Do You Suffer From New York Envy?
Above: New York may have the famous Brooklyn Bridge, which is one of oldest bridges in the country, but Miami has one of the most colorful bridges, which is posted below. My Miami Beach 411 colleague Matt Meltzer recently penned a column stating how people in Miami really don’t care if you are from New York. He described New Yorkers as being “obnoxious tourist(s)†with condescending cut downs and arrogant attitudes. He stated that they do nothing but proclaim how everything is better in “The Cityâ€. But what he doesn’t mention is that Miami has always had New York envy. Take it from this Miami native: If there is one city that Miami has always tried to emulate, it is the Big Apple. It is the only American city that Miami has any respect for. The rest might as well be Mayberry for all we care. This is not to say that Miami is on equal footing with New York. As far as population and history goes, New York will always overshadow Miami. Like a big brother over his kid brother. But that has never stopped Miami from believing it is New York South. In fact, Miami has long been known as the Sixth Borough because of all the New Yorkers that transplanted here over the decades. Although we are the southernmost city in the continental United States, our southern hospitality has long been overshadowed by our northern temperament. As the old saying goes in Miami, “the further north you drive, the deeper south you get. “
In the beginning It all started in the late 1800s with a New York tycoon named Henry Flagler who extended his railroad to the southern tip of Florida, which at the time was nothing but a mosquito-infested swampland. That led to the incorporation of Miami in 1896. And the development of streets, buildings and infrastructure. By the early 1900s, Miami had been nicknamed “The Magic City†because it seemingly became a city overnight without ever being a town. And it was already a favorite vacation getaway for rich New Yorkers, including Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, who would spend their winters at Flagler’s Royal Palm Hotel on the mouth of the Miami River. By the 1920s, a man named Carl Fisher built what he called “the Fifth Avenue of the Southâ€, which today is known as Lincoln Road. And a man named John Collins built what he called the “Atlantic City of the Southâ€, which were the hotels and casinos he built along Ocean Drive in the area of today’s Art Deco District. By the 1930s, Miami’s historic black neighborhood, Overtown, became known as “Little Broadway†because even though Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Count Blasie and Ella Fitzgerald were allowed to perform on Miami Beach, they were not allowed to sleep in its hotels. So they stayed in Overtown and gave after-hour performances that lasted until daylight. The New York influence continued during the post-World War II years when a New York developer named Morris Lapidus built the Fontainebleau Hotel in 1954 and the Eden Roc Hotel in 1955, which continued to attract New York tourists, many which became permanent residents. By 1964, Brooklyn-born comedian Jackie Gleason moved his television show from New York City to Miami Beach where it was aired for another six years. It was around this time that hundreds of thousands of Cubans began emigrating to Miami to be processed inside the Freedom Tower in downtown Miami, which is known today as Miami’s Ellis Island. And through it all, New Yorkers continued to move down to Miami by the thousands, especially the Jews. By the late 1960s, more than 100,000 Jews had relocated from New York to Miami Beach. Coming of age By the 1970s, which is when I was growing up in Miami, we all knew somebody who had just moved down from New York. Whether it was the Puerto Rican kid from the corner or the Jewish kid down the street. Or in many cases, it was the Cuban kid who wore t-shirts to school on those rare nippy days when the rest of us wore jackets. The New York kids were streetwise, fast-talking and tough-acting. They always had our respect. But we also earned their respect by showing them we were no slouches either. In 1981, during the height of the Cuban crime wave in Miami, my social studies teacher announced that Miami’s crime rate had surpassed New York City’s crime rate. We all cheered. It was as if we had finally come of age as a city. We were proud to no longer be viewed as a tourist/retirement haven but as an urban metropolis of our own. It was around this time that the famous New York Jets-Miami Dolphins football rivalry began to intensify. And that rivalry later extended to the basketball court between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks. And today, to the Florida Marlins and New York Mets on the baseball field. Not to mention the Marlins victory over the New York Yankees in the 2003 World Series. The rivalry also spilled into the newsrooms in 1987 after the New York Times published a scathing piece titled “Can Miami Save Itself; A city beset by drugs and violence,†which prompted the Miami Herald to send Dave Barry to New York to write an article titled “Can New York save itself.â€
Above: New York has subways and street musicians.
Above: Miami has street musicians on Lincoln Road, which was originally dubbed “the Fifth Avenue of the South.” The rivalry has also extended into the nightclub scene after South Beach emerged as one of the world’s hottest clubbing destinations in the 1990s – after emulating, of course, the New York style of velvet ropes, discriminating doormen and long afterhours. And when New York nightclubs started promoting bottle service in the 1990s, South Beach’s nightclubs followed suit a few years later. Our turn Today, the New York-Miami connection is not much different than a sibling rivalry between an older and younger brother. Only that the younger brother is no longer a kid. And he can now hold his own. While the older brother will always have the advantage of age and experience and wisdom, the younger brother will always be cocky and feisty and stubborn. That’s not to say we don’t care how you do it up north. We already know. It’s just that now we’re old enough to show you how it’s done.
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24 Comments on"Do You Suffer From New York Envy?"
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pod says:
Miami “invented” European-style bottle service in the early 1990s in it’s nightclubs. New York followed suit in this case.
Posted on 05/14/2009 at 8:00 AM