What was Miami Beach like in the 1980s? Take a look at the place and the people
Miami Herald Archives
The seeds of change were planted in Miami Beach in the late 1970s and into the ‘80s.
The first two renovated Art Deco hotels, the Cardozo and the Carlyle, reopened in 1978. Vacant storefronts and restaurants began to find new life as clubs in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Younger people moved in and visited.
Some of us remember the old South Beach, with its neighborhood bakeries, languid pace, shabby but genuine character, and the retired people who took over the place. They gathered each day on hotel porches, made their way to the beach across the street for some sunshine, then returned to their small rooms to cook dinner on a hot plate.