Dennis Wilhelm, Mike Kinerk and Barbara Baer Capitman at MDPL’s 2nd annual party in 1978.
Before the Art Deco preservation movement
began in 1976, Miami Beach hotels had
employed a few thousand. In the 20-year
period of the study, the data suggest the City of
Miami Beach gained 8,000 jobs.
The study also reports that of 480 federal
rehabilitation tax credit projects in Florida
since 1987 (worth approximately $920 million
dollars), Miami Beach received 90 projects
— nearly one-fifth of all projects — but Miami
Beach renovations were worth over $500
million dollars — more than half of all money
spent statewide. And tax rehab projects are
only a fraction of the overall $2.3 billion in
rehabilitation work in Miami Beach since 1987.
The Rutgers study concludes: “South
Beach owes its very existence to the historic
preservation movement.”
The Art Deco District’s existence today as one
of the world’s premier tourist destinations is due
to the vision of the late Barbara Baer Capitman
and her team of historic preservationists and
visionary hoteliers, who were determined to
preserve, protect and promote the area as a
tribute to its architectural contributions to the
world.
Capitman set out to enroll the Art Deco
District of Miami Beach in the National Register
of Historic Places in 1976 by creating the
Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL)
— the world’s first Art Deco Preservation
organization. MDPL is still going strong today,
22 years after her death. The District earned
its early celebrity from a string of devoted and
worshipful artists, photographers and celebrities
as diverse as Andy Warhol, Cristo, Ron Wood,
Michael Mann, Don Johnson, Bruce Weber and
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THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE
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