SoBe, 2am. The rooftop, caressed by a tropical breeze, is alive with the titter of drunken laughter. It’s a wonder no one has fallen into the glowing, palm-fringed pool. This is the Gansevoort South. Hovering on 24th Street, bigger than the Starship Enterprise, this ‘lifestyle resort’ (one of many on this stretch of sand) sees teeny-weeny-bikini action on its enormous pool deck by day. By night, the rooftop bar is the hottest ticket in town, its $1,000 cabanas stuffed with the young and rich.
Two bleach blondes with surgically enhanced breasts suck on lychee mojitos. With them is a man with shoulder-length, slicked-back hair, designer stubble and a white shirt with the collar turned up. Earlier I saw him cutting a deal in front of the giant fish tank in the lobby, while the Pacific blacktip sharks swished around.
No one would know there’s a recession on, that this town was the first domino in the American property game to fall, and is now Foreclosure Central, with half of the new condos built unsold. Most speculators who came here to get rich quick have already left. But this is Miami, land of dreams and illusions, quick riches and corruption, success and hubris.
Mercurial South Beach has shed its skin many times. It is the Madonna of American resorts, the queen of reinvention. And its story mirrors the fortunes of the city at large. By the 1970s, its 30s heyday as a playground for millionaires long forgotten, South Beach was where people went to die, often by way of a crumbling, Art Deco hotel. It was lights out at 8pm. It was dreary.
By the 80s, the only other thing happening was crime — watch a couple of episodes of Miami Vice to get the picture. Miami was the murder capital of America, its problems fuelled by racial tension, drug running and organised crime. The arrival of 125,000 Cuban refugees in 1980, some of them psychiatric patients and criminals released by Castro, didn’t help. Local councillors decided to reclaim South Beach and filed for federation protection. Restoration work started and the hipsters moved in with their pop-up clubs and arty hangouts. As the money poured in, the developers stayed and the cool kids left. Wave upon wave of plusher openings and cult refurbs began to hit South Beach, bringing the edgy party scene upmarket. The prices skyrocketed. South Beach grew up. Or down. The average age of its residents had dropped from 68 in 1980 to 39 by 2002.
On South Beach, the sky is an enduring blue, the sea pale turquoise. The beach has powdery white sand and goes on forever, and the palm trees are towering and spindly like the gliding Rollerbladers on the beachside walk. The hotels are everything, their names like an Oscars roll call: The Mondrian, The Viceroy, The Tides, The Raleigh, Eden Roc, The Cipriani. They are the mother ships you gravitate towards, to their alfresco eateries and civilised pools, where swimologists arrange towels like origami and press cold orchids and Evian spray into your hands.
