Surfside
The Quiet Block
Portrait
Harvey Firestone opened the Surf Club on New Year's Eve of 1930 on a stretch of dune between Miami Beach and Bal Harbour, and the town that grew around it kept its buildings low while both neighbours went up. In June 2021 the Champlain Towers South collapsed here and ninety-eight people died; how a small town writes and enforces its building rules is now argued about on this street rather than in the abstract.
If you like this city