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Miami Beach is a sand bar that grew up to be an important island. In the 30s and 40s and even the 50s there were a lot of hotels built there. One of them was even managed by some of Gerry's relatives. With the arrival of low cost air fare what had once happened to Asbury Park, New Jersey happened to Miami Beach: tourists departed for places that were more exotic, less crowded, and all the while cheaper. Along with the tourists, Miami Beach's glory days departed.

Now it is making something of a comeback. One of the reasons is that Miami, just across the river, has become the home port of the largest cruise industry in the world. We'd been reading about the expansion of this industry and how bigger and bigger ships were being added to the fleet year after year. So when we we were almost in Miami Beach we drove by one of these garganutans it was with more than passing interest.
Incidentally we've never been on a cruise of this type. We doubt that we would like to be couped up and have such a fixed schedule. But, first, we did enjoy our five day cruise on the Yangtse; second, they must be popular for some reason; and third, our friends and relative, Virginia Lee and Fred Grossberg have just started a travel agency specializing in cruises

Before going any further, we should make it clear that we were really in Miami Beach, and not in Miami or any of the other towns that make up the South Florida Coast. Normally we tend to speak loosely and use "Miami" when we mean any of this large metropolitan area. If were so incautious as to use it within hearing of any of the locals we would be immediately corrected. This is unlike when we were living in Arlington, VA and used "DC" as a shorthand for where were living; it seemed to bother nobody and instead be the normal pattern of speech. The great example of this is We spent a day just walking around in Miami Beach, taking in the other tourists, doing some window shopping and shopping ourselves, admiring the beach and the architecture, and, by following good advice, seeing the Holocaust Memorial .

As mentioned, Miami Beach is filled with Art Deco hotels. We rather like them, so happily for us as the local tourist industry has made some gains many of them have been refurbished. Lots of them are on Collins Avenue, the main north-south street of Miami Beach. Unfortunately we didn't get any photos of them to show you as we drove by them at night when we were going home and just trying to get out of beach traffic.

Another similarity Miami Beach has with many American cities is the decline and fall of the downtown. The automobile and the the rise of the enclosed, airconditioned mall has taken much of the business of away from the old commerical districts. This was evident all over downtown Miami Beach, for example along much of Collins avenue and on 16th? Street.

An exception was the Lincoln Avenue pedestrial mall. Once this too was a standard street with traffic — and many shoppers. It has them today but no automobile traffic. On the day we were there about one third of the business establishements were restaurants and they seemed to be doing good business. Another third were souvenir shops, from top of the market to pretty far down. How well they were doing is harder to say, but the shops weren't empty. It is only to be supposed that Spring Break had brought lots of extra people to the street.

We made an excusion over to South Beach, but really didn't leave enough time or energy for it. We were there at night, and while it was evident that the beach was still long and broad we couldn't tell in the weak light what the water might have been like.