Once a Boomer. Always A Boomer.  In the 70’s I would ‘thumb’ each weekend from MA to NY by myself. Today I took a metro train from West Palm Beach to Miami. Never did  it before.  Getting  from downtown Miami to South Beach was a bit of a challenge.  No worries though it’s just part of my adventure.

I met one of my old friends and her hubby there at South Beach. Barbara and I met in the mid-70’s when she and I worked at  Dunkin’ Donuts corporation.  Sidebar for you – while working there,  I  attended  and graduated from DD University. I can in fact now name any kind of donut default there is. Oh well  enough  of the back story.

Today I toured some of the smaller hotels on Ocean Avenue  in the South Beach area. These smaller hotels were built In the 30’s and early 40’s after a hurricane in 1926 destroyed much of this area. The very distinctive style of these structures is now known as Art Deco design. This term was not coined until 1960 and not widely used until the 1980’s.

The Art Deco preservation movement in Miami  began in 1976 thanks to what really amounted to a crusade by one woman- Barbara Baer Capitman. There are  hundreds of these hotels that have been preserved thanks to her and her leadership role working with several hoteliers.  I will add a post soon focused on telling you more about this very inspiring woman. I will also report on what I learned through my very informative tour led by a Miami Design Preservation League volunteer.

Photo by Robin Hill

In the meantime, on my train ride today, I found a great website that focuses on vetting the world’s best dealers in 20th century art and design. A must to checkout www.modernism.com.