Sunny Miami Beach

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Miami Beach

Miami Beach is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The city was incorporated on March 26, 1915. Miami Beach has been one of America's pre-eminent beach resorts for almost a century. The city is often alluded of under the umbrella term of Miami, despite being a distinct municipality. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,933. A 2005 population estimate for the city was 87,925.

Description

In 1979 Miami Beach's Art Deco Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Art Deco District is the largest collection of Art Deco architecture in the world and comprises hundreds of hotels, apartments and other structures erected between 1923 and 1943. Mediterranean, Streamline Moderne and Art Deco are all represented in the District.

The Historic District is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the East, Lenox Court on the West, 6th Street on the South and Dade Boulevard along the Collins Canal to the North. The movement to preserve the Art Deco District's architectural heritage was led by former interior designer Barbara Capitman, who now has a street in the District named in her honor.

Miami and Popular Culture

South Beach (also known as SoBe, or "The Beach") is one of the more popular areas of Miami Beach. Topless sunbathing is tolerated on certain designated areas of the beach.

Before the TV show Miami Vice helped make the area popular, SoBe was rundown, with vacant buildings and a high crime rate. Today, it is considered one of the richest commercial areas on the beach, yet poverty and crime still remain in some places near the area.

Miami Beach, particularly Ocean Drive of what is now the Art Deco District, was also featured prominently in Scarface.

Lincoln Road is a nationally known spot for great outdoor dining, bike riding, and shopping.

The Miami Beach environs are home to a number of Orthodox Jewish communities with a network of well-established synagogues and yeshivas. It is also a magnet for Jewish families, retirees, and particularly snowbirds when the cold winter sets in to the north.

They range from the Followers to the Modern Orthodox to the Haredi and Hasidic - including many rebbes who vacation there during the North American winter.

There are a number of kosher restaurants and even kollels for post-graduate Talmudic scholars. Miami Beach had roughly 60,000 people in Jewish households, 62 percent of the total population, in 1982, but only 16,500, or 19 percent of the population, in 2004, said Ira Sheskin, a demographer at the University of Miami who conducts surveys once a decade.

Miami Beach is home to the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach.

According to the Morgan Quitno Awards, Miami Beach is one of the most dangerous small cities (population between 75,000 and 99,999) in the country.

Geography and climate

Miami Beach is located at 25°48′47″N, 80°8′3″W (25.813025, -80.134065).GR1

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 48.5 km² (18.7 mi²). 18.2 km² (7.0 mi²) of it is land and 30.2 km² (11.7 mi²) of it (62.37%) is water.

It has a tropical climate.

Points of interest

* Lincoln Road
* South Beach
* Saxony Hotel (currently under restoration till 2008)
* Miami Beach Botanical Garden
* Flagler Monument Island
* Versace Mansion

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