Feature Story
Downtown for Locals and Visitors
Downtown is diversity — architectural, socioeconomic, generational, ideological, and ethnic. Splendorous and edgy. An illustrated tour in six chapters.
Chapter 1: Definitions
Not seldom overlooked by visitors in search of more flashy adjectives, partying South Beach, artsy Wynwood, posh Design District, even Brickell, the Manhattan of the South. “Downtown needs no hyperbole,” a poet told me. “Downtown is a state of mind in perpetual evolution.”
I set out to discover that poetic state of mind. It all starts with definitions. There are more than one for Downtown. When locals speak of Downtown, it’s the Central Business District plus Park West and the Miami World Center — the Downtown proper.
Others define it by prefixing Greater, as in the Greater Downtown encompasses Brickell, the Downtown proper and Edgewater. For the world at large, Downtown is the urban core, stretching from Brickell to Midtown and from the Design District to Wynwood.
More than a Geographical Designation
Downtown is an economy revolving around tech, finance, real estate, the law, a large government bureaucracy, culture and hospitality — not for nothing the Port of Miami is the world’s cruises epicenter, and in the words of Julia Tuttle, Miami’s founder, “the Gateway to the World.”
The greater Downtown accounts for 110,000 residents, of which 30,000 are concentrated in the Downtown proper. Downtowners are mostly young professionals with an average annual income upwards of $110,000. Also, Downtown accounts for 250,000 day-visitors.
Chapter 2: A Walking Perspective
The Tequesta lived in the area thousands of years. Ponce de Leon first met the Tequesta in 1513. Ponce de Leon was looking for gold, so, despite the friendly greetings and abundant lobster, he left for gold’s second best, the fountain of youth. Alas, a poisoned arrow to the neck killed him before he found it. “No worries,” suggests a poet, “rejuvenation surgery abounds in town.”
People say Miami has no history beyond the 127 years since incorporation, but new archeological findings suggest a history dating back past the Mayans, the Incas, even past the Egyptian pyramids and the very history of writing.
The City of Miami was incorporated in 1896, and it boomed as if by magic — hence the appellation Magic City. Julia Tuttle offered half of her 644 acres to Henry Flagler, the current Central Business District, in exchange for his train and building her city. More than fifty centenarian buildings bear witness to an audacious history and indomitable natural forces. The word hurricane means evil spirit of the sea in the Taino Language.
Grand old buildings have been restored and preserved through repurposing. The Old Post Office and Court house, 1912, is one example. Restored, now hosts Bar Real and Biscayne Brewery, and there is more to come, provided incalculable city and county inspections and permits arrive. “Getting a city permit can take up to two years,” said an entrepreneur forced to close his business before it opened.
In dramatic contrast, glassy high-rises reflect urban affluence — Downtown Miami is fast becoming, as Mayor Francis Suarez insists, the Global City — the world’s capital of fintech, crypto, etc. “Hyperbole is a word engraved in the city’s DNA,” philosophizes the poet. “But contrary to lying, hyperbole is augmented reality, and, indeed, more and more of the world’s super-rich and celebrities call Downtown Miami home, David Becham to mention one.”
Baywalk
The Baywalk will take you from the Miami River to world-class museums. Biscayne Bay — a bit damaged but still the main attraction in turquoise and silvery tones — will surprise you with its fauna.
Bayfront Park
The Baywalk traverses the park when events don’t close it. Currently the case: closed to locals and visitors for the ULTRA Music Festival.
Bayside Marketplace
Modeled after Boston’s Quincy Market and the Harborplace in Baltimore, Bayside Marketplace was built within Bayfront Park and around the existing Marina in an L-shape with the octagonal Hard Rock Cafe to the south. The official brochure assures Bayside Marketplace is the number one Miami tourist destination. The first thing to catch your attention will be the Wheel towering almost 200 feet to offer great views of Biscayne Bay, Bayfront Park, and Downtown skyline. It has 42 enclosed and climate-controlled Gondolas, including one VIP Gondola that features leather bucket seats and a glass bottom floor.
As you continue walking north, an army of agents will come at you offering boat cruises, bus trips, Caribbean, Italian, all-American food, snakes and parrots for a selfie, mojitos, ice-cold beer, and CBD products — bilingual staff push their prodigious properties, “come, come, get your marihuana in cookies and gummies for pain, sleep disorders or just to get high.”
Miami-Dade Arena
Then comes the Miami-Dade Arena, home to the Miami Heats, formerly known as American Airlines Arena and FTX Arena. Proof irrefutable that Miami is in constant flux. A local resident has a word of advice: “Beware of the uneven sidewalk near giant palms on Biscayne Boulevard in front of the Arena. The walking surface is rippled due to the roots of the palms. I have seen people stumble.”
Murice Ferré Park is next. Formerly known as Museums Park for the two museums it harbors, Perez Art Museum Miami and the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science.
Chapter 3: Cultural Magnet
Science Museum
Occupying the northwest corner of Maurice Ferré Park, Frost Science has an aquarium and a planetarium. The Gulf Stream Aquarium spans three floors and includes an oculus and an open tank at the rooftop where one can spy hammerhead sharks and stingrays. Frost Science, the CEO said, aims to inspire an appreciation for the impact science and technology have on every facet of our world. Interactive, state-of-the-art multimedia, Frost Science is a family must.
In addition to staging great exhibits, Frost Science is now a serious research center and the community’s scientific educator. As part of its Live @ Frost Science series, for example, Dr. Cornell, a Nobel Laureate in physics, recently gave an illustrated lecture at the Planetarium on the origins of the universe, attracting a huge crowd of children and adults.
Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)
“The Pérez Art Museum Miami promotes artistic expression and the exchange of ideas, advancing public knowledge and appreciation of art, architecture and design, and reflecting a diverse community of its pivotal geographic location at the crossroads of the Americas,” said Director Franklin Sirmans. PAMM was designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, drawing inspiration from the iconic Stiltsville homes built offshore in the southern part of Biscayne Bay. The Museum alone is worth the visit. The collections focus on international modern and contemporary art from the U.S. Hispanic experience, the African diaspora, Latin America and the Caribbean.
LOVE IS CALLING exemplifies the breadth of Yayoi Kusama’ visual vocabulary — from the signature polka dots and soft sculptures to brilliant colors, the spoken word, and, most importantly, endless reflections and the illusion of space. Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Matsumoto, Japan) has interwoven ideas of Pop art, Minimalism, and psychedelia throughout her paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, designs, and architectural interventions. March 9, 2023 — February 11, 2024.
George Segal’s Abraham’s Farewell to Ishmael. Mariano Rodriguez, from Mariano: Variation on a Theme. Perez Art Museum Miami, PAMM.org. Photos by Aurea Veras.
Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
The catalyst for downtown’s renaissance is home to the Florida Grand Opera, the City of Miami Ballet, Broadway in Miami. The Arsh Center stages some of the best jazz, flamenco, gospel, classic and pop concerts, and local and international theater festivals.
Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Lerner & Loewe’s MY FAIR LADY will premiere at the Adrienne Arsht Center from March 28 — April 2. MY FAIR LADY tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flower seller, and Henry Higgins, a linguistics professor who is determined to transform her into his idea of a “proper lady.” Despite his cynical nature and difficulty understanding women, Higgins grows attached to her, posing the question: who is being transformed? Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play.
Chapter 4: Historic District
Noted architect Allan Shulman explained the evolution of early Miami architecture during a Downtown Arts + Science Salon (DASS): “Miami grew dramatically and famously from a wilderness to a metropolis, and its developers and architects used architecture to frame and dramatize the future development they envisioned. There was little tradition to guide them, save the complex relationship with the city’s natural environment — at once alluring and forbidding. Architects had to balance the dream of a richly foliated warm-weather paradise with the disproportionate intensity of Miami’s heat, sun, rain, and mosquitoes, as well as with existential threats like hurricanes. Tropicalism and Mediterraneanism have played a particularly important role as frameworks for Miami’s invented architectural traditions. Tropicalism catalogued Miami within the ecosystem of equatorial climates, and suggested links with other tropical areas (and consequently with a range of myths and implied exotica). Mediterraneanism, in contrast, established an associative bond with that region of the world whose rich cultural and historical essence imbued new developments with the perfume of civilization.”
One route for my daily walk is down Second Avenue, the historical corridor once considered to replicate New York’s Fifth Avenue. The Ingraham and the Huntington buildings survived the plan that the 1926 hurricane devastated, and knowingly face each other at the corner of Second Avenue and SE First Street.
At SE First Street I run west for one block and continue northwards on First Avenue. Historic relics on both sides greet me: the Classical Old US Post Office and Courthouse, the baroque Gesu Church, Miami’s first Catholic church, and fronting Miami Dade College, vacant and grand, the Neoclassical Dyer US Courthouse. (Plans are to turn it into MDC School of Architecture.)
Miami Dade College (MDC)
Is the urban college par excellence, a new tech education destination with emphasis on technology, including Artificial Intelligence.
MDC also offers cultural programing, starting with the Book Fair. The magic of books turns the neighborhood into a paradise. Jorge Luis Borges defined paradise as an infinite library. MDC is also home to the Miami Culinary Institute, the Miami Fashion Institute, and the Museum of Art and Design at the iconic Freedom Tower — part of the Mediterranean Revival.
Chapter 5: Future Downtown
The Miami Worldcenter, an extraordinary urban development, has transformed decades of neglect into a glittering city within the city, an urbanistic marvel with plazas, promenades, residential towers, hotels, and shopping. “As one of the largest urban mixed-use developments in the U.S., right next to New York City’s Hudson Yards, Miami Worldcenter is positioned to be the place where lifestyle and business intersect, comprised of a diverse mix of residential, commercial and hospitality uses. Plus, approximately 300,000 square feet of retail, restaurant, and entertainment space,” said Miami Worlcenter Managing Principal Nitin Motwani.
Three residential towers have been completed, PARAMOUNT, Caoba, and Bezel Miami, and some 175,000 square feet of retail space. The lineup of tenants includes Michelin-star Chef Michael Beltran, Brasserie Laurel, Sephora, a much-needed bookstore, and the Dutch Citizen M Hotel — 351 rooms and a catchy slogan: Affordable Luxury.
The Pan Am Globe
The 6,500-pound painted steel Pan Am Globe greeted generations of patrons who visited the former Miami Science Museum for 55 years until the museum moved to Downtown. Miami Worldcenter in partnership with CIM Group acquired the Pan Am globe.
In January 2021, the sphere was relocated for an extensive and expensive restoration by artist Franz Ackermann, ensuring this piece of Miami history will be accessible to generations of residents and visitors.
Park West
Turning on Tenth Street, the posh Park West towers rise. One Thousand Museum, the jewel by the late architect Zaha Hadid was the first condominium, says a proud resident, with a rooftop helipad. Accordingly, apartments cost millions.
Often, I run into the owner of a local club who lives in Park West. I asked him why he chose downtown. “Authenticity; and downtown breathes potential. Of course, potential implies risk. Even today, downtown represents a certain edginess. Sanitized artificiality is not to be found here, not now.”
The walk back to the River along Biscayne Boulevard takes less than half an hour. Rising above the mouth of the river to greet me is another luxury building that epitomizes the future: Aston Martin Residences.
Chapter 6: Dinning
One measure of a city is the quality and diversity of its culinary offering. Or said Virginia Woolf: “One can’t think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” Here are four representative Downtown restaurants, south to north.
Area 31
Suspended on the sixteenth floor of the Kimpton EPIC Hotel, Area 31 opens for brunch, lunch, happy hour and dinner. It offers seafood fare, and one matchless panoramic view of the Bay and the Miami River. You stand right above the very spot where Ponce de Leon first met the Tequesta.
Soya & Pomodoro
If caught in the Historic District, Soya & Pomodoro is a must. Located in the atrium of one historic building that set out to be the tallest in Miami, but the 1926 hurricane left for posterity only the ground floor. Once you enter the place, can’t help but wonder how you detoured from NE 1st Street to an Italian neighborhood — with clothes hanging above to dry and all. Wrote Downtown News’ reviewer: “The waiter brings bread and olive oil. He brings the salad and recites the evening’s specials in his Italianized English — he knows I always opt for my old favorites, one being Fresh Pear & Cheese stuffed pasta with sautéed baby Shrimp in a creamy Ricotta sauce. My husband goes for the special: Corvina Allo Zafferano (Pan seared fresh filet of Corvina in a mustard & saffron sauce served with sautéed spinach & rosemary roasted potatoes.) Piano and bass players submerged in a world of their own reinterpret old jazz.”
La Cañita
Great Food, Ocean Breeze, Live Music, the Décor — Evocative of a Rum Distillery. Michelle Bernstein’s La Cañita is a high-end Pan Latin restaurant. “Don’t expect some unrecognizable fusion,” said one of the partners, Orestes Pajón, over a cappuccino out on a terrace overlooking the Marina and further out Biscayne Bay. “These are classical recipes, and the twist is quality ingredients.” The fish for example, they buy it fresh from a local fisherman. And for one of the staples of the Cuban table, Ropa Vieja, first-rate shredded flank steak.
La Cañita has live music. Not only live music but great musicians — the pianist used to play with Celia Cruz. They played old boleros… Add to that the Bay’s cool breeze of March, the nostalgia of old aromas, the feeling of an old hacienda, and your imagination does join the cadence of that incomparable Cuban music and flies.
Brasserie Laurel
“With a Michelin Star under his belt for his highly acclaimed restaurant Ariete, Chef Michael Beltran brings another stellar concept to Miami’s lineup of remarkable dining and drinking spots,” reads the official website. “At Brasserie Laurel, guests are immersed in upscale French-inspired Miami cuisine.”
We went one evening after the theater for a cocktail and stayed for the incredible food. I had a fine French Malbec, and my wife nurtured a perfect Old Fashion. We shared an appetizer, Squid Provençale, oxtail, oxtail jus, Swiss chard, preserved lemon gremolata. Entree: Seared scallops, rock shrimp, saffron velouté, English peas. Venison, sauce au poivre, potato rosti, mesclun. Desert: Black Forest Éclair, sour cherry, chocolate ganache, candy cap meringue. A couple from South Beach sitting next to us at the bar concurred: “The food is great, and the drinks aren’t bad either!”
Bon appétit!
[This Illustrated tour is based on Downtown News archives, Downtown Arts + Science Salon (DASS) archives, and the book Downtown Miami History: Chronicling 125 Years.]
