On the Beach

Mangrove thickets grew like tangled hair on the thin arm of land which embraced Biscayne Bay. Along came Realtors Carl Fisher and John Collins, shaved the mangroves off, filled the swamps with bay bottom and sand, and turned the arm into Miami Beach.

There, since the pre-boom days of 1921, have gone an annual migration of U. S. citizens--rich and near-rich, pretenders, playboys, playgirls, prostitutes, plain people--to idle, play, and spend a few million dollars in the winter sunshine among the transplanted palms and read about the cold spells they are having up North.

Last week, while a cold wave gripped most of the U. S., Miami Beach and the rest of resort Florida was in full hothouse bloom, all figures indicating the biggest, giddiest season since Depression. Train and plane reservations were being booked two to four weeks in advance; 100% bet ter business over Christmas than in 1938 was reported by Seaboard Air Line Rail way; bus travel was up at least 25%; $3,000,000 more real estate had been sold in 1939 than in 1938 in Miami Beach, where sites were priced at from $800 to $1,000 a front foot; lots on Lincoln Road (Miami Beach's swank shopping street), which went begging in 1931 at $15,000, were selling at $35,000 to $50,000; glittering caravansaries like the Pancoast were charging $15, $20 and more per day; and up 35% was Miami Beach's garbage, reli able measure in most resort towns of tourist trade.

Among recent visitors were Nancy Carroll (stage and cinema). Gladys Swarthout (opera), Mrs. Byron Foy (society), Lilly Dache (hats), Hattie Carnegie (gowns), Mrs. Florence Camp ("My Everything" of Bundleader Fritz Kuhn, who was in Sing Sing).

According to J. Edgar Hoover, also in Miami or on their way there were "the hoodlums of New York and Chicago. ..." When his investigators charged police of the Miami district with toleration and cor ruption, he sent twelve of his agents to paradisiac Florida, but not to play.

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