Demolishing Black History: Miami’s Historic Preservation Failure

By: Justin Alexander

From cities’ earliest preservation impulses[1] to Congress’ passage of the National Historic Preservation Act almost sixty years ago,[2] historic preservation laws recognize thousands of landmarks[3] and provide needed financing and incentives to upkeep and restore them.[4] But the historic preservation engine which local, state, and federal laws have constructed turns on what bureaucrats consider culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant.[5] Further, historic preservation has been circumscribed by property rights.[6] With these two principles in mind, they work together to ensure the Black community does not benefit. Preservation planners and architects often exclude the built legacies of communities of color and low-income communities.[7] Additionally, where preservation is politically disfavored, communities organize to halt designations that could hinder redevelopment and reassert control over land use decision-making.[8]

For many sections of Black Miami, “slum clearance,”[9] “urban renewal,”[10] and highway construction wrought massive demolition and displacement before local governments ever contemplated preservation laws.[11] Later, these predominantly Black neighborhoods went ignored as early preservation efforts concentrated on the affluent Art Deco district in Miami Beach.[12] While public officials increasingly attended to preservation in Overtown and the West Grove, demolitions continued.[13] What seemed good facially, had terrible consequences for the Black communities which were not recognized.

Dade County narrowly passed its historic preservation ordinance, which required municipalities to pass their own laws, in February 1982;[14] Miami soon thereafter passed its preservation ordinance.[15] Currently, the city intends that its ordinance “preserve and protect the heritage of the city” by “enhanc[ing], perpetuati[ng], and us[ing],” inter alia, buildings and neighborhoods of historic significance.[16] To do so, the ordinance provides “the framework and legal mechanism for identifying and designating those properties that have major significance.”[17] Properties can be listed if they “[e]xemplify the historical, cultural, political, economic, or social trends of the community….”[18] Importantly, the ordinance provides that “[t]he property owner, any one member of the city commission, the planning department, or any aggrieved party that has standing under Florida law may appeal to the city commission any decision of the [historic and environmental preservation] board” deciding on a nomination.[19] Borrowing from the NHPA, the city’s ordinance also exempts from designation most “cemeteries, birth places, or graves of historical figures, properties owned by religious institutions or used for religious purposes,” relocated structures, reconstructed buildings, and buildings less than 50 years old.[20] These are not listed except where specific “criteria considerations” would justify it.[21]

In Miami, planners’ failure to account for the rich histories and architectural contributions of its oldest, predominantly Black neighborhoods reflects both the broader discriminatory legacy of land use planning[22] and an opportunity for reform. Four federal programs drove postwar urban planning toward large-scale, government-sanctioned demolitions in so-called “slum” or “blighted” urban neighborhoods: public housing, urban renewal, home mortgage insurance, and the interstate highway system.[23] This reduced the historic housing stock;[24] replacement projects, if any, exhibit disqualifying criteria despite their historic significance in the community and importance to neighborhood stability.[25] However, this need not typify the modern approach to historic preservation policy. Since the early days of preservation practice, activists have advocated for “blacks[’ involvement] in any preservation activities affecting that neighborhood [where they reside]….”[26] They also seek to deemphasize “desires to profit and to provide a new area for white residents near the city core” below a “concern for history.”[27]

Two Miami neighborhoods—Spring Garden and Overtown—reflect how recentering culture and history away from financial incentives and rigid “criteria” that defend white interests could protect properties excluded from the preservation discourse. These steps would broaden the reach of historic preservation regulations and benefits to more properties in historically neglected, diverse neighborhoods.

Historic properties remaining in Overtown, one of Miami’s oldest, formerly Jim Crow segregated neighborhoods,[28] readily exemplify historical, cultural, political, and social trends. As Connolly illustrates in his magnificent A World More Concrete (2014), the development and decline of Overtown—from the shotgun shacks of the “Central Negro District” (Overtown’s former identity) during the Great Migration to the public housing and highway projects of the mid-twentieth century—reflects many episodes of Black history.[29] Despite its apparent nexus with the listing criteria, Overtown is not covered by an historic district designation. Some of the neighborhood’s oldest properties in the poorest neighborhoods have been left to deteriorate or have been pulled into the inescapable orbit of government-led urban renewal.[30]

Spring Garden is a small, upscale riverfront neighborhood a block west of Overtown that offers a unique architectural heritage and a connection to Miami’s founding families.[31] One Herald writer likened visiting Spring Garden to “finding VSOP cognac in the hip flask of a homeless person”[32] (presumably referring to the nearby underserved Overtown community). Accompanying this analogy was a photograph of a gleeful white couple sitting in front of a splendid riverfront mansion.[33] In the mid-1990s, Spring Garden residents pursued designation of an historic district covering their neighborhood to “give[] [the area] an air of exclusivity it otherwise wouldn’t have….”[34] Indeed, the community association president specifically intended the proposed Spring Garden district to deter redevelopment activity and increase property values.[35]

The Spring Garden designation push required the community homeowners’ association to finance historic resources surveys and undertake a communitywide campaign to persuade residents skeptical about the designation’s effects on property values.[36] But the city rewarded the neighborhood’s efforts: on June 17, 1997, Miami’s Historic and Environmental Preservation Board unanimously established the historic district.[37] The designation report highlighted the “City’s growth from the mid-1910’s to the 1940’s” and emphasized that “Spring Garden is the oldest, intact, single family neighborhood still remaining along the Miami River.”[38]

Despite their similarities as historically significant neighborhoods, Spring Garden and Overtown experienced differing approaches to preservation. In the years following Spring Garden’s designation, Overtown’s “old wooden houses” continued to face destruction,[39] even as Spring Garden homeowners were “awakened by the sounds of restoration.”[40] Contractors and investors extolled financial incentives as an economic lifeline for their businesses in the pages of the Miami Herald,[41] while in Overtown, an absence of financing led old properties to face continued condemnation and redevelopment that began more than three decades before.[42]

Miami’s failure to protect swathes of Overtown’s historic properties from demolition reflects its preference for neighborhoods with established homeowners, civic associations with organizing capacity, and interest from predominantly white investors and contractors. For the historic properties remaining in Overtown and Miami’s other Black neighborhoods, the city must make a greater effort to recognize the contributions of those properties to its built heritage. The city’s planning department and the University of Miami should partner with community organizations to complete historic resources surveys, educate property owners about available financing, and advocate for new listings. Unless Miami extends more comprehensive historic preservation to Overtown and other traditionally segregated and excluded neighborhoods, preservation will be one more vehicle of Black erasure and removal.

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[1] Robert R. Weyeneth, Historic Preservation for a Living City: Historic Charleston Foundation 1947–1997 (2000) (identifying Charleston, S.C., as the first city in the U.S. to pursue historic preservation through its zoning code).

[2] National Historic Preservation Act, 54 U.S.C. §§ 300101–320303 (2014).

[3] National Register of Historic Places, Gen. Serv. Admin., https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/historic-preservation/historic-building-stewardship/national-register-of-historic-places (last visited Oct. 6, 2023) (“The National Register recognizes more than 90,000 properties for their significance in American history, architecture, art, archeology, engineering, and culture.”).

[4] See, e.g., Stephanie Ryberg-Webster, Historic preservation in declining city neighborhoods: Analysing rehabilitation tax credit investments in six US cities, 54 Urban Studies 1673, 1685 (2017) (concluding rehabilitation tax credit financing instruments “support[] reinvestment in legacy cities, including distressed [neighborhoods], with investment comparing [favorably] to more well-known US urban [revitalization programs] such as Community Development Block Grants and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits”); John L. Renne & David Listokin, The opportunities and tensions of historic preservation and transit-oriented development (TOD), 90 Cities 249, 259 (2017) (providing “a menu of useful financial incentives” for advancing historic preservation in TOD initiatives).

[5] 54 U.S.C. § 302101; Criteria for evaluation, 30 C.F.R. § 60.4 (2023).

[6] See Martin D. Heintzelman & Jason A. Altieri, Historic Preservation: Preserving Value?, 46 J. Real Estate Fin. Econ. 543, 560 (2013) (“[W]hile homes with historic characteristics are attractive and sell for a premium, the restrictions that come with designation erode some of these benefits.”).

[7] Michael DeHaven Newsom, Blacks and Historic Preservation, Law & Contemp. Probs. 424 (1971); Sara C. Bronin, Regulating History, 108 Minn. L. Rev. 1, 37 n.108 (2023).

[8] Andres Viglucci, Surfside condo owners battle over building sale to developer, Miami Herald, Oct. 19, 2014, at 1A, 21A; Kyra Gurney, In a South Beach neighborhood prone to flooding, residents battle over historic label, Miami Herald (May 4, 2019, 6:45 AM), https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article229462754.html#storylink=cpy.

[9] Juanita Greene, Negro Housing Called A ‘Permanent Slum’, Miami Herald, Nov. 13, 1960, at 1B; Juanita Greene, Long-Time Foes Unite to Fight Slums, Miami Herald, Nov. 25, 1960, at 6B; John Morton, Slum Clearance Approval Sought, Miami Herald, Sept. 19, 1960, at 21.

[10] Leo Adde, Urban Renewal Called Inevitable, Miami Herald, May 28, 1960, at 52.

[11] Bob Lowe & Ellyn Ferguson, Urban renewal, expressways ripped soul from Overtown, Miami Herald, Nov. 29, 1983, at 1A, 1D.

[12] Robert Liss, Beach Moves Toward a Deco District, Miami Herald, Aug. 19, 1978, at 28 (“A proposed historic art deco district in South Beach took some giant strides toward realization….”); Elizabeth Willson, Deco station in peril: Gulf prefers regular, Miami Herald, Mar. 11, 1981, at 21 (describing a dispute over proposed demolition of art deco gas station).

[13] Beth Dunlop, Biddle: Save ‘Concrete’ Heritage, Miami Herald, Mar. 28, 1979, at 1D; Beth Dunlop, Has Anyone Seen Dade’s History?, Miami Herald 35 (Mar. 28, 1979).

[14] Stephen Reiss, Planners favor review board, tropic tones, Miami Herald, Apr. 16, 1981, at 246.

[15] Id.

[16] Miami, Fla., Code of Ordinances § 23-1(a)(1).

[17] Id. § 23-1(b)(1).

[18] Id. § 23-4(a)(3) (emphasis added).

[19] Id. § 23-4(c)(7).

[20] Id. § 23-4(b).

[21] Id.

[22] The effects of racialized land use planning are well-documented. See, e.g., Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law (2017); N.D.B. Connolly, A World More Concrete (2014).

[23] Donald A. Krueckeberg, Introduction to Planning History in the United States (1983), at 9.

[24] Connolly, supra note 22, at 261.

[25] See Mitchell Schwarzer, Myths of Permanence and Transience in the Discourse on Historic Preservation in the

United States, 48 J. Architectural Educ. (1984–) 2, 9 (1994).

[26]

[27]

[28] Connolly, supra note 13, at 76.

[29] Id.; Lowe & Ferguson, supra note 10, at 12A.

[30] Peter Whoriskey, Disappearing Act, Miami Herald, May 2, 1994, at 1A, 6A.

[31] Jacqueline Charles, Will Miami’s Spring Garden officially go down in history?, Miami Herald, Jul. 9, 1995, at 4.

[32] Geoffrey Tomb, Spring Garden…Do You Know This Neighborhood?, Miami Herald, Jul. 13, 1997, at 78.

[33] Id.

[34] Charles, supra note 31.

[35] Tomb, supra note 32.

[36] Id.

[37] Id.

[38] Sarah E. Eaton, Spring Garden Historic District Designation Report, City of Miami (Jun. 16, 1997), at 10, http://www.historicpreservationmiami.com/pdfs/SpringGardenHD_DesignationReport.pdf.

[39] Whoriskey, supra note 30.

[40] Charles Cotayo, Restoration business has built-in dividends, Miami Herald, Aug. 10, 1998, at 32 (interviewing white property investors).

[41] Id.

[42] Whoriskey, supra note 30.