Ben "Bugsy" Siegel, Virginia Hill and Miami Beach

1928

By Jane Feehan

Ben “Bugsy” Siegel (b. 1906) was shot dead in the rented Beverly Hills home of girlfriend Virginia Hill in 1947 while she was partying in Paris.  The girl from Alabama liked to party in many cities and Miami Beach was one of them.

During Hill’s early days with the Chicago mob, she caught the eye of trucking and oil millionaire - and mob front man - Major Arterburn Riddle who took her on a vacation to Miami Beach; it was probably her first time there.  When she hooked up with Siegel, he bought her a house from publisher William Randolph Hearst’s son at Number One Sunset Isle in Miami Beach.

After Siegel’s murder, which was never solved, Hill’s brother Charles “Chick” Hill and his girlfriend Jerri Mason, took refuge at his sister’s Miami Beach home. Virginia made her way back to the U.S. and headed for Sunset Isle. While in South Florida, she bought a $6,500 car and took off for Mexico. The house was sold soon after.

Virginia Hill continued to make the news when she appeared before the U.S. Senate Crime Investigating Committee (1951) headed by Sen. Estes Kefauver.  She appeared in a $5,000 mink coat late for testimony; Kefauver excused her saying "ladies from my part of the country are traditionally late.”  When asked how she supported her lavish lifestyle, Hill said she made a living with lucky horse-racing bets. Those bets, according to some, were all won at the end of the year and in even amounts.

In 1951, Hill, who federal agents chased around the country for back taxes, married Austrian Hans Hauser, a ski instructor with whom she had a son.  She died of an apparent (and much disputed) sleeping pill overdose in Austria in 1966 at age 49. Today the 1930s Miami Beach house Virginia Hill occasionally called home still stands. Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

For more on Kefauver hearings, see index

Use search box at top right to find more on gambling and mobsters.

Sources:

Miami News, Mar. 15, 1951

Miami News, Jul. 7, 1951

Palm Beach Post, Mar. 25, 1966

Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 2, 1992


Tags: Organized crime in Miami, Miami Beach history, Ben "Bugsy" Siegel, Virginia Hill, Sen. Kefauver, film researcher, Florida film research,  historical researcher

Kenann Building and its Chateau Madrid: singular in architecture and nightlife memories

See photo below for changes to this corner

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale's Kenann Building, the cylindrical landmark structure at the northwest corner of Federal Highway and Oakland Park Boulevard was completed in 1964. Builder and realtor Kenneth G. Burnstein entertained an idea for such a structure long before it was set to blueprints by architect F. Louis Wolff.*

Historically, builders shied away from round structures because they were thought to be more expensive to construct, restricted usable space, and were tough to get loans for.  Burnstein, 32 years-old at the time, admitted it took longer than usual to land a loan for the eight-story office building but he was successful in obtaining one in New York.

Ground was broken for the building, named for Burnstein and his wife Ann, on Nov. 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Seven stories were dedicated to 1,000 square-foot offices. Each floor had its own air conditioning unit.  Burnstein claimed the structure offered 30 percent more usable space than did conventional construction.

When completed, the building featured a circular entrance of reinforced concrete that tapered vertically to a singular round pylon, similar to that used by Frank Lloyd Wright in his design of the Johnson Wax headquarters built in 1940. The lobby included two cypress trees four-stories tall, and a large pool with waterfalls, plants and fish.

Construction also included a colorful, external 60-foot vertical mosaic, a South Florida design element popular in the 1960s and 70s. According to Tropical Magazine (Oct. 2012), the mosaic, with images of swordfish, ocean waves, and tropical palms, holds the distinction of being the “best mid-century mosaic from Fort Lauderdale to Miami.”

Other than for its design, the Kenann Building evokes memories among many for its eighth floor nightclub and dining venue, Chateau Madrid. For 20 years the night spot, opened by John and Diane Bachan, was the place to go for top-tier entertainment including Rosemary Clooney, Buddy Greco, Tony Martin, and Louis Armstrong. Armstrong played there for one week in 1966, including New Year’s Eve. Revelers could have dinner and be entertained by Armstrong for $25 per person.  (Trivia: the club was also managed by Philip Zaslavsky, once manager of Wolfie’s on Sunrise Boulevard and later part owner of Durty Nelly’s. He died in 1991.)

Fortune changed for Burnstein, who first came to Fort Lauderdale from Mobile, AL in 1957. He became the target of several investigations. The realtor reportedly died in a plane crash in 1976. According to legend, only his severed finger was found.

After Burnstein’s death, the Kenann Building slid into disrepair; tenants left. In 1991, investors purchased the property for $1.3 million. Architect Dan Duckham redesigned the landmark and included a second level attachment that resembles a satellite that has since been occupied by various restaurants and nightclubs.

The Kenann Building, with its colorful past and blend of Wolff and Duckham architectural features, still holds a special place in Fort Lauderdale's past—and its present. Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

* F. Louis Wolff and wife Jean established an endowed scholarship for the School of Architecture at Florida Atlantic University in 2002.

KenAnn Building 9/2023; it no longer dominates
the Oakland Park, Federal Highway corner

 Sources:

Miami News, June 28, 1964

Miami News, Dec. 27, 1966

Miami News, Oct. 11, 1991

Tropic Magazine, Oct., 2012

 Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Chateau Madrid, Fort Lauderdale architects, film researcher, architects

Stiltsville: Poor man's paradise, party central, millionaires' retreat and ...

Photo from Wikipedia 

By Jane Feehan

Stiltsville, a community of fishing shacks in Biscayne Bay that morphed into a millionaire’s retreat, was legendary among those who grew up in Miami during the mid-20^th century as a party destination. But it was more than that.  For others it promised good fishing, solitude without the modern-day intrusion of television and telephone, or a place to reconnect with family.

Fishing shacks on stilts went up as early as 1922 in the shallow blue-green Biscayne Bay tidal flats off Cape Florida. Famed fisherman and lighthouse tender, Eddie “Crawfish” Walker, built a shack that served as center of a growing colony he set mangrove pilings for in the 1930s. Among those shacks was the first social center, the Calvert Club. The Quarterdeck Club, built by Ed Turner in 1940, added to the community’s party reputation.

That reputation catapulted among the “smart set” after Life Magazine (Feb. 10, 1941) featured the Quarterdeck as a celebrity magnet. The club went through a series of owners after it was destroyed by the 1945 hurricane. One owner, Harold Clark, developed the site as an exclusive yacht club and employed a French chef who specialized in local seafood plucked from the waters beneath the building.

Crawfish Eddie’s shack was also swept away by the 1945 storm. He died in 1949 (at his residence on NW 69^th Street) but not before seeing the Biscayne Bay shack colony grow to 20 wooden houses after World War II.

Quarterdeck remained party central but was damaged in a 1950 storm. It reopened in 1951 with 300 guests in attendance. The “amazing club on stilts” offered 20 slips for yachts, several luxury hotel rooms, a swimming pool, a live fish pen and a lounge designed by Chris Jones. Good times, if not good business, lasted at the Quarterdeck until 1961 (owned then by Karl Mongelluzzo) when it burned to the water’s edge.

Stiltsville drew politicians, including Florida Gov. Leroy Collins, lawyers, stag party aficionados, and a host of other pleasure seekers, including bachelor Ted Kennedy, for decades. By the 1960s, the notorious Bikini Club opened on a shipwrecked yacht, Jeff.  Known for serving free drinks to women in bikinis, it was shuttered in 1965 for selling liquor without a license.

Complaints also rolled in about the shacks serving as blight on Biscayne Bay. But Stiltsville became a community of millionaires. Many of them were lawyers and politicians whose weekend retreats built for $20, 000 to $80,000, helped redeem a blighted appearance. But hurricanes continued to take their toll, defining the community’s history. After Hurricane Betsy in 1965, new pilings were to be constructed with concrete.  

The 1980s brought changes as well as national attention to Stiltsville. The water colony (by then 14 houses) served as backdrop to several episodes of TV’s Miami Vice. The community was also featured in a Pittsburgh Paint national ad campaign. Perhaps the most significant event of that decade was the establishment of Biscayne National Park in 1980.  Boundaries of this 173,000-acre park include Stiltsville.

The state transferred the $1000 yearly leases (at one time a dollar) to Biscayne National Park.   Hurricane Andrew (1992) took seven more houses down. Today, seven structures remain but they are not privately owned; they are co-managed by the park and the Stiltsville Trust.

What remains of the historic village can be viewed by private boat or on a tour boat operated by Miami History and narrated by area historian Paul George, PhD (see: www.historymiami.org).

I shall treasure memories of a party or two in Stiltsville; there will never be another place like it in those waters off Miami. Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Feb. 16, 1949
Miami News, Dec. 8, 1951

Spokesman Review, Aug. 25, 1971

Boca Raton News, Dec. 17, 1989

The News, Aug. 17, 1995
www.stiltsville.org/pages/history.html

Tags: Miami history, film researcher, party places in Miami

Dade County's Public Enemy No. 1 and gambling gambits of the 1940s

Greater Miami 1940
Florida State Archives/Fishbaugh/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

Greater Miami during the 1940s was wide open for mobsters who endeavored to get into the gambling business.  One of them, Joseph “Jack” Friedlander, elbowed his way from Newark, NJ into Florida rackets as early as 1940. By 1948, he was declared Public Enemy No. 1 by Daniel P. Sullivan, director of Miami’s Crime Commission.

Sullivan claimed Friedlander brought the New Jersey mob element to Miami through his association with Abner (Longy) Zwillman, kingpin of the numbers, bookmaking and bootlegging business in the Garden State. He was probably right. That association evidently gave Russian-born Friedlander the confidence to ally himself with Harry Russell of the Capone gang and to work his way into the territory of the local SG syndicate by playing one gamer against the other. Friedlander soon became a partner in every gambling house in the Miami area.

Friedlander made life tough for the houses that did not play along with him; he would drop hints to law enforcement who then raided the uncooperative establishments. By the mid- to late 1940s he managed the Blackamoor Hotel in Miami and owned pieces of the famed Island Club, Little Palm, and Club 86. He was the bag man for officials who gladly took money from him to look the other way when they came upon illegal gambling.  Friedlander later admitted that his “Little Syndicate” influenced elections for Dade County sheriff in 1944 and 1948 that set up James “Jimmy” Sullivan (who was later arrested) as the county’s top law enforcer.

In 1949 investigative reporters wrote about a $1.5 million-a-year  numbers racket Friedlander and ex-con David Marcus ran out of two offices. One, operating as Aircraft Equipment Company, was located  at the Aviation Building at 3240 NW 27^th Ave.; the other ran out of 719 NW 2^nd Ave. They employed between 250-300 people to run the numbers racket or bolita. Friedlander was known as the bolita king.

Director Sullivan said Friedlander had no fear of law enforcement. Things changed in 1950. Friedlander was indicted that year for a list of transgressions involving gambling. He testified in 1951 at the Kefauver hearings held in Miami where he admitted to many illicit activities but claimed he might have been Public Enemy No. 999, not No. 1. After the hearings, he, along with other Miami mobsters, were soon out of work. It was the beginning of the end for a $100 million industry that involved operations at 200 hotels and scores of enterprising gangsters.

Friedlander’s descent from glory was rapid. In April of 1952 it was reported that his house on posh Pinetree Drive was ransacked. Friedlander reported $275 in cash and a ring were stolen. The government placed a $14,696 lien on that house a few months after the Kefauver hearings. Friedlander went on to own the Dade Boulevard restaurant but times were tough.  Despondent over his finances, he attempted suicide in 1957 via an overdose of sleeping pills at his Miami Beach apartment on Byron Avenue. His wife, Sally, discovered him unconscious when the telephone rang at 2:30 a.m. and he did not stir.

He survived the suicide attempt (age 56 then) but news accounts of what happened to Jack Friedlander after that and when he died are nonexistent. If you have any information on his death, please post  comment below. Copyright © 2014 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

 Sources:

Miami News, Apr. 23, 1947

Miami News, Dec. 12, 1948

Miami News, Mar. 13, 1949

Miami News, May 11, 1949

Miami News, Sept. 27, 1950

Miami News, Oct. 22, 1950

Daytona Beach Morning Journal, Feb. 17, 1951

Miami News, June 29, 1951

Miami News, Apr. 7, 1952

Miami News, May 14, 1957

Tags: Gambling in Miami, Jack Friedlander, Abner Zwillman, Miami in the 1940s, film researcher, Miami history

Wig wags bring big bucks to bookies - SOFLA race parks 1940s

By Jane Feehan

Gulfstream Park 1948
Florida State Archives

It was estimated that 2,000 bookie joints operated in the Greater Miami area (including Fort Lauderdale) in 1948-49. 

“Wig wag” men helped ensure success of the popular but illegal gambling industry.

These men traveled the country from track to track to communicate through hand signals the new line, or post race odds, while horses ran. Signals included smoothing hair, raising arms with fingers outstretched, running arms down their sides, patting their heads, scratching and more. Wig wags, brightly attired so they could be picked out in a crowd in front of the grandstand, were observed by scanners, or people located about a half-mile away.

Gulfstream Park probably 1940s or 50s

State Archives of Florida

In Miami, scanners were situated at a large two-story house at 7701 Bird Road. They used powerful military binoculars to track the changing odds. Changing odds were important to bookies; it insured that favorable odds would not be beaten down by bets going through machines legally at the track.

The house on Bird Road (long gone and now part of a highway) was the nerve center for Miami’s bookie industry. During the 40s, most bookies operated in Miami under mob-run and intentionally misnamed Continental Press Service. Press services needed telegraph and telephone banks.

Investigating reporters in 1948 visited the house where they found a “motherly-looking woman” on the first floor, knitting. The clicking of her needles ostensibly drowned out telegraph tapping on the floor above. (Phones had been pulled out after prior police investigations.) Bookies also used short wave radio or “mobile automobile radio” from a locked car to hear a race in progress. A microphone would be suspended beneath a car located near the track.

The most favorable swindles were those involving out-of-state locations with lag times in telegraph communication. Last minute odds—whittling odds—was the lifeblood of bookie operations; without them, 95 percent of their business would disappear. In 1948, bookies raked in between $250 million to $300 million from Hialeah, Tropical Park, and Gulfstream race parks in South Florida, and Sunshine Park in Tampa while about $98 million went through the same tracks legally.

Eight percent of legal betting revenues went to the state in taxes. Five percent was divided among Florida’s 67 counties where it sometimes subsidized an entire county government.  The remaining three percent went to an old age assistance fund matched by federal money. Illegal off track betting probably cheated the state out of $10 million a year then. Tax losses served as some of the fodder in the campaign against illegal gambling in the late 1940s. Arrests of wig wag men were routine by 1949.

Betting continues to be big business in the Sunshine State, but today it’s predominantly legal. Gambling revenues from six South Florida state-operated casinos (not Seminole establishments) jumped more than 12 percent in 2013 netting the state $162 million in taxes; the national average was a 4.8 percent increase.  Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

 --------- 

Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 12, 1948

Miami News, Dec. 13, 1948

Miami News, Dec. 14, 1948

Miami News, March 8, 1949

Sun-Sentinel, May 7, 2013

Tags: Gambling history, racetrack gambling in the 1940s, Continental Press service, wig wag men, film researcher

Dick Cami and Convulsion at Miami's Peppermint Lounge: the Twist, HullyGully, Mashed Potato and ...

By Jane Feehan

Note : Richard "Dick Cami" Camillucci, Jr.,  quoted below, died July 28, 2020 at  age 86.

One of Miami’s hottest night spots in the early 1960s was the Peppermint Lounge, a place where old and young, rich and famous danced their nights away to the latest gyrating crazes, including the one that launched the club, the Twist.

Ernest Evans, known forever after as Chubby Checker, recorded Hank Ballard’s rhythm and blues tune, The Twist, in 1959. The record did not sell well so Checker went on tour across the nation to sing the tune and demonstrate a dance that went with it. Some say he lost 30 pounds in just three weeks of performing. The tune – and the dance—finally caught on 14 months later as a fad that swept the world.

It proved to be a draw at the Peppermint Lounge on West 45^th Street in New York where people waited in line to get through its doors. The popularity of the club spawned a few others, including the Peppermint Lounge on the 79^th Street Causeway in Miami.

The Miami club opened Dec. 1, 1961 at the former site of Colonel Jim's. The Miami News reported Lee Ratner and Morris Levy of Roulette Records were its backers but according to Dick Cami (in his mid 20s at the time), he ran the place. Cami was married to the daughter of New York mobster Johnny “Futto” Biello.

An impressive roster of big name entertainers played at the Miami club.

"Major rock and roll acts worked at the Peppermint Lounge like the Coasters, Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty ... and more," said Cami.

Miami’s Peppermint Lounge, with its mirrored ceilings and fenced-in dance floor attracted locals, tourists—and the famous. Nat King Cole asked Cami if he could play the piano there a few nights to get the feel of the rock ‘n roll thing his daughter Natalie liked so much. He was at the piano when singer Sam Cooke, who recorded his own top-of-the-chart tune, Twistin' the Night Away, came in one evening. The Beatles visited Cami's place to pay homage to rock n' roll—the inspiration for their music—three times when they

Lenny Bruce, frequent visitor.
Domita Jo on his left, photo courtesy of Dick Cami

were in the area to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Politicos ventured fearlessly into the club to be part of the action. Gov. Grant Sawyer of Nevada was at a Governors Conference in Miami when he found the Peppermint Lounge. He visited the club each night with his wife; a large crowd gathered as the governor climbed the dance floor fence and twisted the night away.

And the Twist kept raging “round and round” Miami, Miami Beach and the rest of the country. “How long will the Twist epidemic last?” asked columnist Herb Kelly as he listed all the Miami Beach hotel lounges bowing to the fad. “It’s spreading so fast nobody knows.”  Gray-haired matrons were shaking their hips on the same dance floor with green-haired girls and bearded young men, “all shaking like there was no one else in the world, not even their partner,” mused Cami.

The Twist was invented by chiropractors, quipped comedian Bob Hope.  “The whole world’s sacroiliac is going to be out in about three days.”

Actually it took a bit longer than three days.

Things began to slow down about a year later. That’s why the Peppermint Lounge started featuring a dance revue, the “Crazy Crazes,” a history of dance fads. Four dancers—two male, two female—and singer Regina Rae highlighted the show presenting dance crazes from the 1920s to the Twist.

Other dances caught on at the Peppermint Lounge as they had elsewhere in the U.S.: the Hully Gully, the Mashed Potato, the Fly, Bird, Dog, Frug, Slop, and the Continental. The Legends provided the music at the Miami lounge for all the crazes and so did a band from Jamaica, Freddie Scott’s Blues Busters. Their claim to fame was blending calypso and rock ‘n roll, known then by another name.

"We were the first to bring Ska, the precursor of Reggae, to America, " reminisced Cami.

Lights went out on the dance floor by 1964 or early 1965. In late ’64, Cami sold the lounge to Joe Camperlengo of Fort Lauderdale; Camperlengo owned the 4 o’Clock Club in that city. The Peppermint Lounge reopened shortly after the sale and soon became the Inner Circle. By 1965, the place was razed to make way for a new steak house.

Lucky for South Florida, Dick Cami remained but moved on to other endeavors in the area. He opened Applause, a nightclub at the Omni Center in Miami. Some reported that he wanted to go into construction but he (and later with his two sons) became the driving force behind several restaurants: Cami’s Seashells in Dade and Broward counties; Grumpy Dick’s in Plantation, Crabby Dick’s in Key West, and Islamorada Fish House in Dania. 

The restaurant closest to Cami's heart was his Top of the Home in Hollywood, FL. For 26 years  it stood acclaimed for its fine Continental dining, outstanding wine selection, and stunning panoramic vista of Broward County. His popular lounge featured two singing bartenders and piano player Sonny Gambino. 

Today, Cami no longer owns a restaurant but with a wealth of experience accumulated over the years he serves as chief operating officer of food and beverage for  Excelsior Hospitality Management International, a consulting and asset management company. 

There is more to Cami's past —and present—than the restaurant biz.

He stepped into the boxing world for a time, managing a few fighters who the late, great Angelo Dundee trained at his Fifth Street Gym in Miami Beach.

Cami also manages affairs for his friend, Sandi Lansky*, daughter of reputed mobster, gambling kingpin and former Miami resident, Meyer Lansky. Cami has served as advisor during the compilation of her memoirs by William Stadium. The book, Daughter of the King, was released March, 2014.

The former restaurateur is currently in discussions with Fox about a TV pilot series, The Twist, and has teamed up with a former colleague to produce an animated musical feature, The Dog Show, a story about a mutt who wins the Westminster Dog Show.   

Cami lives in Oregon today but memories of those sizzling Miami Beach days and the twisting Peppermint Lounge nights loom large. I'll have to ask the next time I speak with him if he ever hums the Chubby Checker song:                         

           Come on, baby, let’s do the twist.

      Take me by my little hand and go like this.

                              We’re gonna twisty …

*  Sandra Lansky, daughter of Meyer Lansky wrote a memoir, Daughter of the King, in 2014.

Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 5, 1961

Miami News, Nov. 29, 1961

Miami News, Aug. 17, 1962

Miami News, Nov. 27, 1962

Miami News, Aug. 7, 1963

Miami News, Oct. 8, 1964

Miami News, Sept. 19, 1965

Beaver County Times, Aug. 19, 1964

Lakeland Ledger, Feb. 29,1988

Reading Eagle, May 20, 1965

Rome News-Tribune, Mar. 14, 1972

Richard "Dick Cami" Camillucci, Jr.

Tags: Miami history, Miami dance clubs, Peppermint Lounge, the Twist, Chubby Checker, Sandi Lansky, Meyer Lansky,Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

South Florida’s Christmas past: of mule parties, teacher surprises, film studios and …

• 
  

  

  Poinsettia hedge - Florida 1948
  Florida State Archives
  
  

  
  
• By Jane Feehan 
• 
  
  Christmas in South Florida of decades past was celebrated with parties and special community events much as it is today. But there were different situations, some that may draw a smile or surprise. The following may provide a little of both.
  
  
  1917 - West Palm Beach: Staffers of New Jersey-based World Film Corporation stayed at the Salt Air hotel in Palm Beach in order to attend a Christmas party Dec. 8 in West Palm Beach at Metcalf hall. They were on hand to obtain “natural scenes” at the Hawaiian-themed affair. The hall was decorated as a Hawaiian garden; guests followed suit in appropriate garb. Admission was charged to spectators and participating dancers.
  
  
  1921-Miami: A “unique” Christmas party was held Christmas day for every mule and work horse in Miami. School children in the city played host while Boy Scouts fed carrots, apples, sugar and bread to the “dumb animals” so they would have as enjoyable day as possible.

  

  Christmas caroling Christmas Eve 1935, Miami. 

  A Federal Emergency Recovery project

  State Archives of Florida
  1921-Miami: Teachers at “grammar schools” were given a “real Christmas surprise” … when they received pay checks for the month of December “right on the dot” as a result of a clerical arrangement. Checks were cut without waiting for reports from principals; if they had waited for those reports, checks would have been delayed a few days.
  
  
  1934-Miami: The Kiwanis Club of Coral Gables held a Christmas party atop the Alcazar Hotel for 100 children with one of the outcomes expected to be the establishment of a fund to bring children from “100 communities of the United States to enjoy the benefits of South Florida sunshine.”
  
  
  1944-Florida and the United States: There was no Christmas gift wrapping paper, boxes and other accessories produced because the US Government declared it a non-essential industry during World War II. The one bright spot was the production of greeting cards. Cards were made small and in lighter paper but there was no shortage. Reason? About 15 million people were away from home to work war plant jobs throughout the country; sending Yuletide greetings was critical in shoring up morale of the workforce.
  
  
  1953-Broward County: About 25,000 attended the fifth annual Broward County Community Christmas party and Circus at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale. Broadcast by WIOD, the party featured Santa Claus riding a truck, the South Broward High School band, circus impresario Bob Morton, Gulfstream Park President Jimmy Dean, and the Boy Scouts. Hundreds of disabled children attended as special guests.  Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
• 
  
• Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 8, 1917

Miami News, Dec. 24, 1921

Miami News, Dec. 23, 1934

Miami News, Oct. 01, 1944

Miami News, Dec. 20, 1953

Tags: Florida Christmas history, Miami Christmas 1920s, Palm Beach history, Christmas in South Florida history, Miami in 1930s, Miami in 1940s, South Florida history