History: Miami Beach Suburbs – Part One
As most SunPost readers are well aware, Miami Beach, while the largest of the villages, towns and cities on the east side of Biscayne Bay, has its own suburbs, one, debatably, to the south, one just to the west and six north of the city.
The “suburb” to the south, Fisher Island, was actually, at one time, a little over 90 years ago, connected to the Miami Beach “mainland” and was separated from the rest of the city when Government Cut was opened as a ship channel to Miami’s port which was then (and until Dodge Island was built in the late 1960s and early 1970s) right on Biscayne Boulevard, from just north of Fifth Street to just south of 13th Street.
At that time, only Gar Wood, the famed speedboat king and a friend of Carl Fisher, lived on the island. After paying Miami Beach taxes for several years following the separation from the city while receiving no municipal services of any kind (Miami Beach had no vessels which were capable of transporting garbage trucks, street cleaners or even police cars across the channel) Wood’s attorneys sued for secession in state courts. The court granted the request and Fisher Island (likely named by Wood for his friend) became part of then-Dade County, of which it remains today, with no municipal affiliation.
At present, Fisher Island’s only connection to any other part of Miami-Dade County is via a ferry service which operates to Miami Beach’s Terminal Island on the MacArthur Causeway, just west of the Coast Guard base. While tenuous, that connection alone might allow those interested to refer to Fisher Island as a suburb of Miami Beach even though the mailing address for the island is “Miami.”
Going north, the second suburb is the City of North Bay Village, which is composed of two islands which were built on the north and south sides of the 79th Street/John F. Kennedy Causeway, the story of which, in and of itself, is fascinating, for that causeway was the dream and goal of one man, Henry (Henri) Levy, who built Normandy Isle. Levi immigrated from France to America in 1900 to escape the anti-semitism for which France was and is infamous. Settling in Cincinnati he met and married the great love of his life, Rose Strecker, from Lexington, Kentucky.
While Rose was a recognized clothing designer, Henry became very successful in the then-new motion picture business, opening a chain of movie houses in Cincinnati. However, as had been the case with Henry Plant and Henry Flagler, the bitter-cold northern winters were creating health problems for his family and older daughter Clemence was suffering terribly from the weather, hence Levy, in 1922, moved the family to Miami Beach.
Levy saw opportunities at every turn, although, according to daughter June Newbauer, he had problems purchasing property on the south end of the beach, possibly due to the anti-semitism of Miami Beach’s founders. Not allowing that kind of nonsense to stand in his way, Levy would develop Normandy Beach (Surfside), Normandy Beach South (Collins Avenue between 71st and 74thth Street on the Miami side with what would become 71st Street on the beach side. That causeway, later to be known as the Kennedy or 79th Street Causeway, was completed and opened in 1929, thanks to the foresight and perseverance of a Jewish immigrant from France. Streets) and Normandy Isle. It would be Levy who, ten years before his premature death in 1938, was able to convince state and local governments to complete a causeway, which he had long advocated, to connect 79
Category: HISTORY
