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| Miami High - Miami - Allapattah, Old Miami & Past Memories - Sneakykitchen Forums | |||||||||||||||
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bessnfloyd Administrator
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We published earlier a photo of the present Miami High, an ancient although renovated building, notable among other things for having been the backdrop for a Porkie movie. I didn't realize that the actual original Miami High was still in existence. It is, though, and one hopes for a years to come, although time is almost running out.
I'm sure there isn't anyone alive today who attended it while it was still a high school - it was built in 1905 at North Miami Avenue and 3rd Street, and served until 1911 when the present Miami High was built. At that point, it was moved across the Miami River to SW 12 Street near Brickell Avenue, where it served as Southside Grammar School for 3 years until a new elementary school was constructed. It was then moved behind the school, to its current address (as of Jan. 7th, 2003 anyway) at 79 SW 12th Street. Renovated, it was rented out first as a private home, then as a boarding house until last year. Condos are about to be built on the site, and moving this nearly forgotten building isn't the relatively simple task it was in its earlier years. The front porch had to come off; the roof has to be removed so it will fit under the Metro-rail tracks, and myriad telephone, electric, cable and traffic lines must be taken down. It will be a short trip - if they meet the January 15th deadline - to nearby Southside Park, where it will be renovated into a Community Center. This is one of the oldest buildings in Miami, and astonishingly has been altered very little, surviving while most other construction of that era has fallen victim to termites, windstorms, fire or the wrecking ball. Only a few years late there was such a building boom in Miami that thousands of the homes and other buildings still remain - our home was started in 1919 and finished in 1920. For those of you who are "Senior Citizens" (like me) and were born and raised in Miami (I wasn't), possibly your parents attended this school. How different life must have been back then! Note that the building is on concrete pilings, a useful construction back then that allowed the periodic flooding to run under the house, discouraged snakes from entering and invasions of subterranean termites, and also allowed the base of the house to remain dry and free of mold and rot. Unfortunately this construction also allows hurricane winds to lift the house and blow it away, unless the tie-downs are stronger than the winds. Today's insurance and building code regulations require such crawl spaces to be closed in, something that also prevents the neighbor's cat or a stray dog from dying under your house.... Our house, built on concrete posts, was closed in a couple of decades ago to qualify for insurance, and we promptly developed subterranean termites! I worry about radon and mold, something that wasn't a concern before. But I can still gloat (well, at least feel relieved, but gloating sometimes creeps in, unfortunately) when owners of newer, fancy, spacious modern houses on slabs in the area are busy sweeping water out of their houses while we are looking down on simply a flooded yard!
____________________ Bess W. |
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bessnfloyd Administrator
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While the move of the original Miami didn't take place by deadline, the contractor generously extended it to allow time for the transfer to a park in Little Havana. Four buildings later, Miami High is about to celebrate its 100th birthday. The present stately building, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, celebrates its 75th birthday. What changes have occurred in that time span! Allapattah residents, at least those from most of the area, attended Jackson High, and many from the northern part of Allapattah now on the north side of the elevated State Road 112, no longer considered part of Allapattah, attended Edison High. But 75 years ago the present Miami High was the only high school in town. 
____________________ Bess W. |
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| Sneakykitchen Forums > Allapattah, Old Miami & Past Memories > Miami > Miami High | |
