Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Open Sesame!

Boy was it hot! We had the tunes a jammin' and the windows down - lettin' in that sweet Florida air. Finally I would get the chance to visit the town I had only read about in books. A town that sounds like it could only have existed in the movies, but it was REAL...

That town was Opa-Locka.

First I should tell you how this place came to be, so that means I gotta tell you about Glen Curtiss. See, Glen was a pretty big deal in the aviation industry - in fact he was a pioneer of it! He was also big into building and racing motorcycles. And just look at that movie star face!

Glen Curtiss
    www.motorcyclemuseum.org



Glen also had an interest in city development. And in the early 1920s, we got Opatishawockalocka, which would quickly be shortened to Opa-Locka. Curtiss wanted to take the world described in The Thousand and One Nights and make it a Sunshine State reality. He hired architect Bernhardt Muller to help him bring his Arabian dream to life. 105 Moorish style buildings later the small community of Opa-Locka was in full force. 

  Opa-Locka City Hall
 
ca. 1930  
photograph by G.W. Romer   
www.floridamemory.com
 
Among all the domes and minarets there was one crown jewel... the City Hall. In 1926 a hurricane destroyed many of the buildings but City Hall still stands strong(ish) to this day and twenty buildings in the city are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

But I have to be honest with you because I have been here and I have seen these things. Opa-Locka is a sad town now. I know, it's hard to hear that. It was just as hard for myself to discover on one hot breezy day last June. 

As we drove down Ali-Baba Ave., burned rubber down Sesame St., and smoothly sailed past Sharazad Blvd. all I saw were the run down buildings with barely a hint of the Baghdad bliss that Curtiss had hoped to leave behind. Opa-Locka has the highest rate of violent crime in the United states.

Still I'll always believe in the dream that Glen Curtiss had for this town, and I'd like to think how magical and beautiful it must have been to live in this city when it was in its heyday. 

We'll always have City Hall...

Opa-Locka City Hall
 
ca. 2012



Opa-Locka City Hall
 
ca. 2012
Opa-Locka City Hall
 
ca. 2012
Opa-Locka City Hall
 
ca. 201

Opa-Locka City Hall
 
ca. 2012
Opa-Locka City Hall
 
ca. 2012
Opa-Locka City Hall
 
ca. 2012


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