A magnificent monument to the singular can-do character of our city, is there any more stunning before-and-after montage than the ones below?Shot in March 1905, the archival shot details just what jurassic lengths our town founders had to go through to secure Lincoln Road as the sizzling segment of our city it is today, starting with clearing the sizeable mangrove hammock that encrusted the area. First fully cleared in 1912 by entrepreneur (and Island namesake) Carl Fisher, this premier pedestrian byway has been the center of South Beach life since before the 1950’s, when Art Deco Architect Morris Lapidus effectively re-imagined it from the ground up. It’s a titanic taste of the potential our polis has in store for the future; HistoryMiami.org. — RYAN JARRELL
