(BELOW IS THE Central-South Area,
WHERE I SPENT MOST OF
MY TIME IN MIAMI
BETWEEN 1985& 2001)
Below is my home in Coral Gables (Leonardo Street) - off and on from 1971 to 1985. Across from it coincidentally is Ponce de Leon Junior High School, my Junior High School from 7th to 9th Grades, Sep.1965-June 1968, before graduating to Coral Gables Senior High School, about a mile and a half north of here.
Actually, "Ponce" is one of Miami's oldest High Schools. It was Coral Gables' and the area's only High School south of Miami High til Gables (C.Gables Sr.High) opened in 1950. The large garden is our house's garden. The lot is over 1/3 acre, on a triangular lot across from the Ponce High original 1925 building - the large construction on the other sider of the street. In the mid 60s, we used to sneak out of Ponce at the south corner of the larger building, take refuge in the bushes across the street (later my propety limits on Augusta Street), & from there, skip school, spend some time at the Burger King nearby, then going to Miracle Mile.
My Neighborhood from 1985 - my 4 apartments all within this one mile area, & conveniently my Miami offices from 1984 t0 1988, and then again from 1991 to 2001. An incredible location, where I could walk to work, jog along the beautiful bayfront, and watch the UNREAL building boom of the latemid 1990 to early 2000s.
My 14 story apartment building was literally DWARFED by the 80 story Four Seasons Hotel and Tour Behind it, as well as the Espirito Santo Tower and many other corporate,, residential and hotel buildings of the now called "Fifth Avenue or Wall Street of the South" definitely rose, and left one of the most important business, banking, and international busines hubs of the globe.
In my last 7 years at "Point View," when aircraft lsnded towrads the east (as they mostly did), I could tell time by the South African Airlines 747 early morning arrival from Cape Town - the world's longest nonstop commercial flight at the time 15 hours, followed by the Pan Am , Eastern (which became the even more numerous American & United flights after our dear Pan Eastern, Air Florida, and Braniff went bankrupt) from South America, and connecting flights from Central and North America.
After a lull of 4 or 5 hours of long haul jumbos, when airtraffic from the Americas with smaller jets kept the skies busy and collrful, the Air France Concorde came in from Paris (usually with a stop in Washington) then continued to Mexico & came back returnong to Paris. About then, then the legion of Lufthansa/Lauda, British Airways, Iberia, Alitalia & Air France 747s - one continuing to Haiti & back -strated coming in two at a time, like clockweork.
MIA has 2 East-West Lomng Runways on the North side, and another 2 East-West (invluding the one used for the Concordeand now, the A-380) as well as an fifth2 kilometer runway, which can alternate with two of the other four at a time. So, the Alitalia & KLM/Martinair Jumbos, the Virgin Atlantic 747-400s, the China Airlines Cargo Jumbo (after & before stopping in Alaska, the AirEurope and Air Brussell wide bodies (offering the cheapest fares to Europe), the El Al and Royal Jordanian flights, the Scandinavian flights, the Air Canada & Canadian Air contingent all started arriving and taking off again in the early afternoon.
Through the late afternoon or evening, LTU GERMAN AIRLINES DC-10s, SwissAir Jumbos/Martinair JUMBOS, Aeroflot Russian Airlines, and the myriad of Iberia DC-9s (all five plus AA, UA, CO, & USAir, LTU, MartinAir & Delta) maintained at least minihubs in Miami til about 2000, to feed their jumbos to Europe & Asia, or feed traffic from the world to the Americas, could be seen in Miami skies. American, and United with their smaller aircraft (their largest were MD-11s and 777s) circled our sky too, about two for every one foreign flight, until the evening & night South American (& South African) spectacle began.
Two or three Varig Jumbos flights daily during their good decades; VASP and Transbrasil for more than 10 years as well. LAN-Chile, AeroPerú, Viasa, ALM, Air Aruba, Air Jamaica, BWIA, Air Bahamas, LACSA, Avianca, A.Argentinas, Mexixana, Aeromexico, COPA, Air Panama, TACA, Ecuatoriana, LAB, LAP, and two American Airlines flight for each foreign flight as a rule, also circled our airspace.
My foreign viation aficionados loved the spectacle. They assured me no such parade of planes from around the worlds occurred one after the other, visible from a beautiful locale, beach, house, or hell, my apartmsent's balcony. Nowhere else on the globe! OK. Spend an afternoon near Heathrow, but that's not the same thing as seeing the world coming to you in beautiful United, British or Iberia Aircraft in close proximity and minute fter aminute, without too much noise.
The downside started about 5AM when the first flights from Rio, Cape Town, SãoPaulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago started landing (the landings were closer to land and so louder). But the air conditioning soon drowned the planes out, and the still-dark skies put me back to sleep.
Sadly, 9/11 put a dent on that "spectacle" and Aeroflot, LTU,United, Iberia & a couple of others shut their Miami minihubs though retaining a presence in Miami; but now flying one or 2 nonstops to the big capitals, eliminating the feeder flkights to the Americas. The USA startes asking VISAS (with required interviews) just for flight connections in all USA airports since then, and sadly for the US Aviation Business, the FEDS still continue the policy.
The spectacle though was still impressive, and was heightened by the world's largest fleet of mega cruiseliners leaving the Port of Miami, the world's busiest cruise port, and the PanAm or Chalk's hydro planes still landing (in the water) and taking off to Bimini and Paradise island in the Bahamas, between the Cruise Ships and the McArthur Causeway.
Those typically Miami pleasure, thankfully still exist. More have undoubtetly been added, some pulled then reinstated, and some are just too new for me to know about them. The Miami bay, its beauty, and mix of commercial and sea traffic form around the world is a spectacle without comparison anywhere.
From the view above, the airport was only 15 to 20 minutes away fro me, the Seaport (which you can see - 10 minutes away) and Miami Beach-So.Beach& South Coral Gables, where my sister & many friends lived in the 1990s, and still live there are both equidistantly six miles (NW across the Mc Arthur Causeway in the case of South Beach-shown in the top picture, AND South Coral Gables, the same distance - just down US Highway One (or Metrorail), or the scenic Route via "Bay Shore Drive, Main Highway, and Hardee Road."
A South Beach (Miami Beach) Club with downtown Miami in the background.
My cousin Patricia's new pool at her house in Coconut Grove, just 2 or 3 miles south of the aerial map below, following the SW First Avenue Road, parallel to US 1, about halfway from my Coral Gables life and my laterBrickell/Downtown Miami life, coming from the Southern Gables.
Following the "Apt SW First Av 1991-94" arrow below (and please click on the pictures, they are large and have an very good detail), you're about a mile and a half from my cousin Patricia's house, and only about another 2 to 4 miles to Coral Gables, depending where in Coral Gables you are looking for.
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