Behind Wynwood
One of Miami’s major attractions is the art district of Wynwood. However, back in days, it was one of the most dangerous and less visited areas of Miami. It is an old inner city, built as a working class residential neighborhood. It has been the main attraction for New Yorker manufacturers, powered by immigrant labor, struggling against cheap labor competition. During the 1950’s it was a White neighborhood of professionals, afterward, in the 1960’s a group of Cuban immigrants moved into the neighborhood.
During that time, the neighborhood was safe enough to have children playing unsupervised on the streets.
Nevertheless, the trouble started with the construction of I-95 road. The middle class moved away and mainly just the poor remained. During the 1970’s, Wynwood was still known for garment manufacturing and attracted South American clients, driving the economic South American problems that derived racial tensions that culminated in riots in Miami during the 1980’s, afterward, the neighborhood became unsafe.
The Wynwood residents complained of not having staffed public parks, swimming pool or a library. Many improvement promises were made. For instance, the City of Miami with the Department of Commerce invested on making Wynwood part of a free-trade zone that should be a job opportunity provider. During 1995 they started a plan. However, until 1999, the plan was a bust, with a devoted foreclosure project, the city received a US$5,000 loan.
During the 1980’s also a rundown, crime-ridden neighborhood such as Wynwood, was experiencing a boom that was beginning to force some businesses to get out. Wynwood began to catch the attention of developers. One of the major players in the Miami Beach transformation, Toni Goldman Properties, was the first to recognize the potential of Wynwood.
Opened in 2000, one of the first Wynwood commercial galleries is the Dorsh Gallery,
During the same year, the Bernice Steinbaum gallery opened, the owner is a veteran art dealer who abandoned the New York Soho and moves to Florida. Subsequently, people were enhanced to open several art galleries given to the area's potential, as well new residential buildings, restaurants, coffee stores and bars opened by 2010.
Nowadays, every month second Saturday is opened to contribute to the promotion of Wynwood as a tourist and local place for recreation. Many companies offer tours of the area. As well, on that Saturday they invite new artists to make new creations on the walls, accompanied by live music, invited DJ’s, also it is an opportunity for the mobile restaurants to sell their typical Latino food. Today, there are over seventy galleries, collections, and museums in Wynwood.
On the other hand, as every project of urban recovery have their pros, as well it has its cons. According to a research made by Meraki Media.
The concept of art district has been lost, the people are more interested in what type of alcohol the bar owners are offering instead of focusing on the art. The visitors even have destroyed art projects given to their alcoholic status.
The people who saw Wynwood artistic potential did not think what will this mean to the residents of the area. It has been heard that during the during the last years the neighbors have been complaining about issues such as loud noise, visitors stealing the residents parking spots.
The district is becoming more profitable at a business and artistic level. However, as a community level, the concept is being lost. Several policy discussions of the neighborhood and urban revitalization has binary choices between the economic growth and the economic decline. Which at the end, end up giving the control of the land to people with the economic power to invest in this land.
On the other hand, what happen to the people that have been living there for the last decades? How does this art district benefit the people who live there? An anonymous Wynwood resident shares the following:
“I came here in 1964, I’m a pioneer of this neighborhood, I work for a security company, they called from the gallery to work, and they told me that I was there to receive people, open the door for them, greet them, and make sure that the people from the neighborhood do not come in. But, how can I distinguish the locals amongst these people, if they look dirtier than the people from the neighborhood?”
The owners and gallery visitors do not like the Wynwood neighborhoods.
One of the principal characteristics of Wynwood is the heterogeneity between of all type of people, and if they want to preserve this urbanism concept that the point of rehabilitation has the ability to be preserved. So, urban redevelopment works for all the people involved?
In August 2013, 9 months after an interview to one of the residents, a developing agency closed a deal to buy both her and her mother in law’s property. On Dec. 1st, 2013, a Guerrilla theater was hosted at this resident vacant house, they projected right to Wynwood and invited the Wynwood residents to watch it…A week after the Guerrilla theater, the house was demolished.
