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Central Miami

Photo Credit: Greater Miami CVB

Whatever caused “white flight” from Central Miami, the exodus left a vacuum partly filled by poverty and public housing (with Brickell Avenue as the main exception). Huddling near the commercial core, Miami’s poorest neighborhoods combine to make this America’s poorest city.

Drawbacks aside, Central Miami has its see-worthy spots, particularly the shops of Downtown, Little Havana, and Little Haiti. But municipal leaders know deliberate, strategic intervention is the only way to revive the area. As it undergoes a great reformation through job training, rebuilt infrastructure, and commercial investment, its inner-city neighborhoods wait in limbo.

Central Miami’s neighborhoods include:

Brickell Avenue
Downtown Miami
Liberty City
Little Haiti
Little Havana
Overtown

View healthcare facilities in this district

Brickell Avenue
Once dubbed “Millionaire’s Row” for its strip of waterfront mansions, Brickell Avenue is now more of a “Banker’s Row.” Did the millionaires move out and leave their money behind? Not exactly. But with more than 100 international and domestic financial institutions on and near Brickell Avenue, this main artery of downtown Miami’s commercial district serves as the country’s second largest international banking center.

Gleaming skyscrapers compete for air space with luxury condominiums along Brickell’s palm-lined streets. The area also is home to Florida’s tallest building, the 55-story First Union Financial Center. That record will be broken with the completion of the 64-floor Four Seasons Hotel & Tower, which happens to be on Brickell Avenue.

After the business day ends, suits and non-suits enjoy the area’s shops and fine restaurants. Residents feel secure in jogging, walking, or bicycling along the wide Brickell Boulevard. Brickell’s nearly 10,000 residential units offer a location central to major cultural attractions and public transportation options. Condominium prices tend to shoot through the roof, however, thanks to their oceanside views and proximity to downtown.

Bending with the Biscayne Bay shoreline, Brickell Avenue extends from the Miami River to Rickenbacker Causeway.

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Downtown Miami
Despite Miami’s reputation as a party city, its downtown is fairly traditional, preferring to stay primarily a business district. Plans for revitalizing Downtown Miami are proceeding sluggishly. Meanwhile, its existing shops, eateries, sports venues, and cultural outlets do their best to bring more than office workers to the downtown area.

Built on the site of the Pier 5 fishing pier, a tourist hot-spot in the 1950s, Bayside Marketplace pulls its own audience with retail shops, an open-air crafts market, a half-dozen restaurants, and outdoor performances. Next to Bayside, the Port of Miami harbors boats that take visitors on a tour of the bay.

Wares within the Historic Downtown Miami Shopping District include clothing, electronics, sporting goods, and jewelry. Inside the state-of-the-art Metro-Dade Cultural Center, you’ll find the Southeast’s largest library, along with the Miami Art Museum and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida. Catch a Miami Heat game on their American Airlines Arena home court, or see the University of Miami Hurricanes play on their Orange Bowl turf. After the game, grab a bite at a local restaurant or lift a mug at a tavern.

Typical boundaries for Downtown Miami are Southeast 24th Street on the north, 15th Road on the south, Biscayne Bay/Intercoastal Waterway on the east, and Interstate 95 on the west, except north of I-395 where the boundaries are the FEC Railroad and Northeast Second Avenue.

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Liberty City
Miami has been judged—by the U.S. Census Bureau, no less—as America’s poorest city. Exhibit A: Liberty City. Residents of this predominantly African-American suburb earn about half the median income of Dade County. Known for its drug wars and slum lords, Liberty City is characterized as a ghetto of deteriorating and vacant properties, and is infamous for a racially motivated riot in 1980.

Yet the picture here is not completely bleak. The community’s murals of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. depict its hope for a better future. And Miami government is helping to realize that dream. Already, local “crack houses” have been demolished, and police have significantly reduced the crime rate. Key to revitalization will be the building of hundreds of new residential units.

Planners are hoping for a positive domino effect: Attractive housing could lure residents, who could boost existing neighborhood businesses and spur the creation of new ones. This would build on Liberty City’s assets—a few streets of well-kept single-family homes, and the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center’s black-box theater, art gallery, and dance, art, and music studios.

Liberty City is roughly defined as the area from Northwest 12th Avenue to 19th Avenue, and from 62nd Street to 73rd Street.

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Little Haiti
After the perilous journey that Haiti’s “boat people” undertook to reach America, do you think they’d be slackers here? Haitian refugees are characterized by moxie and determination, and this neighborhood in Miami’s northeast corner proves it. Despite deteriorating buildings, meager resources, and a poverty rate near 50 percent, Little Haiti exudes a vibrant magic all its own—and we’re not talking voodoo.

Largely a Creole-speaking community, the colorful Little Haiti delights the multi-culturally curious. The exotic Caribbean Marketplace, the neighborhood’s brightest highlight, mimics the famed Iron Market in Port-au-Prince with its award-winning design. The marketplace’s dozens of shops offer locally made arts and crafts, African-inspired clothing, and exotic ice creams and juices.

Savor authentic Haitian cuisine at a restaurant. Enjoy the compas music (a Haitian blend of merengue and jazz) and other musical genres in a shop or club. If your outing extends into the nighttime hours, you are best advised to take a local jitney cab to your next destination.

Centered at Northeast 54th Street between Biscayne Boulevard and North Miami Avenue,
Little Haiti includes the neighborhoods of Lemon City, Edison Center, Little River, and Buena Vista East.

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Little Havana
While Cuba remains off-limits to American citizens, Miami’s Little Havana performs as an apt understudy. Cuban refugees streamed into this low-income neighborhood in the 1960s after Fidel Castro came to power, thus accounting for the high concentration of Cubans. Nicaraguans, Hondurans, and other immigrants also dwell here. While Little Havana’s residents cope with the lack of employment, there is affordable housing. And visitors can experience the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the island nation.

The sights: exotic fruit stands, street signs in Spanish and English, elderly Cuban men playing checkers and dominoes, the Bay of Pigs Monument. The sounds: salsa and merengue beats thumping from record stores, locals passionately talking politics. The smells: potent Cuban coffee from outdoor cafés, smoke from hand-rolled cigars. The tastes: everything from lechon asado (roast pork) and meat-filled empañadas to fried plantains and sweet merenguitos.

Shops selling jewelry, furniture, clothing, and more—all at good prices—are concentrated around Southwest Eighth Street, popularly known as Calle Ocho. Calle Ocho also is the name for the neighborhood’s annual street festival, purportedly the nation’s largest Hispanic celebration of food, music, dance, and culture. Cultural Fridays, held on the last Friday of each month, feature music, dance, poetry, visual arts, and theater along Calle Ocho.

Little Havana, located west of Brickell Avenue, comprises 10 square blocks along Calle Ocho.

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Overtown
Progress, one might argue, destroyed Overtown. Beginning in the 1960s, promised “urban renewal” meant bulldozing many homes and businesses for interstates 95 and 395, which sliced through this Miami neighborhood’s core. Today, the neighborhood remains little more than vacant lots, high unemployment rates, and overcrowded public housing.

Ironically, Overtown once was home to successful African-American families, including Miami’s first millionaire. Jazz legends Billie Holiday, Count Basie, and Cab Calloway played the local Lyric Theater. And Overtown’s businesses thrived in the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s, from shops and grocery stores to law offices and a hospital.

The remnants of that golden era dimly sparkle in such historic structures as Greater Bethel AME Church, Carver Hotel, and Cola Nip Bottling Company. Recently, the Miami City Commission earmarked a two-block area, dubbed the Overtown Historic Village, for revitalization. Other community-based organizations are collaborating to resuscitate this historic neighborhood.

Sandwiched between downtown Miami and the Miami Arena, Overtown is bordered by Northwest 21st Street, Northwest Sixth Street, Northwest First Avenue, and I-95.

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Healthcare facilities in Central Miami:

Cedars Medical Center
Jackson Memorial Hospital
Pan American Hospital