Steven Brooke, whose dazzling photography of Miami's Art Deco District once helped spur the area's preservation, now captures the incredible architectural restoration of this glamorous international playground. During the 1930s, Miami Beach emerged as an epicenter of Art Deco architecture. Against the azure sky gleamed buildings that boasted voluptuous curves, nautical elements, Jazz Age ornamentation, and seductive neon. After the area fell into decline in the 1970s and '80s, Steven Brooke and others successfully campaigned to protect the Art Deco District's architectural treasures from the wrecking ball. Now, with the district's buildings finally restored to their eye-popping glory, Brooke offers Miami- and Art Deco-lovers the most up-to-date celebration of the inimitable architecture that has made the city a style magnet for artists, designers, and travelers from around the globe.

"Born out of fantasy and speculation, designed for fun and profit, Miami Beach has been, from its inception, a city of mythical composition. Its famed Art Deco District was designated a Historic District by the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and today the area is basking in a revival of interest and attention. Nevertheless, while fashion photographers and entrepreneurs, artists, developers, restaurateurs and club owners flock to the neighborhood, it is still struggling, after years of deterioration and neglect, to recreate itself out of its own forgotten glamour. Despite a new palette of confectionery colors and the renovation of numerous buildings, the Art Deco District remains in need of urban cultivation, of a reinterpretation that transcends its original resort identity. Author Laura Cerwinske introduces Tropical Deco: The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach by discussing both the area's past and its future. Throughout her comprehensive exploration of the most concentrated neighborhood of Art Deco buildings in the world, she details the style's evolution and examines its design. Tropical Deco: The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach treats its readers to a delightful view of a unique adaption of a historic architectural style. For, while Miami Beach's Art Deco architecture derives its stylistic roots from the streamlined and electric visions of the cosmopolitan North, Tropical Deco design is much softer and more temperately seductive. These are buildings whose narrative and evocative nature is at once sophisticated, naive and filled with humor."--Publisher.

Considered by many as the country’s most dynamic, fastest growing and sexiest city, Miami is more popular than ever before. Yet, it is a city that doesn’t merely change but evolves, never rewriting the past, just adding to its illustrious heritage. And this is the real beauty of Miami. The chic Surf Club and the vibrant Faena Hotel did not replace the emblematic Raleigh of the 1940s nor the Ritz Carlton of the 50s, rather they complement them. Classics like Joe’s Stone Crab continue to serve their signature fare to sell-out crowds each night, as new establishments attract with name chefs. The iconic art deco architecture remains on full display as the modern Herzog & de Meuron-designed Perez Art Museum stands in stark contrast. Replete with arts and culture year round from the international art at The Bass to the street art of Wynwood Walls, each December, the city is taken over by the global cultural elite for Art Basel Miami Beach, a fair that attracts over 80,000 visitors who turn out for the momentous art, such as Maurizio Cattelan’s show stopping “Comedian”, and the exuberant festivities hosted each evening.

Miami Beach began its rise to the top of the world's resort scene when Carl Fisher, builder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, arrived prior to 1920. The lure of "The World's Playground" was impossible to ignore for many, as hotels and restaurants flourished, even through the Great Depression. The images in this volume evoke poignant memories of Miami Beach's great past, almost inevitable downturn, and return to life with the discovery of South Beach and a renewed interest in art deco. Among the vintage views, most of which have never before been published, are early Lincoln Road and Washington Avenue; Miami Beach High School; Parham's; Junior's; Wolfies; Pumperniks; the first hotel on Miami Beach, Brown's; the Roney Plaza; the Fontainebleau; and, of course, the people who helped create this modern paradise.

Left suddenly penniless and alone, twenty-nine-year-old trust fund child Gabriel Tucker discovers his only asset is an old Miami Beach apartment building named the Venus De Milo Arms and heads for Florida to rebuild his life, only to become caught up in the outrageous and decadent world of South Beach, surrounded by a colorful assortment of offbeat characters. Original.

South Beach Star is a modern day Valley of the Dolls set in South Beach. Life is sweet for Jamie Kidd, a thirty-something writer, till he wakes up one morning to discover that his lover has left town after cleaning out the bank account and leaving Jamie heartbroken, penniless, and somewhat suicidal. Jamie makes the entirely sensible, or so he believes, decision to escape to South Beach where he finds success and quasi-celebrity as a nightlife columnist for the SOUTH BEACH STAR, a weekly tabloid that covers the trendy South Beach scene and the celebrities that populate it. South Beach opens its arms to Jamie, who, like an actor taking on a new role, throws himself into his fabulous new lifestyle covering the notorious celebrity-studded party scene where nightly he mingles with beautiful shallow fashionistas, famous models, and wealthy jet-setters. His coveted lifestyle masks an out-of-control roller-coaster ride of late-night parties and photo-ops, fueled by a gradual addiction to crystal meth. Like many before him, Jamie loses control and falls victim to his fast lifestyle.