Frank Budge

Place August 5, 2020

Converse Building in Downtown Miami

On the northeast corner of SE First Avenue and SE First Street sits a relic of Miami’s building boom of the 1920s. The Converse building was conceived and constructed in the mid-1920s, and it provides a window into the transition…

Royal Palm Hotel under construction in 1896

Events December 24, 2018

MIami’s First Christmas in 1896

Christmas 1896 in the newly-incorporated city of Miami was euphoric for many of its estimated 1,000 residents, who exhibited feelings of pride in for the transformation of a wilderness into an instant municipality in less than one year. In fact, some were already calling it the “Magic City.”