Historic Neighborhoods

Art Deco District

Location: Miami Beach from 1st Street to 25th Street
One of the world's greatest concentrations of 1930s architecture is home to a vibrant and diverse community. The more than 800 buildings in the square-mile bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, 23rd Street, Lenox Court and 6th Street make up the world's first 20th-century historic district. The best way to see the district is on foot, bicycle or skates. Begin your tour at the Art Deco Welcome Center.

Bal Harbour

The Village of Bal Harbour is located on the northern tip of the barrier island commonly referred to as Miami Beach. In the 1930s, city planners Harland Bartholomew & Associates were called in to design the Village. The company made several plans and they were submitted for review to Miami Beach Heights. In 1940, World War II began and the plans were put on hold. As a goodwill gesture to the government, industrialist Robert C. Graham rented the land to the United States Air Corps for $1 per year. The Air Corps used this land to train their soldiers and established a Prisoner of War camp. The ocean front area was used as a rifle range and the barracks were set up on the west side of Collins Avenue. The camp for prisoners was located where the Bal Harbour Shops are presently. The first hotel was built and was named "The Kenilworth By-the-Sea." It was built by Tom Raffington and made famous by Arthur Godfrey. It has since been demolished and is now the Kenilworth Condominium.

Bay Harbor Islands

No one interested in Mid-century Modern Architecture should miss this island enclave. Situated on two man-made islands in Biscayne Bay, the town was founded in 1947 and built up during the 1950s and 1960s. As a cohesive, human-scaled collection of Modern architecture, it is unrivaled. Take a walk down Kane Concourse, the main street, and marvel at the elegant high style Modernism. Then hop in the car, or jump on a bike, and circle the east island on Bay Harbor Drive. MiMo delights wait around every bend.

Bayside Historic District

Location: 68th to 72nd Streets between Biscayne Boulevard and Biscayne Bay. Developed over a period of more than 40 years, the houses in the Bayside Historic District reflect Miami's growth from a pioneer settlement to a significant metropolitan area. Composed of several distinct subdivisions, Bayside mimics the diversity and taste of its early residents. The Bayside Historic District contains a diverse group of buildings that utilize a variety of local materials and decorative tropical motifs. Prevalent motifs which appear in wrought iron screen doors and precast concrete vents include stylized floral and wave designs, palm trees, egrets and sunbursts. Several houses feature elaborate garage doors exhibiting flamingo, cactus and bull's-eye designs.

Buena Vista

Location: Between 42nd and 48th Streets and NE 2nd and Miami Avenues
In 1893, the Tropical Sun noted the creation of a new town called Buena Vista that was located between Lemon City and Miami. In the early days, it was known for its avocado groves, pineapple fields and packing houses. The 1915 opening of the Dixie Highway (now NE 2nd Avenue), and the arrival of the trolley three years later, spurred its transformation from agriculture to suburban development. During the 1920s, Buena Vista, like the rest of Miami, underwent a major building boom that created new neighborhoods and commercial districts.

Coconut Grove

If you think of Coconut Grove as only a trendy shopping and entertainment area, you are missing its claim to fame as Miami's oldest community. Long before there was a city of Miami, hardy sea-loving people built a small village in the tropical wilderness. Its first settlers came from the Bahamas and were soon joined by a worldly group of individualists, sailors, intellectuals, naturalists, millionaires and artists who gave the Grove its enduring identity and live-and-let-live lifestyle. Although now part of the city of Miami and threatened with over-development, its history endures in its numerous historic sites, tree-choked highways, rambling lanes and weathered stone walls. If you can join a pair of perceptive eyes with a rare type of historic tunnel vision, you can still get a glimpse of what Coconut Grove offered its pioneers more than 100 years ago and discover what sets it apart from the rest of Miami.

Coral Gables

In an era when most grand buildings had architecture borrowed from Europe, the Mediterranean Revival was an invented style, not an imported one. You might call it a pastiche, as it draws on elements of Italian, Spanish, French, Moorish and Arabian design. The idea was to conjure up images of the Old World in a tropical New World. Most architectural historians look to the beautiful El Jardin, designed by Richard Kiehnel in 1918 and now part of the Carrollton School, as the first true Mediterranean Revival building, but other examples soon followed. The visionary developer George Merrick drew up plans for his near-utopian city of Coral Gables. It was in Coral Gables, in the mid-1920s, where the Mediterranean Revival-style flourished with houses, buildings and fountains -- all designed around another time and place. The wonder was that it became the emblematic architecture of an era in Miami, and indeed throughout Florida..

Downtown Miami

Downtown Miami is Southeast Florida's most historic neighborhood. At the edge of its southern sector stands the north bank of the Miami River, which, in the course of several thousand years, has hosted a large Tequesta Indian settlement, Spanish missions, slave plantations, army forts, the home of Julia Tuttle, modern Miami's mother, and Henry M. Flagler's magnificent Royal Palm Hotel. Flagler, after accepting attractive offers of land from Tuttle and the Brickell family, who lived across the river, brought his Florida East Coast Railway to Miami in 1896, jump-starting the transformation of a tiny riverine community into an incorporated city.

Homestead/Florida City

Prior to the arrival of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway in 1904, Homestead consisted of pine trees and palmetto scrubs. Soon thereafter, the FEC platted the townsite and began selling lots, and nature gave way to a small frontier town that quickly grew up around the railroad with an agricultural-based economy derived from the nearby farms. Homestead incorporated as a town in 1913; today it is the second oldest municipality, behind Miami, in Miami-Dade County (Florida City, incorporated in 1914, is the third oldest). Downtown Homestead is home to seven properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as unique shops, art galleries, authentic Mexican and specialty restaurants and the Homestead Antique Federation. Downtown historic area walking tour maps and maps showing the locations of antique stores are available at the Old Town Hall Museum and at the Greater Homestead/Florida City Chamber of Commerce offices located upstairs above the museum.

Liberty City

The first large migration of Blacks to Liberty City began in 1937 when many families moved to the Liberty Square Housing Project, the second Federal housing project built in the U.S. The second major migration came in the late 1950s and 1960s as a result of the Black displacement caused by the expressway construction that devastated Overtown. Today, Liberty City, that was the site of the 1980 riots, is on the
verge of economic revival.

Little Haiti

Little Haiti, walled in by I-95 and the Florida East Coast Railways, spans from 54th to 87th Streets. It has a viable business district along NE 2nd Avenue, which is of great social and cultural significance to the Haitian Diaspora because it is the only geographical area in the history of Haitian immigration primarily inhabited by Haitians. It bustles with Haitian owned and operated businesses, where the aroma of Creole cooking, multi-hued artwork, the rhythm of Haitian compas, and the expressive tone of Haitian Creole greet residents and visitors alike. The name of a cultural icon graces a major thoroughfare in the heart of Little Haiti; NE 2nd Avenue is now known as “Avenue Felix Morisseau Leroy” and it leads directly to Toussaint L’ouverture Elementary School. Over a relatively short period of time, Haitians have changed the character of the neighborhood and have revitalized the area that was once known as the pre-Miami community of Lemon City.

Little Havana

Close to Downtown Miami, Little Havana, formerly known as Riverside/Shenandoah, became home to Cuban refugees in the 1960s. As Miami expanded, the neighborhood’s original Anglo and Jewish residents moved to the suburbs, making affordable housing close to work sites available for the Cubans who created a complete infrastructure. Today, history repeats itself as Cuban Americans live in every neighborhood in South Florida and other immigrants from throughout Latin America have moved into Little Havana and added to its flavor. Cigar factories, with their unique aroma, dot the area with skilled workers making the handmade premium “puros.” Supermarkets, fruit stands and bodegas (neighborhood markets) offer products from all over the Hispanic world. Flower shops mix with botanicas to offer Afro-Cuban Santeria religious items. Of course there is music, with stores and restaurants blaring the sounds of Cuban music from the oldie-goldies to Gloria Estefan. Books and magazines from the classics to Popular Mechanics are available in Spanish area bookstores. The last Friday night of each month brings Viernes Culturales/Cultural Fridays that offer art, music and street performers on Calle Ocho (between SW 14th & 17th Avenues).

Miami Shores

On December 4, 1924, at the height of the Boom, Hugh Anderson, Roy C. Wright, Ellen Spears Harris and James B. Jeffries of the Shoreland Company set a Florida real estate sales record with the sale of $2,509,170 in lots from their development dubbed Miami Shores: “Americas Mediterranean.” Their grandiose Italian-style sales office at 125 E. Flagler Street, the Shoreland Arcade (which can still be seen from its NE 1st Street
side), was located in the midst of the offices for three other major Boom era developments—Boca Raton, Hollywood-by-the-Sea and Coral Gables. At the time, the Miami Shores development included part of what is now North Miami, Bay Harbor Islands and Indian Creek Village. By the end of 1925, the Shoreland Company
boasted more than $75 million in sales—second only to Coral Gables. Many Mediterranean Revival-style homes remain with an impressive group on NE 96th Street (then known as Shoreland Boulevard).

Morningside

Morningside, Miami’s first historic district, is a wonderful collection of homes situated on wide, tree-lined streets. Launched in 1922 by Atlanta candy baron James H. Nunnally, it quickly attracted many of Miami’s most prominent citizens. A virtual Who’s Who of early architects designed the beautiful homes in mostly Mediterranean Revival-style. In the 1960s and 1970s, the neighborhood fell on hard times as new suburban subdivisions lured people away from the city. A few scrappy residents refused to let the neighborhood go and fought every attempt to “down-zone” the formerly luxurious residences into rooming houses and day care centers. Their efforts paid off when Morningside became Miami’s first historic district in 1984. Eight years later, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A ride through this highly desirable neighborhood is not only a journey through time, but also a testament to the value of civic activism.

Opa-locka

Opa-locka is one of the most unique cities in America. Founded by internationally known aviator Glenn Curtiss in 1926, it has one of the largest if not the largest collection of “Moorish Revival” architecture in America and includes 20 buildings that are listed on the National Register. Curtiss hired architect Bernhardt Muller to design the buildings and Clinton McKenzie to do the town plan. Although many of the original buildings have been altered, several outstanding structures have been recently restored. The city also has an adjacent area settled by Black World War II veterans called Bunche Park, named in honor of Ralph Bunche. Today, Opa-locka is predominantly a Black municipality, with predominantly Black political leadership and city administration. Each
year, the city celebrates its roots with an Arabian Nights Festival.

Overtown

Black men who stood for incorporation of the City of Miami built this community across the railroad tracks in 1896. Known then as “Colored Town,” Overtown grew and developed into a vibrant community anchored by churches and retail and entertainment establishments. Over the years, Overtown lost its magic to desegregation and urban renewal and many buildings fell into disrepair. Today, public and private partnerships are working together in the development of an “in-town” residential community with affordable housing adjacent to Downtown. The Black Archives of South Florida provided the research to place six Overtown buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. The pioneer churches are Overtown’s anchors.

Sunny Isles Beach

Sunny Isles Beach, the City of Sun and Sea, is located on a barrier island in the northeast corner of Miami-Dade County, bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Intracoastal Waterway on the west. Golden Beach lies to the north, Bal Harbour and Haulover Park are immediately to the south.

Surfside

The Town of Surfside is a beautiful oceanfront community located in the tropical paradise of South Florida. The Town was incorporated in 1935 and is home to approximately 5,800 residents. The Town of Surfside includes a tranquil, attractive, residential neighborhood, multi-family establishments, a traditional "home town" business district and tourist facilities that welcome visitors year round.