In a city where not many people have deep roots, I’m proud to say my family’s called Miami home since 1950, when my great-grandfather moved his wife and kids from Pittsburgh to a sleepy beach town in South Florida that offered sun, fun, and beautiful scenery. Growing up less than an hour north of Miami, I made the city and its environs my stomping grounds from the moment I was old enough to stomp. My grandmother showed me the Venetian Pool, a frequent hangout when she was young, in Coral Gables. She told me about her parents’ home in Lower Matecumbe, the popular weekend getaway where she and her family would buy stone crabs from their neighbor for a dollar a pound. My mother often took me to the Parrot Jungle, now known as Pinecrest Gardens, where she used to work and eventually got married, just minutes from her childhood home. My father introduced me to the splendor of Biscayne Bay on his old Hobie Cat, sometimes tipping the boat for a thrill. My friends and I still peruse records at Sweat before we head to a Marlins game, having a drink or three at their Clevelander before first pitch.
The journeys to Miami and the Keys were an adventure, a pilgrimage, and a homecoming, all wrapped up into one. From stumbling upon the technicolor interior of the Bacardi Building to having vivid flashbacks of frolicking on Crandon Park beach as a little kid, I was continuously reminded of how Miami has both stayed the same and transformed dramatically over the past few decades. Handfuls of skyscrapers appear to pop up weekly on the skyline. The Keys used to be a quirky cluster of islands predominantly inhabited by fishermen. Today, multimillion-dollar homes line the shores from Key Largo to Key West. Amid the old and the new are an untold number of hidden treasures and pleasures – places and stories that reveal Miami’s true character, spirit, and above all, moxie. I hope you’ll enjoy visiting them as much I have enjoyed rediscovering them.