Miami Beach Memories: A Nostalgic Chronicle of Days Gone by

Miami Beach Memories: A Nostalgic Chronicle of Days Gone by by Biondi, Joann. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780762740666.

Miami Beach has lots of memories to share. Memories of the 1920s, when Johnny Weissmuller flaunted his freestyle skills at local pools; of the 1930s, when Desi Arnaz strummed his first guitar; of World War II, when Clark Gable romanced more than one local girl; of the Fabulous Fifties, when the Rat Pack owned the joint; and of the 1960s, when Muhammad Ali snagged the heavyweight championship of the world in the Miami Beach Auditorium. A tiny spit of sand barely 15 miles long and a mile wide, the island is known throughout the world as a tropical haven and vacation playground—a neon-lit Garden of Eden dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure. And yet, serious things have gone on there. Dark things, like the blatant anti-Semitism of the 1930s, that have been intentionally forgotten from the collective psyche. In that sense, Miami Beach is a sandbox full of paradoxes. To unravel those paradoxes, Biondi interviewed more than one hundred current and former residents of the city: lawyers and land developers, doctors and teachers, artists and politicians, waiters and maids, photographers and strippers, comedians and singers. There’s even a Native Indian chief and a former U.S. Attorney General in the bunch. Their personal memories, along with stunning black-and-white photographs, document the islands history in a way no third-person history can. The many great images include Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Edna Buchanan in a bikini (she wanted to show off); boxer Jack Dempsey holding eight ice cream cones on the beach; the Beatles/Judy Garland/Jackie Gleason posing with hairdresser Ruth Regina (not together, of course); all the strippers in their stripping glory; and tons of evocative family portraits. The book also features social artifacts from the era, including original ID cards that African-American workers were made to carry in the 1930s, war posters, and restaurant menus. A nostalgic chronicle of days gone by, Miami Beach Memories is a chorus of varied voices and diverse points of view, a mosaic of poignant anecdotes, and an eclectic collage that paints a portrait of what life was once like on this tiny but fascinating island.