THE MEETING ENVIRONMENT

The City

In participating in ATBC 2004, you are visiting Miami, or “the magic city” as some residents like to call it, amidst a period of dramatic development and renewal.  It is the largest urban unit in a metropolitan area that spreads over three counties, runs north-south for some 90 miles, and totals some 4 million people.  Despite this size, it is bordered on the west by the Everglades and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, so it is easy to escape the city. The city of Miami was established a little over a century ago and expanded rapidly after the arrival of the Florida East Coast Railway, which made it an easy vacation for northerners wishing to escape the bitter winter.  It is a young city established on the old and strategic site at the mouth of the Miami River.  Looking out of the Convention Center and hotel windows towards the southeast, you can see the river’s entrance to Biscayne Bay—and the Miami Circle, the site of a ceremonial building of the Tequesta Indians that hints at a high level of civilization and shows evidence of trade in artifacts with people in Central America.  Much later, the Spanish established a mission here in the 17th century, and the U.S. army set up a military fort in the mid-19th century.  One of the buildings of Fort Dallas is located in Lummus Park, a short walk to the west from the convention center.

The original vegetation of this coastal region was a tropical hardwood forest (we call them hammocks), with most species tropical and Caribbean, near the northern edges of their distributions.  Fringing mangrove occurred along the coast.  How this area appeared when Europeans first came can be imagined by visiting Simpson Park, on Miami Avenue and 30 minutes walk south of the Convention Center.  Another site somewhat more disturbed but with mainly native species is the Vizcaya hammock, which you can visit the evening of the banquet.  

The Urban landscape presently contains trees and palms that you would expect to find in most tropical cities.  For those unfamiliar with these plants, and wishing to become more familiar with them, we provide a guide to common trees in Miami.  The “Miami Tree Puzzle” can be downloaded as a PDF file on the web (www.darwin.fiu.edu/                   ).

The Convention Neighborhood

The Knight Convention Center and the Hyatt Regency Hotel are located at the southern edge of the city center of Miami, on the Miami River.  The river once drained the everglades and now is an active port and site of marinas for recreational boating. This area makes its living as a financial and government center, and by serving tourists from Latin America.  It is busy during the day, and the streets north of the convention center are full of shoppers visiting the bargain priced electronic stores, boutiques and numerous cafeterias and restaurants.  During the evening the city becomes deserted, except for occasional crowds at the Gusman Theater, just to the north, and Bayside Park and Marketplace, on the bay and 10 minutes walk north and east of the convention center.  The city center is beginning to benefit from the development of the huge cultural center just to the north, and the art and design area a bit beyond that.  Just across the river from the convention center, Brickell Avenue begins.  This area is lined by high rise commercial buildings (financial offices of banks from Latin America and Europe) and new condominium towers.  Even though deserted in the evening, the city is a relatively safe place.

Dining in Miami
The convention center’s location next to a busy metropolitan center makes eating relatively convenient and inexpensive.  Exit the hotel and convention center, walk north two blocks and you arrive at two streets SW 1st Street and then Flagler Avenue.  On 2nd Avenue north (just north of the hotel entrance) you’ll find Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Don Pan (great for breakfast), Pollo Tropical and Quizno’s Subs.  On 1st Avenue just one block north of the convention center entrance there is a restaurant mall with a variety of restaurants.  Many of the restaurants serve a Latin clientele and serve very reasonably priced food for breakfast and lunch.  Nearby there are even more inexpensive places for breakfast and lunch, plus sandwich and hotdog carts on the sidewalks.  Although many of these restaurants are not open at night, many are.  We provide a list of recommended restaurants and a map for finding in your registration packet.  There are also some high-scale restaurants nearby (the Hyatt Regency restaurant is excellent).  Again, these are available with information in your registration packet.

Non-meeting Activities near the Meeting Site

There is much to do for family members not participating in the meetings, for children, or those who just would like to take a little break from the intense meeting activity.  The official tourist brochures provided in your registration package cover these activities fairly well.  We’d like to mention some opportunities that are particularly convenient and also especially appropriate for children.

The Miami-Dade Cultural Plaza.  Just a few minutes walk west and north of the convention center, on Flagler Street, is a large raised structure with a central plaza that houses the Library, Historical Museum of South Florida and the Miami Art Museum.  The Library frequently hosts exhibits in a hall adjacent to the entrance.  The Historical Museum has galleries on pre-history and the modern history of south Florida; it is very child friendly.  Its entrance fee is $5 for adults and $2 for children ages 2-12, with a contribution on Sundays.  It is open 10-5.  The Miami Art Museum (MAM) primarily exhibits very contemporary art and lots of traveling exhibitions: an interesting place.  Its admission price is $5 for adults, and its hours are 10-5 Tuesday-Friday, 12-5 Saturday and Sunday, and closed Monday.  

The Miami Children’s Museum.  This brand new museum is donated to children, and every exhibit is designed to involve children actively.  The museum’s exhibits are partnerships with local companies, so there is an activity for the Port of Miami for operating a cruise ship, working in a bank, checking out groceries, etc.  There is a very nice interactive music exhibit on the second floor, and a Subway store available for lunch snacks.  It is conveniently reached by public transportation.  Both the C and K buses stop there (see these bus routes described under Wolfsonian-FIU).  Admission is $8 for adults and children, and hours are 10-6 daily.  Adjacent to this Museum, just across the causeway, is Parrot Jungle.  This commercial tourist attraction was recently re-opened at this location.  It has a wonderful collection of birds from throughout the tropics, a herpetological exhibit, a modest collection of primates, a nice petting zoo, and three separate shows for reptiles, wildlife, and trained parrots.  It is a nice place, but the price is pretty stiff, at $29.95 for adults and $18.95 for kids 3-10.  Parking a vehicle is an extra $6.00.  It can also be reached by the C and K buses.

South Beach (SoBe).  The South Beach, or the southern end of Miami Beach is a cheerful and relaxing place for dining, window shopping, people watching, and visiting the beach.  The C and K buses run up Washington Avenue to Lincoln Road, a pedestrian mall with very interesting stores, galleries and sidewalk cafes.  Just north of Lincoln Road on Collins Avenue (at its eastern end) is the fine Bass Museum, with a very good and eclectic permanent collection.  Admission is $6 for adults and $4 for students and seniors.  It is open Tuesday-Saturday 10-5, Sundays 11-5, and closed Mondays.  On Washington Avenue the Wolfsonian-FIU is highly recommended, $5 for adults and $3.50 for children; this summer it is open 11-6 Saturdays, 12-5 Sundays and 11-9 Thursdays.  It is a museum of the design and propaganda arts spanning the period of 1865 til the end of WW II.  It has three galleries, two are of rotating shows and one is a permanent show that is an excellent introduction to the art deco period and provides an esthetic context for the outstanding collection of art-deco hotels and other buildings that give the South Beach such a special quality.  Walk two blocks east of Washington Avenue past Ocean Boulevard and you arrive at a very spacious beach, perfect for sunbathing, swimming in the ocean and building sand castles.        

The Miami Museum of Science and Vizcaya.  These are both located about two miles south of the convention center, on Miami Avenue.  They may be a bit far to walk, especially in the mid-day heat of Miami, but are conveniently reached by Metrorail (see directions for the ATBC banquet).  The Science Museum has an excellent planetarium, the traveling interactive science exhibits that are seen today at most science museums, and a nice Smithsonian Expeditions exhibit.  The Science Museum also has an outside wildlife center that includes injured raptors that are being prepared for eventual release back into the wild.  Admission is $10 for adults and $6 for kids 3-12, and it is open daily from 10-6.  Vizcaya is the old estate of James Deering, the founder of International Harvester, who established this Renaissance mansion and working farm early during the 20th century.  The House exhibits an amazing collection of furnishings from the early Renaissance, and the grounds are an interesting combination of Renaissance order in a tropical setting.  They also provide a very nice view of Biscayne Bay and the Miami skyline.  The forests surrounding Vizcaya are a tropical hardwood hammock somewhat reminiscent of what was here before Miami was developed.  Mangrove forest extends along the shore of the bay.  Vizcaya is the property of Dade County Parks and Recreation and is on the list of National Historic Places.  Admission to Vizcaya is $12 for adults and $5 for kids 6-12.  It is open from 9:30-4:30, grounds open until 5:30.  We are holding the ATBC banquet at the Museum of Science, so participants can see the museum and walk into the Vizcaya hammock during that event.