Miami Beach, The Early Years

I’d never heard of Myasthenia Gravis before. And I haven’t heard of it since. But at the time, the MG was THE thrift shop. I don’t think I would have spent much time on the beach if it weren’t for those thrift shops.

There was no South Beach in 1982. There was Miami Beach, and it was the space between Joe’s Stone Crab and the nudie beach. To some, it included North Miami Beach. We didn’t think to differentiate by area. It really wasn’t necessary, because not many people lived on Miami Beach. At least not people I knew.

So when I got off the Washington Avenue bus that night in 1984 to have a talk with Linda Polansky, the only thing I knew was that I wanted to get the hell outta Kendall. Linda was so happy to meet me, so open to me taking one of the storefronts, so ready to make Espanola Way an artist’s community. The way it was supposed to be when it was built, back in the 20’s. Dammit, it happened.

There were a number of us in storefronts at the time. Terry Ekasala, Deedee Ess Dubbleyew and her man with the art gallery, the print shop, a never open shoe repair. Across the street, the Granada cafe, the butcher, the hotel. Every day we were together, living on the fringe. Work was just a suggestion for many of us.

Terry Ekasala @ terryekasala.com

Within a few days of my moving into the storefront space, locals started stopping by. First, the guy who stole my bike. Then, Francine, the local "social worker" with a passing resemblance to Jayne Mansfield, including the cha-cha heels. Laid Back Larry, the dude who lived in the hotel across the street might stroll by rubbing the top of his head, his body leaning back in a way that reminded me of the “Keep On Truckin’” tee shirt guy.

Then the local kids who were my age started coming by. Frankie, Disco Carlos, and Blondie. We were the kids of Miami Beach, pushing each other towards art, searching for anything to release us from our boredom. Before I knew what happened, the floor in my space was painted in Mondrian pattern, the columns a faux marble. Not having much to do, and less money than time, we began nightly parties with booze taken from someone’s parents, my 1950’s hi-fi playing Smiths albums. And then the block parties began, with a hundred or more people coming from all over the place, to spend time on Miami Beach, which somehow still maintained an appearance of being crystallized. Like a little bug, stuck in amber.

Barbara Capitman, Leonard Horowitz and Linda Polansky were very clear that Miami Beach was to become a world-class resort, but it was the furthest thing from my mind. I lived in a storefront, spent my days walking the streets with friends who like me had no concept of the future, of time - no clear purpose. I look back and think how I was in a trance, sitting on people’s floors or dancing in the streets, every night. We drank cheap beer and chain-smoked, fully engaged in very little at all. As the Pet Shop Boys said, “we were never being boring.” Or so it seemed at the time, our need to be in constant search of what came next.

Looking back on those halcyon days, our lives were unhinged.

The Miami Herald came round a few times to document the goings-on of Espanola Way. When the articles came out, they always fell flat. And I would wonder, why bother doing an article at all.

The happiness, the camaraderie, the inside jokes and what at the time felt like something quite novel, never really translated in ink. We were a family bound together in the way that islanders must feel about one another. We were aware of a world existing outside our reality, but preferred that it come to us. And when it began to do so, there was a sense of inclusion that offered people that experience in a deeper way.

And the deluge....