Alley Culture: Miami
The first thing you will notice about my Alley Culture: Miami post is that there are two photos, as opposed to my usual one. The other thing you will notice is how very different those two photos are.
Yet the two alleys pictured are less than eight miles away from each other, each well within the confines of Miami proper. And that, of course, is my point.
Miami is beautifully–and sometimes not-so-beautifully–diverse. The different areas are truly striking–from the glitz and art deco of South Beach to the pulsing culture of Little Havana (guess which one I liked more) to the wide boulevards of Coral Gables or the narrow Spanish-moss strewn streets of Coconut Grove, I’ve never visited one single city that had so many different things to offer.
Of course, this diversity is often painful to witness. As I walked down Ocean Avenue I couldn’t help but notice the men in hundred-thousand-dollar cars driving past Lummus park, where scores of homeless lay in the shade of the park’s many palm trees. This is a sort of diversity I can’t understand.
Aside from being different from neighborhood to neighborhood, Miami has a very different feel than any other US city I’ve ever visited. It is the perfect city for someone like me who is obsessed with in-between places; Miami is both literally and figuratively at the edge of America.
I lived in S. Florida for a number of years and agree with your observations. There is so much diversity there and each area is very different from the other ones. The Miami area could really be considered part of Latin America.
Yes, it could. I think that’s why I liked it so much. I felt like I was somewhere far more exotic than south Florida.