Eyes were on Lemon City before Miami

Bay View Hotel, second on Biscayne Bay. Lemon City 1892,
Moved to Miami 1899 via barge
State Archives of Florida

By Jane Feehan

Lemon City didn’t have its own government but did have plenty of economic clout in early South Florida. It was older than Miami, with settlers arriving in the 1850s and in significant numbers in the 1870s. Historians suggest first settlers were English descendants in the Bahamas referred to as “Conchs;” they had also found their way to the Keys. 

Geography usually determines city growth; this community sat at the only deep-water access or Biscayne Bay at the time, near today’s 61st Street. The port, though not a port of entry, provided shipping access for crops and a pipeline of supplies for settlers. The little settlement also sat near Little River, Arch Creek and Snake Creek, waterways that facilitated transportation. 

Many pioneers came to this area to stake a claim for land after the Homestead Act of 1862. They settled the area to farm, as did many who arrived in Florida in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Enterprising arrivals parceled land for real estate sales, which proved to be profitable.

James E. Ingraham, then president of South Florida Railroad and later associate of Henry Flagler, visited Lemon City in 1892. He was on an expedition from Fort Myers through the Everglades to assess agricultural opportunities. That the expedition included Lemon City suggests the growing importance of the community. This predated his fateful trip in 1895 to Miami where he met Julia Tuttle to talk about extending Flagler’s railway there after the freeze destroyed crops in mid- and northern Florida. 

Guy Metcalf, pioneer, newspaperman and cousin of Fort Lauderdale's founder Frank Stranahan, also recognized the growing importance of Lemon City. He owned a real estate company that built a rock road to Lemon City from Lantana during the late 1880s or 1890s.

Named Lemon City for the lemons that grew there, the settlement was first mentioned in Dade County public records in 1889. When residents wanted a post office soon after, they applied with the federal government under the name “Motlo” in honor of a Seminole chief. The government approved the post office but sent back the paperwork with the name Motto. Residents briefly referred to their new town as that, but by 1893 resumed calling it Lemon City.

It may not have been an official town, but Lemon City was often noted in the social columns of The Miami News and The Miami Herald commencing in 1904. Comfortable homes were built as well as schools and several businesses, including a sawmill, an oil company and reportedly one of the largest asphalt companies in the South. The community attracted winter visitors and eventually hosted tent camps for tourists.

A.B Hurst Sawmill,
1909 Lemon City
State Archives of Florida

Lemon City could also boast an active community improvement association, which promoted the building of schools and a library. The Lemon City Library reportedly first opened in 1892. It is recognized today as the oldest operating branch library in Miami-Dade County. Historian Ron Blazek wrote that Coconut Grove was first to open a library but issues surrounding definition of a public library obfuscate claims of “first.” This writer found public notices in The Miami News in October 1904 for the formation of the Lemon City Library Association.

Lemon City was eventually overshadowed by Miami’s growth after Henry Flagler extended his Florida East Coast Railway to Miami 1896. Lemon City faded in status and was annexed by the city of Miami, along with Coconut Grove and other small communities in 1925.

Today, Lemon City boundaries overlap those of Miami. Known as Little Haiti since the 1970s with its new immigrants, it was recognized in 2016 as an official neighborhood of Miami. The neighborhood is home to nearly 30,000 residents from Haiti and other islands in the Caribbean. Today they celebrate cultural distinctions in food and art and language.

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

 Tags: Lemon City, Little Haiti, Miami in the 1800s, Miami in the 1920s

Sources:

The Miami News, Oct. 1, 1904

The Herald, June 14, 1925

Blazek, Ron. Tequesta: Journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, No. 42, 1982

University of Florida, The Ingraham Expedition, 2015. https://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/ingraham/expedition/LemonCity.htm

Florida International University, City of Miami Planning Dept., Historic Lemon City/ Little Haiti/  Creole District

McIver, Stuart. Glimpses of South Florida History. Miami: Florida Flair Books, 1988.

Wikipedia

A.B. Hurst Sawmill: http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/141893

Bay View Hotel: http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/118340

Unconventional golf coach teaches his children the game and how to win

Emma and Julian playing a tournament 

By Jane Feehan

Most who seek a professional career in golf started out using a coach. Some have been coached by parents who were pros. Athletes in other sports have also been trained by family members with skills and experience. Boca Raton resident Kevin Andrews has neither skills nor experience in golf but has successfully coached his children Emma,14 and Julian, 11.

It all started four years ago. Emma already played hockey at school; Julian played soccer. During the COVID pandemic, Kevin’s sports focus was redirected inward. What game could involve the entire family?

“A friend suggested we visit Top Golf,” said Paula Andrews, wife and mother. They went to the high-tech complex to familiarize the children with the game; they left as golf enthusiasts.

Kevin moved ahead and bought a set of used clubs for Emma and Julian. He looked into hiring a coach or buying lessons. It was expensive. Multi-day golf schools can cost thousands. Individual hourly lessons top $100 . Not deterred, he attended local golf events, including an LPGA tourney with the family to get a better feel for the sport.

“I got close to coaches so I could hear their instructions to players,” said Kevin who had already dismissed paying for instruction. He knew he’d need more information. He looked at You Tube videos and got a better understanding of what coaching entailed. He bought books. Then the family visited a golf shop at a public course in Lake Worth where a golf pro encouraged them to get Emma and Julian signed up for tournaments to play with those their age and skill level.

“But no one wants to play with beginners,” said Kevin. They had to start somewhere. He put the kids through drills at home and on a local course. Pressure was building to up his coaching abilities. “I can do this,” he thought. “But I wasn’t sure how to proceed.”

Proceed he did but in an unconventional way.

Kevin is an industrial engineer. Industrial engineers are methodical. They analyze parts of processes, or systems to make things work or to build products.

“When I understood how complex the swing is, I broke it down into parts—feet, knees, hips, elbows hands and head,” Kevin recounted. He started with the hands—the grip. Kevin took videos of Emma and Julian as they swung their clubs. Post-practice analysis helped correct mistakes, build up their strengths and strategize their wins by assessing course risks.

“It’s also a head game,” said Kevin. “So, I read Alter Ego: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life (by Todd Herman, HarperCollins 2019). “It really helped Emma get out of her head while playing in a tournament.”

Emma

Tournament is now a household activity. Four years later, Emma and Julian are solid competitors in their age group. At times they beat older players. Paula drives them to a course to practice five or six days a week. Kevin joins them after work.

“I’m good at driving the ball,” said Julian who ranks recess as his favorite part of school.

Emma, who hopes to be awarded a golf scholarship for college, visualizes herself as a golf pro one day.  “Putting is my strength,” she acknowledged.

These young golfers put their golfing talents to work as members of Gold Coast Junior Golf Foundation (www.gcjgf.org). The Boca Raton-based nonprofit provides opportunities and scholarships for young golfers under age 19. Young golfers participate in monthly tournaments throughout South Florida. Once a year the organization recognizes players with an awards event at a golf club. Founder and former golf pro Wayne McKinney pays for the food, golf carts and trophies while sharing stories of his golfing days.

This year, Emma and Julian received trophies for playing in every tourney, scoring wins and maintaining good grades at school.

A freshman (2024-2025), Emma plays on her high school golf team. Her school recently announced a winning golf tourney record not seen since 2019. Talented and motivated to win, Emma continues to meet the challenges each competition--in or out of school--presents.

This year, Julian likes driving the ball and beating older kids at the game even more than recess. Paula, head cheerleader, and Kevin walk each 18-hole course as the kids play in a monthly tournament. Kevin remains their winning coach.

Julian

“I like to follow the advice given in a book I read that helps me coach and the kids play,” said Kevin.

‘If you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time you’re done.’ (From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad, by James Clear, Penguin Random House 2018.)

There’s probably something else that no book can offer: the confidence, determination, and love only a parent can share with a child aspiring to be a competitor in sports. It’s a huge win.

L to R: Paula, Julian, Emma and Kevin

 

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: Faces of Florida, Golf, golf coach, golf tournament, Gold Coast Junior Golf Foundation

Mark 2100 Resort Hotel in Fort Lauderdale and an owner who left a gift for average students

 

By Jane Feehan 

The Mark 2100 Resort Hotel was one of a very few that sat directly on Fort Lauderdale’s sands. For more than three decades it attracted guests from across the nation to its unpretentious accommodations. 

Locals probably miss this hotel for its Mark 2100 Ocean Lounge. Live jazz, a great bar and wooden deck provided a getaway, if only for a few hours while sipping a drink or two. The view of a moonlit ocean and sound of soft breezes rustling through the palm trees was unmatched along the hotel strip. 

The beach vibe probably attracted Pennsylvania native Edward W. Seese who retired to Florida during the late 1950s after a career in marketing. He and brother Worthington F. Seese published an intent to do business as Mark 2100 Motor Hotel in January 1960.

Located at 2100 N. Atlantic Boulevard, east of A1A, at the northern end of Fort Lauderdale’s hotel strip, Mark 2100 offered 47 rooms and apartments casually sprawled along a block. Room televisions, a heated pool, coffee shop and direct beach access were the advertised amenities. Wells M. Squier of Squier and Maxwell designed its interior. This then-popular firm had also designed interiors of several Fort Lauderdale hotels including Stouffer’s Anacapri Inn, the Jules Verne Room at the Marlin Beach Hotel, the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel and later (1965) the Fountainhead Condominium north of the Galt Mile..

In 1961, Mark 2100 became a member of Quality Courts United, Inc., the largest association of its kind and first hotel chain (now Choice Hotels) in the U.S.; it was a marketing cooperative set up to refer business to other members offering the same standards in accommodations and service. Stouffer’s Anacapri Inn in Fort Lauderdale joined Quality Courts the same month.   

With its reputation established, and by word of mouth, Mark 2100 successfully operated for decades. Seese also developed—as well as managed—the Sea Garden in Pompano Beach. Management of the Mark 2100 was turned over to Ruth Werth while Seese worked the Pompano hotel.

Edward Seese died in March 1995. He left much more than his hotels as legacy. Seese served as director of Florida Hotel and Motel Association and headed several other local hotel-oriented organizations. But what many would remember him for was the $4.5 million gift he bequeathed to Broward Community College to help average or C students. He believed they could achieve more in their academic pursuits if they didn’t have to worry about a job to finance their education. This gift made headlines beyond the South Florida media market.

Seese’s brother, Worthington, died about three months later. His wife Ida predeceased Edward some time in the 1960s. They had no children. Of note, Seese had worked for Philadelphia Electric in marketing and later as producer and host of the first day time television show in the Philadelphia market.

Epilogue

The Mark 2100 was still operating in 1994. By 1995 it closed or was about to when plans to build the two-tower, 30-story Palms Condominium went up for approval by the city commission. Residents resisted the development. The plan was to close part of North Atlantic Boulevard to accommodate the project and they didn’t want to lose direct access to the beach. Residents’ efforts to stop the project proved fruitless. The Palms was completed about 2001.

The Mark 2100 was the first of several small hotels and motels in that area to fall to developers. The glitzy Palms, spectacular Auberge Beach Residences and beautiful Pelican Resort now sit on those serene sands.

They say you can’t go home again...but one can always take a trip down memory lane.

 Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

 Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 15, 1960

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 1, 1961

Fort Lauderdale News, May 9, 1961

Fort Lauderdale News, June 8, 1962

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 13, 1963

South Florida Sun Sentinel, May 18, 1994

South Florida Sun Sentinel, March 22, 1995

South Florida Sun Sentinel, June 19, 1995

South Florida Sun Sentinel, June 25, 1995

South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sept. 20, 1995

South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sept. 25, 2021

Choice Hotels

Tags: Mark 2100 Resort Hotel, Fort Lauderdale hotel history, Edward W. Seese

Sunny Isles, a tropical wonderland develops into a wall of condos north of Miami Beach

 

Sunny Isles 1945,
Florida StateArchives

By Jane Feehan

Advertisements for lot sales in Sunny Isles first hyped it as “the America Riviera.”  In 1930, the project was touted as the “Venice of America.” Perhaps Harvey B. Graves, buyer of 2,300 acres north of Miami Beach didn’t know it was the moniker Fort Lauderdale adopted when the finger islands off Las Olas Boulevard were dredged in 1923.

But no one would have blamed Graves for using the Venice description. His vision was influenced by the same person as were the Fort Lauderdale developers: Carl Fisher. The Indiana native worked magic carving a resort city out of Miami mangroves.

Graves, a semi-retired, highly successful furniture company owner with stores north of New York City, first came to Miami Beach for winter visits in 1918.  While there, he took leisurely boat excursions up the inland waterway (then known as the Florida Intracoastal) to the northern part of Biscayne Bay. He traveled to Snake Creek, which emptied into the Florida East Coast Canal, Oleta River (where a state park sits today), and to Dumfoundling Bay near today’s Aventura. He believed the little islands –mostly mangroves—could be connected by a series of coral rock bridges to provide an idyllic setting for winter visitors seeking a sunny alternative to the northern cold. 

Graves purchased about 1,500 acres from the Model Land Company in 1921 and formed the Sunny Isles Improvement Company, with construction to begin the following year. He expanded his holdings to 2,300 acres from the northern end of Biscayne Bay. It was bordered by Fulford Road in the village of Fulford, east of Dixie Highway and north of Ojus. His project also included ocean front acreage at “the terminus of the beach road.” (State Road 270, later Florida State Road A1A, went through Sunny Isles in the 1940s.)

Prospective buyers were encouraged to view the development where every home “would have a water view.”  Tropical landscapes made it “camera land.” Names given some of the 70 isles included the Atlantic, Summerhouse, Palm, and Garden islands. Utilities, such as a water and electricity were installed and the project took off ... slowly, but a few high-profile buyers were interested.

Coconut Grove winter resident William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state purchased a lot for development in Sunny Isles in 1923 for $9,750. He died in 1925, not long after arguing for the prosecution in the famed Scopes Monkey Trial. The lot was probably sold shortly after because the Jennings home remained in the Grove. Another lot—100 ft by 210 ft— was advertised for $5,750 or 27 cents per square foot in 1923.

Per the purchase agreement with the Tatum family, the original property owners, Graves built a beach casino (what bath houses were called then) in 1923 for $65,000; It was later part of the site of a pier (Newport Fishing Pier today) and hotel. Development of Sunny Isles may have been hindered by difficulties accessing the area. It was essentially an island until the Haulover inlet was carved out and the first of several iterations of a bridge were built in 1925. The Great Hurricane of 1926 also slowed sales. The tract became part of North Miami Beach in 1931.

Harvey Graves died in Rochester, NY at 80 years of age Jan. 14, 1936. His Florida dream community was sold to Wisconsin industrialist Kurtis R. Froedtert for a reported $1 million in the summer of 1936. Froedtert advertised in 1937 he was building 30 homes there. News about Sunny Isles in the  1940s centered on fishing stories at the pier.

"Venice of America"

During the 1950s and 60s, Sunny Isles Beach was developed for the burgeoning Florida hospitality industry. Sunny Isles touted its Motel Row, where 30 motels such as the Castaways, Dunes, Thunderbird and Sun City drew tourist families from all over the nation looking for cheaper hotel rooms than those in Miami Beach (search this blog for “Luxury, Kitsch and Convenience”).

Sunny Isles was incorporated as Sunny Isles Beach in 1997. Harvey B. Graves would never have envisioned his tract as a millionaire’s row of glamorous high-rise hotels and condos crowding its white sands. More than 22,000 residents live in this one-mile-square beachside town. Cost of living there is reportedly 118 percent higher than the average of other U.S. cities. It may still be a “camera land” but not of its once-lush, semi-wild tropical landscape.

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami Herald, Aug. 24, 1921

Miami News, Oct. 01, 1921

Miami Herald, Oct. 5, 1921

Miami Herald, Nov. 22, 1921

Miami Herald, March 16, 1922

Miami Herald, April 8, 1922

Miami News, June 19, 1922

Miami News, Jan. 22, 1923

Miami News, March 14, 1923

Miami News, April 6, 1923

Miami Herald, May 2, 1926

Miami Herald, May 12, 1929

Miami Herald, March 3, 1930

Miami News, July 3, 1942

Miami Herald, Nov. 1, 1936

Miami News, Jan. 10, 1937

Wikipedia

Tags: Sunny Isles, Harvey B. Graves, Motel Row, 

Beach life – more than meets the eye. A lifeguard’s dedication to profession and community

Lt. Serrano, Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue, photo courtesy of G. Serrano

 
By Jane Feehan 

Gio Serrano’s stop in Fort Lauderdale on his way to Texas in 1996 would change his life.

Traveling from Puerto Rico to begin school at the Art Institute in Dallas, he was blown away on that fateful stop at the South Florida beach.

“Wow! You can get paid to work on the beach in Fort Lauderdale,” Gio exclaimed then as an 18-year-old. 

The beach had drawn him into its waters as a kid growing up in Ponce, Puerto Rico. It’s where he learned to swim when his mother coaxed him into the water to encourage him to learn. 

“There was a lot of school skipping to go to the beach,” he confessed. There were no lifeguards there; that’s part of what intrigued him about Florida and lifeguarding. He decided to stay.

Serrano transferred his enrollment to the Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale to study computer animation. Determined to succeed, he worked while in school part time as a lifeguard for the YMCA in Fort Lauderdale and the YMCA in Hollywood, completed his studies and progressed into a full-time career with Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue (FLOR), which included his developing their first website.

Ocean Rescue, recognized nationally for excellence, is comprised of one chief, eight lieutenants, 36 full-time and 90 part-time lifeguards.

Today, as a first responder Lieutenant Gio Serrano blends his skills as a paramedic, an emergency medical technician (EMT) and a CPR expert to serve beachgoers in trouble. He was recognized as Lifeguard of the Year in 2007. Today he can be seen in a red rescue vehicle patrolling areas that include five lifeguard towers between Fort Lauderdale’s south and central beach to ensure staff have what they need to perform rescue or life-saving medical duties. Serrano also trains lifeguards on the beach three days a week as well as the marine unit of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

A major part of a lifeguard’s work is responding to medical emergencies, which can spill into sidewalks and adjacent roads—or other into other municipalities such as Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, via mutual aid agreements.

But water rescues also rank high. “More than 50 percent of people can’t swim,” said Serrano. “Or they overestimate their abilities. Treading water in a pool is much different than dealing with changing ocean currents and conditions.”

He also said troubles may be seen before an ocean swimmer calls for help. The work of lifeguards includes interpreting behaviors in the water that indicate lack of confidence or recklessness. Some may hear a warning shouted over a solar powered PA system from a lifeguard tower. Other swimmers often don’t pay attention to where the towers are and express surprise about where a lifeguard comes from when one arrives to assist. “Towers sit 10 to 15 ft above eyelevel, yet they don’t notice them,” said Serrano who also pointed out there are far more rescues performed than life-saving activities.

Lt. Serrano teaching
kids CPR, photo courtesy
of G. Serrano

Many who don’t go to the beach may see Lt. Serrano beyond the city’s white sands; community outreach lies close to his heart. He trains kids in CPR and in swimming safety at Broward County schools.

There’s more that Lt. Serrano does for the community.

“One of my favorite things to do is visit pediatric hospitals with the 501^st Division (think Star Wars and Jedi General Anakin Skywalker). Dressed in uniforms replicating those in the movie, Serrano and friends raise spirits and help realize hopes through Make a Wish Foundation.

Lt. Serrano (white shirt)
recognized for service,
photo courtesy G. Serrano

We never know or appreciate what a lifeguard may be asked to do. During this interview, Lt. Serrano was asked by a homeless visitor to assist with a cell phone call; another asked about a contact to help find her shelter. They came to the right person; he assisted with both.

One thing Lt. Serrano does not do is go to Fort Lauderdale’s beach on his day off. However, he visits Florida’s Keys and occasionally the Ocala National Forest for a complete change of scenery.

With 25 years in Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue, he brings not only expertise but also singular dedication to our community and compassion to those in trouble. It’s all in his day’s work. It’s the real beach life.

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: Giovanni Serrano, Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue, Lt. Gio Serrano, lifeguards, Fort Lauderdale beach

Marlin Beach Hotel ... once leader in Fort Lauderdale beach entertainment

 

Fort Lauderdale 

Marlin Beach Hotel
17 S. Atlantic Blvd.Fort Lauderdale, FL

By Jane Feehan

Three West Point graduates (Class of 1946) from Pittsburgh agreed that Fort Lauderdale held solid prospects for a new hotel. They bought a beach site in 1951.

The Pittsburgh group—Roland Catarinella, Harold Gray and W.C. Powers—moved forward with their hotel idea, formed the Penndale Corporation and filed a fictitious name to do business as the Marlin Beach Hotel in 1952. The hotel was to include an underpass or tunnel to the beach, the first in Fort Lauderdale. The reason: heavy traffic (even then) along Atlantic Boulevard making it difficult to cross to the beach. They also announced plans for 51-rooms, an unusual lower-level lobby with ultra-violet lighting illuminating aquatic scenes and a cocktail lounge with glass walls providing an underwater view of the pool.

The Marlin Beach Hotel opened to an enthusiastic crowd Jan. 20,1953 with cocktails and a buffet. The lounge, unnamed at opening, was the biggest draw with its underwater pool view. The name for the nightspot was determined by a contest announced by manager L. Bert Stephens. The winner tapped a month later, was picked from nearly 5,800 entries. Fort Lauderdale resident Edward Elmer struck success with “Two Fathoms Down.” He received a $500 credit for drinks and food … a big sum those days when dinners often ran for less than $2 or $3. Deemed “bar sensation of the year” in 1953, the lounge provided music, comedy and underwater acts. In 1961, the popular nightspot was renamed the Jules Verne Room and continued to offer quality nightclub acts and dancing.

As with most Fort Lauderdale beach hotels, owners changed several times over the  decades.  Under new owners in the 1970s the then-named Marlin Beach Resort with over 90 rooms, was marketed to gay visitors. By the early ‘80s it became a “mecca for gay vacationers” drawing clientele from around the world.

According to news accounts, the hotel slipped into a downward spiral when a new owner set out to attract the college crowd in 1986 and failed; those efforts coincided with Fort Lauderdale’s plan to shed its spring break image. Marlin Beach Hotel fell into disrepair—and bankruptcy. Doors closed in April 1992 but not before 2000-3,500 gathered over two or three nights that month to party and reminisce about 20 years of popular tea dances, weddings and other gay community gatherings at the "grand old lady."

In 1995, a group purchased the closed Marlin Hotel and its 3.2 acres for $3.1 million (a low price tag in the 2020s) and developed Beach Place, the site of a Marriott Hotel and several casual restaurants, relegating the beach area’s singular nightlife of lounge acts to Fort Lauderdale’s past.

 
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

  Sources:

 Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 20, 1952

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 29, 1952

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 26, 1952

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 17, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 21, 1953

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 9, 1955

Fort Lauderdale News, June 27, 1956

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 30, 1956

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 13, 1953

Fort Lauderdale News, June 7, 1953

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 11, 1960

Fort Lauderdale News, March 19, 1961

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 10, 1961

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 19, 1992

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 13, 1995

Tags: Fort Lauderdale hotel history, Fort Lauderdale history, underwater acts, Jules Verne Room, Two Fathoms Down

Sailboat Bend, Fort Lauderdale's only neighborhood deemed a historic district

 

 By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale’s Sailboat Bend, once known as the “West Side,” was designated a historic district in 1992. It is the first neighborhood in the city so deemed.

The historic area sits within an area bounded by the F.E.C. Railway tracks on its east, Broward Boulevard on its north, and by the New River on the south and west. It’s accessible just a block or two beyond the Broward Center for the Performing Arts at 201 SW Fifth Avenue or via Sunrise Boulevard near the historic 11th Avenue Bridge. A sign indicates its boundary.

Sailboats give rise to thoughts about travel and adventure or simplicity and leisurely living. Those notions were probably held in varying degrees by sailing enthusiasts (“many young married couples”) who found their way to Fort Lauderdale during the early 1940s and moored their boats along the most extreme bend in the New River. It was during those years that the area was first referred to as Sailboat Bend. The city Commission confirmed it as a subdivision in 1945.

Sailboat Bend’s history reaches back centuries before its subdivision days.

It is thought Tequesta Indians lived there centuries ago—long before the Seminoles arrived in South Florida during the late 1700s. Artifacts of Indian inhabitants reportedly have been found there.

Some say the area was the site of the first fort built during the Second Seminole War (1835-42) by Major William Lauderdale, for whom the city is named. It is also written that the neighborhood is where the Cooley (or Colee) family was massacred in 1835—not at the now-named Colee Hammock Park at 1500 Brickell Drive (south fork of the New River). Their massacre may have been cause for Lauderdale's deployment to the New River area.

During the 20th century, the project to drain the Everglades, promoted by Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward (1905-1909), began in Sailboat Bend with the staging of dredging equipment for construction of two canals. Fort Lauderdale is often referred to as “Gateway to the Everglades,” thus a reasonable point of entry for the drainage project.

Not all the area known as Sailboat Bend falls within the historic district.

Society pages in the newspapers during the 1940s referred to parties on some of the boats and the comings and goings of notables who docked at the bend during the winter. This non-historic area currently lies in the center of the toniest part of downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Proximity to downtown and the beauty of the river was not lost on those who sought profits selling lots along the bend in 1945. A group of owner-realtors, including resident Wen Mulligan, advertised "28 lots along the bend at Southwest 5th Avenue and Southwest 5th Street for $42,000 for sale ... easy terms." Given the crazy high prices of the 1920s in Fort Lauderdale, that price rings cheap if it was for all the lots.

In 1963 a prescient if not lucky developer wanted 600 feet to be vacated at the bend to make way for six high-rise buildings with 1,500 apartments. The proposal was nixed then, but today the same area, just outside the historic neighborhood, is the site of several spectacular buildings with hundreds of rental and condo units.

The historic Sailboat Bend is worth a drive through and a stop at its waterfront park. It presents a mix of old bungalows with a few (very few) grand homes along the river. Manicured lawns are not a feature of this neighborhood. Some of the streets may remind one of older sections of New Orleans with overgrown shrubs, vines and indigenous trees. A house of French Provincial design was described when purchased about 35 years ago, so impressions of similarity to New Orleans stand reasonable.

Sailboat Bend residents have objected, to no avail, to the number of social agencies built on the nearby Broward Boulevard perimeter of their neighborhood: a Salvation Army homeless shelter, an alcohol rehab facility, the Broward School Board and other agencies. A drive through Sailboat Bend streets seems worlds away.

About 2,200-2,800 residents reside in historic Sailboat Bend. The ordinance designating its historic status is reviewed every 10 years.

It’s not only worth a look, Sailboat Bend also deserves preservation of the city's largest collection of historic homes. 

Below: Aerial view- New River 1929

Florida State Archives/Hoit

*********

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

City of Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Sept. 30, 1942

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Oct. 19, 1942

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Aug. 19, 1943

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, July 14, 1945

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Oct. 17, 1945

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Nov. 1, 1945

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 4, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 25, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 16, 1987

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 8, 1988

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 29, 1989

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 25, 1990

Tags: Historic Neighborhoods in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods