The Wynwood is a neighborhood in Miami Florida that has been getting a lot of attention recently for its development into a center for art and interesting restaurants, bars and breweries. However, very few people know the full history of this neighborhood that dates back to 1917. While Wynwood nears its 100th year, it is time to share its story of humble beginnings, diverse demographics and modern day gentrification.
Developed by Miami Pioneers
The Wynwood area was originally sub-divided and sold by a couple of early Miamians: Josiah Chaille and Hugh Anderson. The land that Chaille and Anderson purchased in 1917 was farmland and part of the Pulaski Estate. At the time of the purchase of this tract of land, the estate was being managed by the law firm of Robbins, Graham and Chillingsworth.
The land may have also included part of the Waddell and Johnson tract, but it isn’t clear how much of this tract would have been a part of the transaction. Prior to the annexation of this land by the city of Miami in 1913, it would have been a part of North Miami. North Miami was defined as land north of today’s fourteenth street, which was just north of the original Miami city limits. North Miami did not have alcohol restrictions, so it was a haven for saloons and raucous behavior in the early years following the incorporation of Miami.
What is clear about the Waddell and Johnson tract is that there were already lots sold long before 1917. EA Waddell was Miami’s first real estate agent and was focused on selling lots on this tract as early as early as 1896 to his friends from Key West. Therefore, Chaille and Anderson may have inherited some lots that were already sold and built as part of their purchase in 1917.
Josiah Chaille was the son of a William Chaille who opened up a store called The Racket Store on Avenue D (later named Miami Avenue), after relocating from Ocala to Miami. The Chaille family arrived in Miami in 1900, shortly after the incorporation of the city. Josiah would work with his father in the retail business until his father’s retirement in 1912. Josiah would continue to run the business until 1916 at which time he chose to sell the store to the Burdines and go into the burgeoning real estate business.
Josiah Chaille may have been best known for his work on the Miami City Council. In 1920, the city council enacted a new street name and numbering system in a plan provided by Josiah Chaille. The modern day street names and numbers in downtown Miami and the surrounding areas are directly from this plan. The plan was adopted in October of 1920 and called the Chaille Plan.
Hugh Anderson was a charismatic opportunist who went from a hotel clerk in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to a millionaire promoter during boom time Miami in the nineteen teens and nineteen twenties. In addition to being a part of the founding of Wynwood, Anderson also was involved with the development of Miami Shores and the Venetian Islands. He also was one of the builders of Biscayne Boulevard. Unfortunately, Hugh Anderson lost his fortune and died in 1941 at the age of 59.
The partners took out the first plat in Wynwood on January 7th, 1917. However, the men originally called this area Wyndwood. Three months after the two men took out the first plat, the City of Miami built a park on the northern end of this new area and dropped the “d” from the name. The area became known as Wynwood Park. It wasn’t until much later that people dropped the “Park” and just referred to the area as Wynwood.
Originally, the Wynwood Park boundaries were defined by NW 20th Street to the south, NW 36th Street to the North, the FEC Railroad tracks to the east and NW 7th Avenue to the West. After the building of Interstate 95 in the 1960s, the Wynwood neighborhood border was unofficially changed. The western border of Wynwood was now considered Highway 95. This unofficial change eliminated a set of small blocks that were east of NW 7th Avenue and west of Highway 95, between NW 20th Street and NW 36th Street.
Working Class Neighborhood
Since its inception, the neighborhood became an area for working class families. My grandmother and her family lived just inside the boundaries of Wynwood, on NW 23rd Street and just east of NW 7th Avenue. She lived in Wynwood from 1928 to 1945. The house she resided would have been in the portion of Wynwood that was isolated during the building of I-95 in the 1960s. She, and at least one of my great uncles, graduated from Robert E Lee Middle School in the late 1920s. Also, she worked nearby at Don Allen Chevrolet on NW 20th Street and Miami Avenue. Most of the families in the area would have been considered middle class at that time.
Wynwood became an attraction for commercial residents as well. In 1928, the American Bakeries Company built a plant to make and distribute Merita Bread at NW 32nd Street in Wynwood. Residents would say that you could smell the freshly baked bread for blocks. The plant took up almost a block between the addresses of 561 through 599 on NW 32nd Street.
Also, Coca-Cola opened up a bottling plant at 301 NW 29th Street in 1926. There was also an Orange Juice bottling plant located in Wynwood around this time. There were plenty of opportunities for working class people to both work and live in the Wynwood neighborhood during its early years.
The Miami Fashion District
The boom years of the 1920s saw the beginnings of the garment industry in Wynwood. The Garment District was the southern portion of Wynwood along NW 5th Avenue, between NW 22nd and NW 29th Streets.
Many Cubans who began migrating to Miami in the early 1960s provided much of the work force for this growing industry. The Garment District consisted of both clothing retailers as well as manufacturers.
According to an article in the Miami News on October 27th in 1980, the Miami Fashion District was part of the third largest garment district in the country. In 1980, there were 225 businesses as part of this district. Wholesale – Retailers represented about $64 million in sales and manufacturers drew about $125 million in revenue annually.
As the district got more popular in the 1980s, many of the manufacturers moved out of Wynwood to make room for more retailers. As the value of commercial square footage went up, the manufacturers felt it was better to move to places like Hialeah to be closer to their Cuban workforce. Many of the workers did not have cars and resided in places like Hialeah.
Over the course of the last 20 years, many of the businesses in Wynwood’s Fashion District have been purchased by South Koreans. Despite the change in rental rates and the change in business ownership, the Fashion District is still a very vibrant business community in Wynwood.
Little San Juan
At the end of World War II, there was a big exodus of Wynwood residents to the newly developed suburbs. Commercialization and urban flight took its toll on the neighborhood. The old timers, and younger generation that grew up in the neighborhood, moved away. This trend changed the composition of the neighborhood dramatically.
The exodus formed a void in the neighborhood that began to be filled with a variety of new immigrants to Miami. In particular, there was a large influx of Puerto Ricans into the area, and the neighborhood began to be known as ‘Little San Juan’ by the middle 1950s. The neighborhood’s demographics represented the first big influx of Hispanics into Miami and it was referred to as Little San Juan over 10 years prior to the area near the Orange Bowl being referred to as Little Havana.
The impact of the influx of Hispanics, and in particular the Puerto Ricans, began to change the names of many of the neighborhood’s public places. Wynwood Park was renamed Roberto Clemente Park in July of 1974, following the tragic death of the Puerto Rican born baseball player on December 31st, 1972. Clemente died in a plane crash attempting to bring aid to Nicaraguans following a devastating 1972 earthquake in Managua.
Robert E Lee Middle School, at NW 32nd Street and NW 5th Avenue, was closed and later was razed to make room for a new middle school that was named Jose De Diego Middle School. The new school opened in August of 1999. Robert E Lee was closed in June of 1989 due to the age and condition of the building. The school was built in 1924.
The names of the public service buildings in the neighborhood took on the names of important Puerto Rican figures and terms. The neighborhood service center was named after a Puerto Rican patriot and writer, Eugenio Maria de Hostos. The center is located at 2902 NW 2nd Avenue. A publicly funded outpatient clinic was named Borinquen Health Care Center at 161 NW 29th Street. Borinquen was the ancient name of the island of Puerto Rico.
Local dining spots were called the La Boricua Coffee Shop at 186 NW 29th Street, and Roberto Clemente Coffee Shop, which was located across the street from the park. These businesses provided an affordable diner which specialized in Puerto Rican cuisine. The churches in the neighborhood were Iglesia Pentacostal Esmira at 36 NW 29th Street and San Juan Batista, or Little Mission Church, at 3116 NW 2 Avenue.
Wynwood on the Decline
Over time the neighborhood began to diversify and include blacks, Cubans, Haitians, Colombians, Dominicans in addition to Puerto Ricans. According to a Miami News article in December of 1977, only 33 percent of the Wynwood population was Puerto Rican. The article stated that another one third of the population was Cuban and the final third consisted of all the aforementioned groups. Wynwood had a population of roughly 18,000 people in 1977.
By the late 1970s, the Wynwood neighborhood was considered lower middle class. Unemployment was 55% and drug trafficking was rampant. Wynwood was considered a “springboard community” for new immigrants. The goal for working class immigrants was to improve their economic standing so they can leave the neighborhood as quickly as possible.
The unofficial Mayor of Wynwood was Dottie Quintana. Dottie was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico on August 9th in 1909 and grew up in Cuba before moving to the New York in 1927. After getting married, she moved to Wynwood in the late 1950s. Dottie spent her life helping the sick, elderly and children in what became a very tough Wynwood neighborhood.
For 10 years, Dottie would often drive the neighborhood at night in her old teal Chevy sedan, and make note of the activities of drug dealers and seedy characters in Wynwood. The next day she would discretely drop off her notes to the police station.
Both Dottie and her husband would collect food from churches to give to Haitian Immigrants when they first started arriving in the late 1970s. She helped the Cuban Refugees that began arriving in the 1980s. She was instrumental in the opening of the Borinquen Health Center and the De Hostos Senior Center. Dottie’s work to help the people of Wynwood was a life-long passion and earned her the nickname “Mayoress of Wynwood”.
Given all of her work and accomplishment, the community center in Roberto Clemente Park was dedicated to her and is today called the Dorothy Quintana Community Center. It is located on the southeast corner of the park at NW 34th street and NW 1st Avenue. Dottie Quintana passed away at the age of 101 on March 13th, 2011.
Gentrification of Wynwood
It may have been the purchase of the former American Bakeries building on NW 32nd Street that represented an early glimpse of what Wynwood would become. By 1980, the bakery was operating as the Flowers Baking Company. In 1981, the company moved out of Wynwood leaving the building without a tenant.
The former bakery sat empty for 4 years until a splinter group of the South Florida Art Center discovered the building. Driven out of Coconut Grove by high rents, some of the SFAC artists relocated to South Beach, while others chose to stay on the mainland to look for a suitable home.
Led by Helene Pancoast and Faith Atlas, the mainland group formed a nonprofit organization and purchased the former bakery building. In 1987, the 2.2 acre facility opened as Florida’s largest working artist’s space, and was called the Bakehouse. It still operates at that same location and by that same name today.
Fast forward to the middle 2000s and the Wynwood art scene got a big lift when Goldman Properties took interest in Wynwood. Tony Goldman, a force behind the revival of SoHo and South Beach, had a knack for seeing thriving, artsy neighborhoods when others could only see urban plight. Goldman, his daughter Jessica and his son Joey, began buying up chunks of Wynwood’s warehouse district in 2006.
In October of 2009, Tony Goldman dreamed up an open air gallery of murals called Wynwood Walls. The gallery opened a couple months later to coincide with Art Basel. Goldman’s vision was that the entire Wynwood neighborhood would become a canvas for urban street art. It is a neighborhood that provides a monthly art showing called the Wynwood Art Walk, which takes place on the second Saturday of every month.
Unfortunately, Tony Goldman passed away at the age of 68 on September 11th in 2012. His dream lives on through his children, who continue to run Goldman Properties and invest in the Wynwood community.
The Wynwood neighborhood has attracted a number of very interesting restaurants, bars, breweries, art galleries and an assortment of other name brand retailers. While it is a neighborhood that is rooted in humble beginnings and evolved into a melting pot community, it is a neighborhood on the rise. There are plans to build condominiums, a hotel and promises of a lot of new restaurants and retailers.
Some in Miami believe that the Wynwood Neighborhood has already surpassed many other nearby neighborhoods in terms of character and charm. If you haven’t attended an Art Walk or visited any of the great establishments in Wynwood, now is certainly the time.
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History of Wynwood Miami Blog Research Sources:
- Book: “Miami and Dade County Florida” by E.V. Blackman in 1921.
- Miami News: “Merita Bread Used by Many” on May 18th, 1928.
- Miami News: “Hugh Anderson Dies in Tenn” on June 19th, 1941.
- Miami News: “Wynwood: rents high, homes overcrowded …” on August 2nd, 1974.
- Miami News: “Wynwood is Miami’s Little San Juan” on December 31st, 1979.
- Miami News: “The Fashion District” on October 27, 1980.
- Miami News: “Bakehouse” on December 13th, 1986.
- Miami New Times: “Icing on the Bakehouse” on April 9th, 1998.
- Tequesta: “The Birth of the City of Miami” by Larry Wiggins, 1995.
Details at home, Miami Beach first and largest Home furnishing retailer was one of the who ventured into the area and had their warehouse located on 20th street and 2nd Ave. Late opened up a Art Gallery in the early stages of the now infamous 2nd Saturday Art walk.
FYI:….;-)
Thank you for the great information, Ricardo. Do you recall the name and date that the home furnishing retailer opened their location in Wynwood?
Dear Casey,
Great article, but you have seemed to have missed a vital portion of Wynwoods Art District history prior to Tony Goldman buying up property in 2006. Between 2003-2005 The real Wynwood Art District Pioneers were hard at work creating the neighborhood that is today. The original art pioneers of that time were Mark Coetzee of Rubell Collection, Marty Marguilies, Brook Dorsch of Dorsch Gallery, Nina Arias & Nick Cindric of Rocket Projects, George Sanchez Calderon, Westen Charles, Cooper & Elizabeth Withstanley of Locust Projects, Bernice Steinbaum of Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Marina Kessler of Marina Kessler Gallery & Isaac Pearlman of Dot 51 Gallery. This group of gallerists and artists not only are the founding members of the Wynwood Art District Association, but they also created the famous Second Saturday’s Gallery Walk, designed the street manhole cover Wynwood Logo, the fold out Map of Galleries, and also worked close with the city of Miami to create and print the large street light banners that still hang around the neighborhood today. It was because of their efforts that people like Tony Goldman noticed the neighborhood and began buying up properties all over Wynwood. It is not fair to give so much credit to Goldman (real estate moguls with deep pockets) When if fact these people are the true pioneers of the Wynwood Art District who have paved the way for the new batch of artists, galleries an museums that are in the neighborhood today. It would be the correct thing to do to update your article with this important historic info of Wynwood Art Districts history.
Great point. The true pioneers were in the late 90’s early 2000’s when there were nightly breakins, crackheads everywhere. Goldman jumped on the bandwagon after it became trendy although his investment took things to another level. Please don’t forget the REAL pioneers..
Check out the Slideshare that provides images and captions of pictures and articles about Wynwood from the 1920s through the 1980s. The link to the slideshare is http://www.slideshare.net/miamihistory/wynwood-miamihistory
I opened my gallery in Wynwood on March 3rd of 2000 – after 4 months of renovation.
Brad is right – People like Locust Projects (opened in 1999) and Bernice Steinbaum (2000) and the Rubell Family Collection were there to start the move of Galleries to the area. The Bakehouse was the true first.
Wynwood just won “America’s Greeatest Places, Best Neighborhood” this year!
http://www.miamirealestateguy.com/wynwood-miami-named-one-of-americas-greatest-places/
Mail updates to:
16208 NE 12 Ave
NMB, FL 33162
Louis, do you have an e-mail address? Updates are provided by e-mail.
Wynwood was a dump and the real pioneers were circa mid 90s. You could not go into wynwood let alone walk along at night. Thank god the place has changed thanks to high rents in south beach and downtown. Galleries were very expensive so it was cheaper to have one in wynwood. Times have changed.
nice article.. love it!
very interesting article, i love art walks and photoshoots at the walls
Thanks for this valuable information..around 2004 a young couple of french tourist asked to take you there..By that time i was living in downtown and I didn’t even know the name of that place. What i remembered is that I always avoided to pass through that area. I thought they were in the wrong place, but when I dropped them at the address they had on a piece of paper I was a witness of the happiness they experienced..last night I read this article..To my surprise the vision I had of Wynwood for years changed completely and I posted a video on facebook telling friends of the unforgetable two hours I spent discovering this fascinating place.Soon we are going to be there joining a Second Saturday Walk..Leo
Over the past three years as a resident artist at the Bakehouse Art Complex, I started to document the remaining Hispanic community of Wynwood. Their homes and their lives are the basis for my work. I have self published a photo book “Wynwood a City Within” with Blurb press if anyone is interested and it can be previewed for free on the Blurb web site. My goal was to leave a lasting memory of the community before it becomes totally gentrified. There are many more photographs in this story and I hope to continue this project. The book has been purchased by the “History Miami Museum” and I hope to give the rest of the work of this project to the museum.
You should look into the original name of the neighborhood, Wyndwood. My father grew up there, played for teams at Wyndwood park, went to Robert E. Lee middle school and wants to know what happened to the “d” in the name.
Sadly, there is a decade ignored in all the historical writings I’ve read about Wynwood, including this one! The most glaring omission from other writings is the decade of the 50’s. There were NO Hispanics in the area during that time (except maybe me … y father was Spanish.Cuban and my mother was a ‘cracker’ from Georgia. We lived as Anglos).
I lived on NE 29th Street between Miami Ave, and the FCE RR tracks from when I 11 years old to age 14.There was a small restaurant on the NE corner of Miami Ave and 29th st where my divorced single mom worked as a waitress. I sold the Miami Daily News at the traffic light on that corner. She and I moved there from Tampa when my parents divorced. There were two bars across the street from the restaurant, and a third one block north on the corner of 30th Street. The neighborhood was a shit-hole where broken people found cheap rental apartments among some old timers in small wooden homes.
There was a large Ford dealership occupying the east side block of Miami Ave from 27th Street to 28th Street. A traditional ‘diner’ was on the NE corner of 26th.
Though I attended the last two months of my 6th grade at an elementary school on NW 2nd Ave, I didn’t attend Robert E Lee middle school. I didn’t like the ‘look’ of it. Instead, I hitch-hiked and/or walked to and from Miami Edison Junior High at NW 2nd Ave and 62nd Street.
I arrived in Miami in the spring of 1954, and moved back to Tampa in the summer of 1957. The Puerto Ricans had NOT arrived in Wynwood by that time.
NOTE: I do not see any way to post photos here. Wish there was. I have a couple of me in front of my first apartment home by the railroad tracks on 29th street.
I really enjoyed reading this article and all the comments and links that followed. I also wanted to make mention as a former graffiti artist that the graffiti artist of the area were also a big help in the development of the actual street art. Where real estate investors may have provided funds, and art galleries provided art etiquette, the graffiti artists / vandals definitely helped pave the way with aerosol art on the walls.
My first time painting there was in 2004 in the south location of the old RC cola at the west borders of 6th ave and I-95. I remember there were a lot of street artists who had already created much artwork in that area, and that would only move East more and to both the North and South areas. By 2009 North Miami down 24th street was covered in street graffiti and don’t forget the local graffiti supply store and culture supporters 004 Connect. That was a very special time in the Wynwood area in regards to the street scene and credit should definitely be given where it’s due. Most people despised spray paint art while others were fascinated by it. It even attracted the attention of the great Martha Cooper, the photographer for one of the greatest American Graffiti books ever published, SubWay Art; by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant. I witnessed Martha many times frequenting the area by bicycle with camera in hand with her sun hat on while crew members and I would be working up our walls =) Good memories and magical place indeed.
Nick, I agree that the graffiti artists really shaped the art scene in Wynwood. The galleries provided provided a foundation of Wynwood as center for art, and the graffiti artists provided an organic movement that was embraced and celebrated in the area. If you have any photos of some of the early murals in Wynwood, I would be happy to update the article with the street art perspective of Wynwood’s history. You can reach me at casey@sfwebnet.com.
With regard to Wynwood, Puerto Rican’s actually started arriving in about 1947 or so. The Martinez family arrived in 1947 from Key West but originally came from New York. My brother William was in the Navy during WWII and was a gunner on a SB2C Helldiver Torpedo Bomber and shot down in the Bay of Japan bombing the Hyuga battleship-carrier, our reason to move to Miami. Then the Santiago, La Fontaine, and many other families followed. I attended the Pentecostal Church on 5th Ave.& 33rd St. summer school and then the Miami Spanish-American Methodist Church on about NE 12th Terrace a few blocks from Lindsey-Hopkins Vocational School and Miami Technical High School in the same building. No mention was made of the Holloway Coffee Company on 32 Avenue a block away from Merita Bread. The smell of both factories was wonderful on the way to Robert E. Lee Jr. High. By the way, the elementary school on NW 2nd and 29th Street was Buena Vista. I am 82, live in Florida and remember many Buena Vista schoolmates. Mirta Mora and Luis Cruz are two Cuban children I helped learn English at Buena Vista. Other BV kids were, Donna Pinelli (crush on her), Barbara Karnes, Jimmy Foster, and my siblings, Myra, Yolanda, Yvonne & brother Ed. So, I would like to hear from anyone that has memories of these families. Bye the way, my cousins, Ismael Luis &Ramon also attended REL. David Martinez jazz drummer.
I would like to point out that my mom and dad were from Puerto Rico and we arrived in Miami in 1947 from Key West. Prior to that, Manhattan (Harlem) New York. We purchased a home built in 1927 at 280 NW 33rd Street. The home is still there along with a vacant lot on the corner My brother Bill was a gunner on a two man Curtiss Helldiver Torpedo Bomber. That is why we moved to Key West. So, my younger siblings and I attended Buena Vista Elementary in 2nd Ave. and 29th Street. Next door was a friend of my mom and dad named Manuela Santiago and her husband Felix. My younger brother Ed’s friends was Patrick and Gloria McGrath whose dad ran the Coca Cola plant on 29th Street and 2nd Avenue. We were a family of nine and the younger children attended Buena Vista and Robert E. Lee, Jr. high on 5th Avenue that took the whole block from 31st to 32nd. So from this small group began a migration of Puerto Rican’s. We built a church on 12th terrace a few blocks from Linsey Hopkins Vocational School and Miami Technical High School in the same 14 story building. I attended Tech High. So as thoughts pop in my head, I will add more information. The main thought Is Puerto Rican’s arrived much earlier than mentioned in prior comments. By the way, there was a gym on 2nd and 35th, I think, and Willy Pep trained there. I am 82. Any questions?
Gentrification is disgusting..10 years ago the police gang unit would chase artists out..now they cant afford to even park there, as soon as it was cool,they stole it and took credit for it. I hope the old Wynwood takes it back and every chabbad business fails.