2008 cold snap is not a repeat of the winter of 1894-1895, when severe freezes changed the trajectory of Florida's history.

On December 29, 1894, extremely cold temperates reached far southward in Florida, as far as Palm Beach. In Tampa, the mercury dropped to 18 degrees fahrenheit. Fruit dropped from trees, blanketing the ground, and farmers lost the year's crop. This was bad enough, but on February 7, 1895, the temperatures dropped again. The trees and plants that survived the first frost had just begun to recover, sending out new, tender shoots. Whereas the first freeze destroyed one year's harvest, the second freeze killed the trees to the ground. Since it takes 5 to 10 years for citrus trees to first bear fruit, the loss was more than many farmers could overcome. When you read the histories of Florida's towns and counties, it's a common theme that after the freezes of 1894 and 1895, people left in droves, either to return North or to go further south in Florida. It took ten or more years in some cases for communities to recover from this loss. The state's citrus industry was devastated as well, with less than 150,000 boxes of fruit shipped out of state in 1895, a 97% drop from the 5,000,000 boxes shipped in 1893.

And then there's Julia Tuttle's orange blossoms.

The romantic version of the story goes something like this. Railroad magnate Henry Flagler was huddled in frigid north Florida, when he received a box from Julia Tuttle in Miami. In the box were fresh orange blossoms, proof that Miami had escaped the cold hand of nature. Inspired by the white petals, untouched by frost, Flagler then built his railroad farther south, from Palm Beach to Miami. The reality is that Flagler already knew Tuttle and and others in Miami, and was already considering extending the railroad down there, but didn't want it to detract from his hotel in Palm Beach. The freeze was the impetus for Flagler's decision to go ahead and put Miami on his map.

The weather this week hasn't been like it was 110 years ago, and farmers and grove managers have new fruit and vegetable varieties and new techniques to help weather cold temperatures. But it's prudent to remember that in Florida, a day or two of freezing temperatures can have long lasting and long reaching ramifications.

So Long, Americana

Miami's Sheraton Bal Harbour Hotel (originally the Americana) crumbled to the ground this morning.

"Rat Pack's Lair Gone in a Cloud of Dust" (Miami Herald, Nov. 18, 2007)

"Historic Hotel Goes Out With Bang" (NBC6.net, Nov. 18, 2007 -- includes video)

" Sheraton Bal Harbour Vanishes in a Cloud of Dust" (CBS4, Nov. 18, 2007 -- includes video)

"Old Americana Hotel Will Be Dust at Dawn" (Miami Herald, Nov. 18, 2007)

"While You were [Probably] Sleeping This Morning" (Stuck on the Palmetto, Nov. 18, 2007)

"Americana" (My Florida History, Feb. 16, 2007)