Vintage Postcard – Motel Row Miami Beach
Exclusive Helicopter view of the Fabulous “Motel Row” in the Sunny Isles section of North Miami Beach, Fla. Nowhere in the world can you find more luxurious accommodations as in these modern motels. In the upper left hand corner you can see the Sunny Isles Fishing Pier. In the center of the scene is famous Collins Avenue.
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This lovely vintage postcard was mailed using a red 2 cent John Adams stamp (like this one, top row right). It was mailed from Holly Hill Florida May 21, 1954 to Mr. & Mrs. G. Schwertfeger, 4653 S. 72nd St., West Allis, Wisc. It reads:
Thurs. eve.
Hi! How are you? We are having a wonderful trip so far. Florida is sure beautiful. More so than Calif. I can see why people keep coming back here. And you should see all the people and this is their slack season. We are headed for Wash. D.C. and home. Lil & Al.
Here’s another shot of motel row, this one from Florida Memory. Boston.com has a nice article about the motel row here. Wikipedia details the history of the motel row area, Sunny Isles Beach, here. Sunny Isles Pier was built after 1936. The 1950s and 1960s was when these two-story motels flourished. The Ocean Palm was the first two-story motel in the U.S. (and is since closed). In 1982 the area was designated as a historic site. Sunny Isles Fishing Pier is known now as Newport Fishing Pier.
Here’s a Google StreetView shot of the Ocean Palm, which is dwarfed on both sides by ginormous condos:
I “walked” down Collins Avenue using Google Street View, and in the places without new condos were dirt lots where old motels had been torn down and new condos would be built. Kind of depressing, really.
More glamorous Miami Beach here:
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