Miami

Home Sweet Home    Find a Realtor    Find a Company    Vital Stats    Rain & Shine    Job Market    Class Notes    Getting Around

Great Outdoors    Good Sports    Hot Times    Shop 'til You Drop    Nightlife    College Scene    Just for Seniors

Miami glitters and glows--with neon and nightlights, with commerce and cruise ships, with problems and possibilities. But even its recent financial difficulties won't swamp the Magic City. Like Molly Brown, this unsinkable city is famous for its starring role as survivor--of fires and hurricanes, booms and busts, good times and bad, just about every adversity except an iceberg.

For sheer excitement, Miami's hard to beat. Its mulitcultural mix of people, languages, ethnicities and races make for sophistication--and fun. The metro Miami area recreation quotient rates No. 1 with Places Rated Almanac, which cites its famous restaurants, sparkling clubs, impressive attractions, beautiful beaches and countless parks and nature areas (800+). Photographers prefer Miami photo shoots primarily because of the city's wonderful light, but they don't ignore its nightlights and glamorous backdrops either. A 24-hour kind of place, Miami--like New York--is never really dark. In fact, although it's only one-quarter the size of the Big Apple, Miami appeals to people for many of the same reasons New York does--excitement, panache, variety. Someday it may be known as the Big Orange. In any case, local boosters are probably on target when they call this young, vibrant town the City of the Future. Miami thinks of itself, with some justification, as Florida's numero uno, although the city itself (fewer than 500,000) is smaller than the city of Jacksonville and the metro area is less populous than Tampa's, which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

Home Sweet Home

Dade County consists of 30 or so municipalities, but in the popular imagination they're all Miami. Yet all are different and taken together offer an enormous range of lifestyles and housing choices. Consider a few of them: Miami Beach, the connected string of islands and land fills that's now one of the world's glamour capitals--and more diverse than visitors realize. People who live here know that Sunny Isles differs from Bal Harbour or Surfside or Indian Creek Village or South Beach (SoBe), just as mainlanders distinguish between Aventura, North Miami Beach, North Miami, Biscayne Park, Miami Shores, downtown Miami, Hialeah, Coconut Grove and Coral Gables.

Even one segment of this diverse housing market displays considerable range. Consider Miami Beach, for example. Homes there range from $200,000 to $5.6 million. For the market's median sales price of $133,800, you can buy a 2,200-square-foot, single-family home with three bedrooms and two baths; for $350,000, you can buy a 3,500-square-foot, four-bedroom, three-bath home, says G. L. Grabill, an area Realtor. About half of the listed properties are single-family homes; the other half are condominiums. It's a popular area, close to downtown Miami, the beach and the ocean. Grabill says consumers will probably find some good values in North Beach. Three new developments are: Portofino Towers on South Beach ($275,000 to $750,000); Majestic Towers in Bal Harbour ($550,000 to $1.6 million); and Blue Diamond in the mid-beach neighborhood ($300,000 to $1 million).

Vital Stats

Miami's Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) includes all of Dade County

Population: 2,152,439
Median age: 36.1
New citizens: 22,800 yearly
New job creation: 1.7 percent (1999)
Unemployment rate: 5.8 in August, 1999
Cost of living: 102.23 percent (U.S. average=100 percent)
Per capita income: $22,370
Median household effective buying income: $28,915

Rain & Shine

The Sunny City moniker suits Miami's subtropical climate and its annual average daily temperature--a balmy 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The average January low is only 58.7; the average July high is 89.9. It's sunny almost every day, yet it rains--at least a little--about 129 days of the year. Annual rainfall averages 60 inches. The rainfall is generally brief and welcome, however, because it arrives with more frequency during the warm summer months. Sixty inches is the average annual rainfall for the entire area, but 12 or 13 fewer inches fall on the area's wide, wonderful beaches.

Job Market

Miami has collected more labels and nicknames in its 101 years than many of Europe's ancient cities have in centuries. Famous as a place of escape and refuge--especially for Cubans and Haitians--it's been called the Casablanca of the Americas. Strategically located as a transportation hub and developing a reputation as a major commercial and banking center for the Caribbean, Latin America and the Western Hemisphere, Miami is earning other impressive appellations: the Hong Kong of the Americas, the Grand Central Station of Commerce, the Crossroads of the Americas and the New World City. Trade and commerce create jobs; so does tourism (big business here) and services for the sizable senior-citizen population. Government, agriculture, film/television production, media and manufacturing also employ many.

The county’s largest private employers by number of workers includes American Airlines (9,000), Precision Response Corporation (8,000), University of Miami (7,800), Baptist Health Systems of South Florida (7,500), BellSouth (4,200), Florida Power & Light (3,832), Mount Sinai Medical Center of Greater Miami (2,868), First Union National Bank of Florida (2,500), Royal Caribbean International/Celebrity Cruises (2,500) and United Airlines (2,488).

Class Notes

Extensive information about the schools in this area is online at the state's Department of Education (http://www.firn.edu/doe/doehome.htm). There you'll discover everything you'll need to know about Florida schools -- in general and in particular. All you need is the name of your county and the names of the schools students from your neighborhood attend.

Use links from the DOE home page for general information about entrance requirements, immunizations and so forth.

For the nitty-gritty details that really matter, click on the logo for the "Florida School Indicators Report."

Getting Around

Most of Miami's visitors--many from foreign destinations--arrive by airplane, but citizens must usually settle for cars, metrorail, metromover or buses. Like any big city, traffic causes problems, but locals learn to handle it, avoid it, grab a cab or use the mass-transit system. Plenty of excellent roads serve Miami, but they are often congested. The primary north/south routes--from the beaches westward--are State Road A1A (Collins Avenue) along the beaches, U.S. Highway 1 along the eastern shore of the mainland, Interstate-95, U.S. Highway 441, State Road 826 (the Palmetto Expressway) and Florida's Turnpike and its Homestead Extension. East/west routes include seven causeways connecting the mainland with Miami Beach and an eighth linking Miami with Key Biscayne and several major roadways, Gratigny Parkway, U.S. Highway 27 (Okeechobee Road) and State Road 836 (the Dolphin Expressway). Flagler Street divides the city north-south; Miami Avenue is the east-west divider.

Locals can leave the car at home if they wish. Buses in the Metrobus system, operated by the Metro Dade County Transit Agency, connect with the 21.5-mile Metrorail and downtown's 4.4-mile Metromover. Fares are reasonable. Tri-Rail is available for long-distance commuters. It's an integrated, three-county light-rail system linking Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Greyhound and Amtrak serve Miami, but most visitors--and lots of air freight--arrive at Miami International Airport (MIA). More than 30 million passengers yearly board or deplane here from numerous scheduled airlines that operate about 3,000 flights a week. At least 35 airlines that fly here are international carriers with colorful names like Transbrasil, Air Aruba, Finnair and AeroMexico. Among U.S. airports, MIA ranks second for international travelers. The Port of Miami, built on a 300-acre landfill in Biscayne Bay near the Miami River/ship canal, retains its title as world's busiest cruise port, handling over 3 million passengers annually.

Great Outdoors

Lots of fine beaches (Haulover Beach, 71st Street Beach, 46th Street Beach, the Boardwalk from 21st to 47th Street, South Beach, Hobie Beach and Crandon Park), Biscayne National Park (a water world to explore both above and below the waterline; only 4,370 of its 180,000 acres are land) and thousands of acres of the Everglades provide nature's Miami-area headliners. Other places that fascinate amateur and professional botanists and zoologists include Monkey Jungle, where caged homo sapiens observe free-ranging primates, and Parrot Jungle and Gardens.

The famous Miami Metrozoo houses more than 700 wild animals in a cageless environment. With nearly 300 developed acres on a 740-acre parcel of land, Metrozoo is the only zoo in the continental United States located in a subtropical climate. On Key Biscayne, the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Recreation Area is involved in a reforestation project to re-establish several areas of enormous ecological interest and importance: coastal strand, maritime hammock, beach dune, mangrove forest and freshwater wetlands. For plant lovers who enjoy the cultivated species of tropical plants from Florida and elsewhere around the world, there's Fairchild Tropical Garden, a 83-acre botanical oasis, or Fruit and Spice Park, 32 acres offering more than 500 varieties of fruits, nuts and spices from all over the earth.

Good Sports

Snorkeling, scuba diving and canoeing are popular activities at Biscayne National Park (a.k.a. Biscayne National Underwater Park) and elsewhere along the nation's only living coral reef. Swimmers stroke through saltwater in the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay or in numerous freshwater pools, including two of the world's most famous--the beautiful Venetian Pool and the enormous Biltmore Hotel pool, both in Coral Gables. Boating, fishing, windsurfing, waterskiing and jet-skiing are popular; so, too, are golf (16 courses), tennis (590 public courts), lawn bowling and shuffleboard. If you've got a sport, chances are good that Miami has plenty of places to play it.

For sports fans of the spectator variety, this really is the place. One of the few towns in American blessed with major teams in all four big-ticket sports, Miami is justly proud of their town's high-profile teams: the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League; the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association, the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League and the Florida Marlins of Major League Baseball. This four-majors position, one of the criteria often cited by those who try to rank top-tier cities, is of recent vintage, but it adds to Miami's allure and prestige while making sports fans deliriously happy.

Hot Times in the City

If you move to Greater Miami, you'll enjoy years of getting to know this intriguing city and its many sister cities. Even if you are retired and have plenty of time to get acquainted with your new town, you'd be busy everyday for a year or more because the city jumps with joy, energy and intensity; hot times in the city of Miami are commonplace, both night and day.

Kids, college students, busters, boomers, seniors--all will find plenty of activities.

Youngsters love the Little Farm in Homestead, where they can pet and feed the animals or ride ponies and horses. And, of course, younger kids gravitate to PAWS, the children's area, when they visit the Metrozoo. It, too, offers a petting area, plus an ecology theater and something rather rare--elephant rides. The Arabian Nights architecture of Opa-locka treats youngsters and their parents to domes and minarets and other strange and exotic sights. Homestead's Coral Castle appeals to those who hanker after the romantic and the mysterious: No one is quite certain how a Latvian managed to move the huge coral building blocks he used to construct the massive monument.

Another fun place for the whole family is strictly seasonal: the Coral Gables Farmers Market at Merrick Park operates only during the winter months. Most Miami locations of interest, however, stay open year-round because they are air conditioned. The American Police Hall of Fame and Museum features an upside-down police car, antique handcuffs, gas chambers, jail cells, motorcycles and more. The Miami Museum of Science, the adjoining Space Transit Planetarium and the Miami Seaquarium appeal to all ages and bring in lots of locals. The Sequarium on Virginia Key, features Lolita the Killer Whale; it's said to be Miami's most popular attraction. The museum and planetarium are located in Coconut Grove, the southernmost section of the city of Miami and immediately north of Coral Gables. They're convenient to another landmark, the lovely Deering mansion, Viscaya, which is just across South Miami Avenue. The villa's Italian Renaissance architecture houses 34 rooms. Those open to the public are furnished with exquisite decorative items and art. The gardens are impressive, as is the massive waterside stone barge, reminiscent of the marble boat that graces China's Imperial Summer Palace.

Miami is getting behind its arts programs as never before. The New World Symphony, for example, is a training orchestra for young musical talent. And there's another symphony, the Miami Philharmonic, and a third, the Miami Beach Symphony Orchestra. The Coconut Grove Playhouse, an area institution, is world-renowned. The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables provides the stage for Florida Shakespeare Theater's productions. Other cultural groups like the Miami City Ballet and Florida Grand Opera also appeal to both locals and tourists.

Lots of art galleries and collections grace the Greater Miami area. The new Center of Contemporary Art and the Center for Fine Arts are working hard to build their collections. Two excellent but comparatively small private collections are well worth a look too. The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach features religious art from the Middle Ages; and the University of Miami offers the Renaissance treasures and 20th century works for the viewing pleasure of students, staff and the general public at its Lowe Art Museum. Street art of comparatively high quality is a Miami hallmark. The pioneering Metro-Dade Art in Public Places program, established in 1973, claims to have already added more than 450 works of art to the local scene.

Festivals and specials shows fill the year's activity calendar, but the biggest and best are in the cooler winter months. You probably won't need a jacket at any of them. Of special interest: January's Art Deco Weekend centered along South Beach’s Ocean Drive from 5th to 15th streets in Miami Beach; the Coconut Grove Outdoor Art Show, voted best of its kind by Sunshine Artist magazine and most popular by the 300,000-plus who attend each February; the Miami International Boat Show and Sailboat Show in February, where everything from small boats to enormous, 80-foot yachts are on display; in late February and early March, the Miami Grand Prix held on Homestead's oval track; in March the country's biggest Hispanic party, the weeklong Carnival Miami, ends with Calle Ocho, the world's largest block party; and the late December/early January Orange Bowl bash--parade, football game, tailgate parties and plenty of associated events and happenings. The big game has moved from the venerable Orange Bowl to the newer Pro Player Park, originally called Joe Robbie Stadium.

Shop 'til You Drop

It truly is a pleasure to shop in Miami--where everything and anything can be found in almost any price range. The Lincoln Road Mall in the Deco District is experiencing a come back. Also on the beach, the upscale Bal Harbour Shopping Center and countless Collins Avenue locations. CocoWalk, the specialty center in Coconut Grove, offers exciting shops, restaurants and clubs, in a distinctive architectural setting, while the Grove's Mayfair Shops provide its fashionable shoppers with a European ambience. Coral Gables, like Chicago, has a Miracle Mile filled with goods and goodies.

Downtown, the Bakery Centre houses numerous specialty shops in a restored building. Once a movie theater, then a bakery, its name sometimes confuses newcomers. Bayside Marketplace, also downtown, is sheer excitement: bazaar-style shops, 150 stores, a gigantic food court, nightspots, cruises, even gondola rides draw shoppers who want to do more than carry home packages.

Plenty of malls with thousands of shopping choices and mountains of merchandise are also scattered around Greater Miami; they include Aventura, Dadeland, Kendall Lakes, Loehmann's Plaza, Miami International and the Omni.

Nightlife

Miami swings to whatever tune, beat, rhythm you desire. Entertainment venues--including Bayside and CocoWalk--are as diverse as the city's multicultural melange of peoples. Little Havana and Little Haiti showcase Caribbean music, food and drink. Want to dance? Do the salsa, the tango, the mambo in Little Havana, or eat at its famous Versailles Restaurant on the Calle Ocho, the favorite of generations of Cuban Americans. Why the French name? Who knows? But the food is far from French. Order ropa vieja and frijoles negros 24-hours a day, or stop by the streetside coffee bar for a cafecito. Clubs and pubs are scattered around all the major metro regions, but the nightlife is truly hot and virtually round-the-clock on South Beach.

Miami is becoming a mecca for gourmets, especially those who appreciate its home-grow New World cuisine. Among celebrity chefs, count Alan Susser, Mark Militello and Robin Haas. Giraldi Avenue in Coral Gables, which locals call Restaurant Row, should be on the itinerary of anyone looking for fine food. Yuca, the trendsetting nouvelle cuisine dining spot got its start on Giralda in Coral Gables, but later moved to Miami Beach. Still part of what makes Coral Gables proud are its many award-winning restaurants: Caffe Abbracci, Christy's, John Martin's, Le Festival (Golden Spoon), Norman's (Golden Spoon), Restaurant St. Michel and Ristorante La Bussola. Joe's Stone Crab is far and away Miami's most famous restaurant. Diners don't seem to mind the long wait required to eat here. The four-diamond Le Pavillon is in the four-diamond Hotel Inter-Continental Miami on the bay at Biscayne Boulevard and Chopin Plaza.

Delis are great here--day or night. Try Wolfie's or the Rascal House, which claims to have sold something like 46 million bagels since its Sunny Isles opening in 1954.

Prefer to emulate the upper crust? Sample Sunday brunch at the Biltmore or afternoon tea in the historic hotel's magnificent lobby, resplendent with travertine Italian marble floors, a 45-foot ceiling and comfortable conversational groupings of massive furniture and floral arrangements.

College Scene

Miami-Dade has no fewer than five full-degree universities, one community college and five vocational/technical schools. Barry University is an independent, coeducational Catholic institution of higher education located in Miami Shores. Florida International University (FIU) is an urban, multi-campus, doctoral-granting institution located in Miami at University Park and North Miami, with selected programs offered in Davie and Fort Lauderdale. FIU centers academics around a rigorous liberal arts core curriculum.

Florida Memorial College is one of the oldest academic centers in the state. Founded in 1879 in Live Oak, Fla., and 1892 in Jacksonville, the two campuses merged and moved south. An "Historically Black College," the campus serves a culturally diverse student population through programs in liberal and technical education. The University of Miami is one of only 23 private research universities to operate both a law and medical school. Comprised of 14 schools and colleges, UM offers a wide selection of academic disciplines ranging from architecture and international studies to law and medicine. Finally, St. Thomas University offers undergraduate, graduate and professional studies programs. Reflecting the Roman Catholic tradition, the University places an emphasis on lifelong value-oriented education.

Miami-Dade Community College is a multi-campus, two-year, state-supported community college, with six campuses and other outreach centers. With an annual budget exceeding $200 million, Miami-Dade serves more than 120,000 students each year in both
credit and noncredit courses. Vocational/technical colleges serving the Miami-Dade area include Miami Lakes, Robert Morgan, Lindsey Hopkins Technical Education Center, George T. Baker Aviation and William H. Turner Technical Arts.

Just for Seniors

What more is needed besides a major teaching hospital, warm weather for gardening or simply feeling good and ample opportunity for gentle exercise like walking or swimming? Perhaps a big grab-bag full of senior-inspired services? No problem. Call Dade County's Elder Helpline at 305/670-4357. Helpline's Information and Referral (I&R) specialists have all the answers in their computers. Whether you or your loved one requires adult day care, home-delivered meals, personal care, medical transportation, counseling, homemaker services or respite care, tell the I&R experts what you need--and your zip code--and they'll take it from there. It's all in their data bank: information on public and private, for-profit and not-for-profit agencies and some 55 to 60 senior centers that offer social activities or congregate meals or both.