Art Deco in Miami

Not being people to spend time on beaches, the main attraction of Miami for us was the abundance of art deco buildings along the South Beach area.  And we had been pleased to find that we could coincide our stay with the annual Art Deco Weekend.


When we worked out the bus systems and got our two buses into SoBe, we certainly saw a lot of great art deco architecture.  Some of it was the classic white style that you often see along beach fronts in the UK, which I have to  admit to being my own preferred type, while some had gone for more colour.

Art Deco gets its name from the 1925 Paris Exhibition of 'Arts Decoratifs', which focused on displays of modern art of the period.  As this was one of the biggest viewings of these new styles, the abbreviated name of the fair was adopted as an easy description of this post WW1 modern style.

Some of the art deco style uses a lot of Egyptian inspired imagery and colouring.  This came out of the rise in popularity of all things egyptian following the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb.

There is a lot of this more ornate style here in Miami, as well as the simpler, more common influence of the pyramid in the stepped levels of building structure and decorative lines.

So we enjoyed looking at the buildings.

We didn't do the Art Deco tour though, preferring instead to do the 'underworld' tour, which promised stories of crime and mafia that happened in these parts.

Sadly the tour was a bit disappointing.  For a city that was - and possibly still is - so steeped in mafia connections, it was a bit thin on underworld stuff.

 

He did tell us that the decorative lines and arrows built into the flooring of some hotels probably pointed to the direction of the prohibition era speakeasies.

He also said that when the speakeasy got a tip off that they were about to be raided by the police, they would take most of their stuff to the Wolfsonian, which at that time was a storage company, to hide it until after the raid was over and they could get back to business.

 

Aside from those two points, and showing us the spot where Versace was shot, the only things we got were film and TV references, such as the fact that the neon work inside Club Deuc, the oldest pub in Miami, was brought in when they filmed some of Miami Vice there.

He did repeatedly tell us that everyone was corrupt during those mafia days, which was probably rather unnecessary for a group on an underground tour.  But if you were in the market for an expensive property, he did tell us that the house that Al Capone retired to in Miami is up for sale.

 

And unfortunately the market was a bit of a let down too.  As markets go, it wasn't bad.  There were some nice antiquey bits, some jewellery, and lots of other things, but it wasn't really art deco.

 

We had expected that there would be a lot of art deco related stuff here.  Obviously not all original, but we had thought we would see some good reproduction bits and other things that were clearly inspired by the art deco period.  There was a little bit of this, but not much.  The vast majority was what you would expect to find at any flea market.

 

We went along to the Art Deco Welcome Centre to see the 'bounty of Art Deco furniture' and saw about ten pieces.  Though admittedly one was a rather large and elaborate light which I though was pretty amazing.  Still, not much of a bounty, more of a smattering.

 

The parade of vintage cars was interesting to a point.  There were some nice old classics.  But even then, they were stretching the idea of vintage.  It was bad enough that they included cars from the eighties, but some of the cars being driven must have been from within the last ten years; I think a couple towards the end were just showing off their latest acquisition!

 

We had hoped for a bit of canine amusement with the Arf Deco parade of dressed up dogs, but they were a bit thin on the ground and very few really dressed for the occasion.

 

So overall we weren't especially impressed with the Art Deco Weekend.  A bit like Miami as a whole really.  It was alright, there was some stuff to see and do, but it wasn't as good as we'd expected and we not really sure what all the fuss is about.  Perhaps it really is just all about the beach here.

But hey, we had a couple of huge cocktails at a bargain happy hour price, so we were contented enough!

St Petersburg, Florida

Not to be confused with the one in Russia, which would have been somewhat of a detour for us!

We were quite pleased to avoid the high cost and inconvenience of the public transport and instead take advantage of the shuttle service between Seaworld Orlando and Busch Gardens in Tampa.  The service is free if you have a ticket to the park, but even if you don't, it is only $10.  And in fact, they never charged us anyway.  So from there we just had to get the rest of the way to St Pete on the local buses.

Mind you, there is not a lot of public transport between the two.  It is OK on weekdays during commuter hours, as there are buses then, but otherwise no buses go across the very, very long bridge that connects the two towns.  So plan carefully if you are doing this journey!

St Pete is a nice little town.  It was very warm while we were there, so perfect for just wandering along the sea front or the pier with its rather unusually shaped pavilion.  Along the pier we we watching a pelican preening itself, when we got taking to a couple who were fishing.  They were British, and spent half of their year at their second home here.

There were lots more pelicans at the end of the pier and we realised why when we saw that there was a guy selling bags of fish so that people could feed them.  We watched one woman wave her fish around while she decided who to throw it to, only to find that when she did throw it, it was grabbed in mid air by a swooping gull.  She learned from that and threw them quicker and lower from then on.

It is a great place to sit in or outside a restaurant and chill out. There are a few museums and so forth, but actually it is good to just people watch.  And if you were going to sit on a bench, then two particular ones were the most interesting; both had sculptures sat at one end, one an alligator dressed in women's clothing, the other an elephant dressed in men's.

We were particularly amused by all of the women taking out their little dogs, often tiny chihuahuas or poodles, in baby buggies.  We would often see them with a buggy with a couple of little dogs sat in it.  They never seemed to actually walk, just go for a ride.

I was slightly less amused though, in fact initially just a little concerned, when an egret started making towards me with a definite purpose and a glint in its eye.  I did think for a minute that it was coming to take a peck at me.

So I was quite relieved when I realised that it was heading for the bush next to me, and more specifically a lizard on the bush.  With one quick dart it had the lizard in its beak.  That was his dinner sorted then.

Over the time we were there, we went to the local market, which was a fairly typical European style market, with lots of food stalls.   It might have been quite good to try some of the food as it looked tasty, but it was so hot that day that neither of us could be bothered to eat and just wanted to find somewhere shady to have a drink.

We also went to the Dali museum.  Nic rather likes Dali, whereas I am less taken by it.  But neither of us had realised the variety of his work.  Whenever I thought of Dali it was of the surrealist melting clocks and such like, but in fact he had a broad spectrum of work and some of it is very good.  I'm still not sure that I enjoy his stuff, but I am rather more impressed by it that I used to be.

It was also quite an interesting building.  It is a new one designed specifically to house this collection. I don't know whether I would especially have thought that it was relevant to him or his work, but then again as we have already established, I know little about either.  Certainly there was a very nice spiralling walkway.

We discovered that Tuesday has special offer on tapas in a couple of places.  That was the day we arrived, so we ended up having tapas twice, once in a nice Italian place for a late lunch, and then as a top up in the evening in a place that had live music.  Both were great.

We also found a few good places for a drink.  There were a number of busy bar/clubs that looked fine, but we opted for a couple that were recommended to us; Ruby's Elixir had tasty cocktails and good live music with the band encouraging visiting musicians and singers to take a turn, and Euphorium which was laid back and had an excellent selection of beers.