Biscayne Parks Future

Miami’s oldest park deserves better than the future it faces

Looking east toward Biscayne Bay: The towers could be reflected in the grass. BT photos by Jim W. Harper

Is your park smarter than a fifth grader? That probably depends upon which city you call home. When it comes to Biscayne Park, which is located in the City of Miami, we may need to rephrase the question, to lower our expectations somewhat -- say, down to preschool. Even a four-year-old can draw a square and color it green. Add a sun and a pretty rainbow and you’ve got Miami’s oldest and loneliest park.

Not to be confused with the village of the same name, this Biscayne Park is stuck between its long past and potentially promising future. Its current reading on the park-odometer: pathetic.

As the oldest park in the City of Miami proper, and second in age in the county only to Lummus Park in South Beach, you would think that Biscayne Park would be a grande dame. But she doesn’t even qualify as frumpy. She’s invisible. She’s the unwanted grandmother who was put away in a home, locked up, and forgotten. On the other side of the fence are all her friends, enjoying the lovely shade in the historic Miami City Cemetery. Both are managed by the City of Miami’s Parks and Recreation Department.

From within the cemetery, visitors have no idea that another park exists on the other side of the northern fence, because it looks exactly the same as the southern view of an empty lot.

Biscayne Park is a large, monotonous rectangle of almost nothing but grass. Last year concrete benches and immature oak trees were added along the fence’s perimeter, but these additions give it about as much character as a Walmart parking lot.

Parking lots! There are plenty nearby. Two oversize lots and an open field sit in between forlorn Biscayne Park and the nearest main thoroughfare of NE 2nd Avenue. What would a fifth grader do? He would connect the dots, blast away the parking lots, and create one of the largest green spaces near downtown. That is my expansive dream for Biscayne Park. Upgrade the dream by returning the park to one of its original uses as a nursery, and it could rival nearby Margaret Pace Park as an urban jewel.

So what is the City of Miami planning?

A skateboard park.

In fact the skateboard park is a done deal for this neighborhood, as the proposal period ended October 23 and Miami’s Community Redevelopment Agency has already set aside $1 million for the project. The proposal states that the skateboard portion will consume a maximum of one and a half acres, or 65,340 square feet, which equates to roughly one-third of the current grassy field.

A skateboard park might be a good idea if: 1) Miami was not already overrun by concrete, and 2) this particular park offered shade to counteract the heat that will be generated by pouring more concrete over existing grass. Miami is paradise paved over. And no, this park offers no shade whatsoever. None.

The heat wave of October made visiting this Biscayne Park an insult added to the injury of its dull appearance. Perhaps I’m missing some depth of meaning created by grass in a large rectangle surrounded by a white metal fence. Is this a tribute to uber-minimalism and our post-apocalyptic future? Toss in a fire station at one end, dilapidated houses along one side, the cemetery on the other, the offices of the civil rights organization PULSE at the eastern border, and Biscayne Park starts to feel edgy.

The edginess (and ugliness) comes when approaching the park from the east on 19th Street, after passing the beautiful Temple Israel. If approaching the park from the west, the open space offer surprisingly interesting vistas of the high-rises of downtown Miami and Edgewater. It almost feels as if the condos should be reflected in the grass.

But Biscayne Park remains invisible between its strange bedfellows and lack of access to a major street. The only reason I found the park at all was a chance visit to Temple Israel next door. Look over there! Is there a park on the other side of that fence? Or is it just another abandoned condo project? It’s a -- well, it has signs calling it a park, so it must be.

The park’s main patrons are the middle-school students of the Aspira Eugenio Maria De Hostos Youth Leadership Charter School, located adjacent to the park’s northwestern corner. During the week, they play volleyball and soccer on the sprawling fields, unless those fields have sprouted mud puddles that are clearly visible in the park’s center after a rain storm.

While the students enjoy games, nonparticipating (lazy) kids huddle around the benches in the corner near one of the few shade trees (technically outside the park). Before the benches were installed last year, the kids used to sit in the dirt, according to their P.E. teacher.

The P.E. teacher said that his students don’t need a skateboard park, but they could use courts of the basketball, tennis, or other variety. They could also use exercise bars and a basic playground for their younger siblings.

But alas, the fate of Biscayne “Skateboard” Park has already been decided. The redevelopment will undoubtedly bring new patrons to the park, and skateboarders may join the area’s busy street traffic. May God grant them the wisdom to wear helmets.

The most immediate upgrade needed in Biscayne Park is water fountains. Perhaps the fire station next door could extend a hose through the fence and open the spigot. Some restrooms would be nice, too.

The second-biggest need at the park is landscaping -- especially in the corners, where the look tends toward dirt, rocks, and litter. It’s not a good look.

Perhaps the skateboard park, scheduled to open next year, will accomplish the Herculean feat of integrating this patch of green into a neighborhood struggling to define itself.

If you really want to dream about the park’s potential, look at Google Maps and imagine it as the center of a greenway stretching west on 18th Street from Margaret Pace Park to the cemetery and Biscayne Park, and then south along NE 1st Avenue, where there are numerous vacant lots.

This being Miami, it will never happen. But even a fifth-grader has a right to dream.

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