Pictures and Text
By Timothy J. Steiner
There
are still a few places in this great country of ours where a man might
wear his fedora proudly and without anyone taking much notice.
Certainly one of these is the tropical paradise, the American Riviera
in the South of Florida known as Miami Beach. This is especially true
on Miami Beach’s southern end, known as South Beach. Strolling down
Collins Avenue, Espanola Way, and especially Ocean Drive, you are
likely to encounter other hat wearers, some with the humble, but often
stylish, straw golf-style hats, some with swanky Panama hat
Montecristis, still more with Aussie-style outback hats, and still
others with fur-felt fedoras, usually in lighter weight varieties. With
so many hats perched atop so many men’s heads, you will hardly hear the
sort of snickers we must endure such places as Newbury Street in
Boston, Sixth Avenue in New York City, or Philadelphia’s South Street.
South Beach is a hat man’s paradise.
Four years ago, a younger, thinner me flew into Miami International
airport with an Optimo block style Montecristi Panama hat of dubious
quality. This was before I knew about weave counts, quality blocking,
and vintage ribbons. In those days before hats became an obsession for
me, I had purchased mine in a hat shop in Boston’s most exclusive
shopping district: Newbury Street. I had paid too much for too little
hat, and it was safe atop my head for the three and a half hour flight
from Boston’s Logan Airport to Miami International.
My lovely companion and I landed, rented the obligatory convertible
Chrysler Sebring, and threw my bags in the back seat. My reservations
were for The Clevelander Hotel right in the heart of Ocean Drive. The
Clevelander is an Art Deco jewel built in 1937. At night a stage is
erected over the swimming pool and the party lasts well after midnight
and often into the early morning. If you decide to stay there and you
are not interested in the thumping bass of rap and European trance
music, be sure to ask for a room as far away from the party as
possible.
Still, even if you’re not interested in partying the night away, the
thumping beat and relentless energy of South Beach is infectious. So
infused with Latin rhythms and brimming with a café society,
South Beach hardly seems like part of the United States.
Heightening this sense of being out of the country is the setting.
South Beach is home to the largest collection of Art Deco buildings in
the country; more than Chicago, more than New York City. And South
Beach’s buildings are more than the typical Art Deco Structures.
Featuring bleached concrete, pastel colors, neon lights, and rounded
corners, South Beaches buildings embody the subgroup of Art Deco
edifices known as Nautical Moderne; easily defined as buildings taking
their styling cues from Ocean liners: round windows like portholes,
decks like those on ships, rounded towers like the bridges on 1930s era
ships, and curved rails.
In this setting, you feel like Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, or Humphrey
Bogart. It wasn’t long ago when they strolled theses streets and sands,
but that was before South Beach’s renaissance, before all of these
structures turned derelict and served as backdrops for urban horror
stories like “Scarface” and “Miami Vice.” But that was a lifetime ago.
This area has been rediscovered, re-consecrated. Now you can have a
drink in The Waldorf Towers bar, which looks like a set piece from “Key
Largo.”
You almost expect Edgar G. Robinson to stroll in and wave his
gun around. Each hotel has a deco style bar: stainless steel, gleaming
chrome, polished glass. It is a place for kissing the thin edges of a
martini glass and tasting the blunt edge of gin; for placing your hand
on your companion’s bare shoulders and brushing the hair out of her
eyes; and for whispering, leaning in close and pushing your hat to the
back of your head. South Beach is for romance, and not just any
romance, this is “Casablanca” style, “To Have and Have Not” style
romance, and you are the star. Who you share it with is up to you. It’s
your movie this time.
Close to Miami are other excursions; adventures for the hat-wearing
adventurer. This is where you can break out your 100% Beaver
Adventurebilt, squint beneath your brim as you hike through the
Everglades. No bugs are getting through your hat. Once in the
Everglades you might encounter some of the wildlife I have: Alligators
and Crocodiles (I should have read before I took the close ups that
they can run 35 mph!), Osprey and Great Blue Herons, A Barred Owl. From
the observation towers, the Everglades looks like the Serengeti; one
vast expanse of grass. Be sure to bring your camera.
A four hour drive to the bottom corner of the United States and the end
of US 1, lies Key West. No Hemingway aficionado would visit South
Florida without a stop at Ernest Hemingway’s beautiful tropical home on
Whitehead Street or his favorite bar Sloppy Joe’s on Duvall Street.
Hemingway's Cat
You
could stroll Duvall Street all night and I would be surprised if anyone
would make a disparaging remark about your hat. Duvall Street may be
one of the most laissez-faire places in America.
Driving back to Miami, the top down on the Sebring and my hat pushed
down far on my head, I reflected back on a trip that took me from
Boston to Miami, nights in South Beach, lunch in “Little Cuba,” side
trips to Coconut Grove, Islamorada...
... posing for pictures with “The
African Queen” at a Holiday Inn in Key Largo (yes, the real African
Queen), and spending a few days at the southernmost point of the United
States: Key West (well, if you forget about Hawaii).
I have shared rum
with modern pirates in a local bar, “The Green Parrot” in Key West (at
least they said they were pirates), helped change a tire in Key Largo,
and pretended I didn’t notice the fashion models at the cafés
lining South Beach (except for the ones who said ‘nice hat’ and meant
it). I did as much as any man could in seven days, all the while
enjoying the view from beneath my hat’s wide brim.
And what happened to that cheap, maybe imitation Montecristi? The crown
cracked in half in the overhead storage on the way home. So, I
returned, hatless, to Boston with fond memories of when I was the
leading man.
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