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HomeMy WebLinkAboutArticle-1Julia Tuttle imore than acauseway r he•first article I ever wrote for The Herald — almost I 10 years ago — was an • appeal to recognize Julia Tuttle's contribution to Miami's birth with something more than a causeway named in her honor. Unfortunately, nothing has happened. Julia Tuttle remains a parenthetical notation on road ' maps. In practice, this pioneering woman, the true Mother of ' Miami, is mostly known as 1-195. In the past few years, Mary Brickell, the woman who now is referred to as "the other Mother of Miami," has been honored with a statue on Brickell Avenue. This was a labor of love and effort by Roads district activist Carmen Petsoules, who battled the odds and almost single- : handedly raised the money. While Mary Brickell's contri- bution to the early days of Miami enormous, that she now has :been elevated to "the other :!:•Mother of Miami" means that Tuttle has lost ground; she now shares her title with another, : I 1 can present arguments as to ! why Tuttle belongs alone at the ; top, based on her documented and persistent entreaties to Henry Flagler to extend his railroad south to this area and her land offers to him. All of that preceded Mary Brickell's emergence. 1 am not looking to downgrade Brick- coI1tributions 1 am trying to get Julia up to Mary's more -tan - tier of local recognition. It bothers me that there is not a proper remembrance for Tuttle among the bun- --!iireds of public schools • ,.;,in Miami -Dade County, • ••, 'not one is named for her (but two are named for ,,s(tting members of the ',School Board). That !Biscayne Boulevard is dotted with statues and -b.usts of people — must not from Miami — and there is not one of Julia Tuttle, rankles me. That ' • the only likeness of her ' 'appears on the bottom level of the/ Brickell HOWARD KLEINBERG SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR While Mary Brickell's contribution to the early days of Miami was enormous, that she now has been elevated to "the other Mother of Miami" means that Julia Tuttle has lost ground; she now shares her title. participated, but to a lesser degree. The initial issue of the first newspaper ever published in Miami — The Miami Metropolis — on May 15, 1896, paid [his tribute to Julia Tuttle: —A few years hence it will be realized that she builded [sicl better than the critics knew, and the future residents of Miami will accord her full credit for her plans of today, and bless the good fate that put the founding of Miami in such competent hands." Full credit never has come. It is long over- due. Tuttle died suddenly on Sept. 14, 1898, at the young age of 48. She never lived to see :Miami grow from a small enclave alongside the Miami River. But she knew !that it I would, and she gave half her property to 'Flagler to ensure that Miami did have.a'future. Over the years, places that were named ' Bridge., whereshe shares for her disappeared to her place in history with several progress. Even the historic 'others, is upsatisfactury. 'marker that was placed on her old Hundreds Of streets in Miami- homesite just east of South Dade County ihave been named Miami Avenue is gone. Julia for poets, politicians, business Tuttle, except for that causeway • : people, generals, law breakers, designation, has disappeared. pioneers and strangers. None is Call this an appeal. It is the named for Julia Tuttle. resurrection of an appeal that 1 — - She was a visionary. She saw made in 1990: That one resulted Miami becoming a great seaport in my receiving a $5 check from one day, and she was right. Her someone who agreed with me and longtime relationship with Flag- wanted to start a fund. ler, dating back to when they both Is there an organization out jived in CleVeland, often was there that is willing to take the ,embattled, but she persisted in lead in establishing a proper getting him to extend his railroad memorial for this woman? Like • here. the statue of Mary Brickell in the There are considerable files median south of the Brickell Ave- ': containing her pleading letters to nue Bridge, can't there be one as Flagler and his responses -- well of Julia Tuttle? On a street -enough to document that it was named Julia Tuttle Boulevard? ' ' the widow Julia Tuttle who insti- Don't we owe this woman :• gated this town. The Brickells something? SUBMITTED INTO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR ITEM Do.' ON 2-RL/-05. VVWW.1-IHRALU COM LITTLE HAITI Way clear for gg A bronze statue of a Haitian founding father inched closer to reality with a groundbreaking ceremony in Little Haiti — a bright spot during troubling times for Haiti. BY TRENTON DANIEL tdarel@herald.com The year of Haiti's bicen- tennial was supposed to com- memorate an epic revolt, but it was marred instead by the reb- el -fueled ouster of President Jean -Bertrand Aristide, two devastating floods that killed at least 5,000, and steady vio- lence and lawlessness that undermines the nation's stabil- ity. But for at least an hour on Saturday, the 201st anniver- sary of Haiti's independence, South Florida's Haitian com- munity got the opportunity to celebrate a modest yet sym- bolic feat on a bright, breezy New Year's Day: a ground- breaking to kick off the cre- ation of a statue honoring one of Haiti's founding fathers, Toussaint Louverture, who launched a 13-year rebellion that freed Haiti in 1804 from its colonial ruler, France. "We need a bright tomor- row, because today, if you nook] around the world, it's very sad what we have to see. But we have to go forward," Jean Olbin, onc of the project's organizers, told his audience, which included Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and activists Mar- lcine Bastien and Jean -Robert Lafortune. • at SUNDAY, JANUARY 2, 2005 I 3/3 ian founder statue MARIANNE ARMSKAW/FOR THE HERALD STATUE SITE: Activist Jean -Robert Lafortune talks about renovating Little Haiti's Freedom Garden on Saturday. UPON COMPLETION The bronze statue, sched- uled to be unveiled on Haiti's Flag Day, May 18, will stand 13 feet tall, and the indepen- dence hero will hold the nation's 1801 constitution in his hand. Local sculptor James Mas- tin won a bid to design the statue for $35,000. The money was part of a $250,000 budget that the city of Miami ear- marked for the year -long fes- tivities. Organizers expected the statue to be built last year, but a lack of funds and snags in planning put the project on hold. And so, a few dozen Haitian leaders gathered on Indepen- dence Day in the Freedom Garden, a wedge of brownish grass also known as Place Kamokin, in the heart ofLittle Haiti. White hard hats were donned, gold -tipped shovels got gripped and soil was tossed. ATTENDING THE EVENT "Happiness for Haiti," said bystander Gino Holybrice, 33, with his 2V2-year-old daughter Nina in his arms. Holybrice, a professional trainer from Brooklyn in town visiting family, was walking home from a friend's home when he stumbled upon the groundbreaking. "Something told me to stop, and I needed her to know who Toussaint is," Holybrice said about his daughter. "This is the movernent for all people, for Miami period. We are starting to recognize the work 'T/iis is the movement Jor all people, fin' land period. We are starting to recognize the work of Haitian people.' — GINO HOLYBRICE, bystander al statue's groundbreaking of Haitian people." Lending gravitas to the event was a celebrity — at least one known among Hai- tian moviegoers. Rudolph "Rudy" Moise is an osteo- pathic doctor who practices family medicine in North But he is also known as "Richard Lazard" from "Wind of Desire," a low -budget soap opera -like movie set in Miami mansions and on Haiti beaches that is about an adul- terous attorney who falls for a troubled New York physician. The wide-eyed fans moved "Hi, Richard, I've seen your movie," cooed Regina Dolcine, 13, timidly trying to hide behind a slim tree. Moise, who was part of the bicentennial coordinating committee, said Saturday's affair was an opportunity to mark a fresh beginning for his turbulent country. "We can only hope that 2005 will be a much better year," he said. in. L;i1)1 ,k Ct. C a) .52 rt a) c o c o • < — o T3 0— — a) c • .u) -`1 .0 0 0) a) a) Respect for our histo Submitted Into the public record in connection with item 5-3. i on - OS Priscilla A. Thompson City Clerk The way Dr. Paul George describes what then was a circular park at it, the defining term is indignation. He Southeast First Avenue and ThIrd recently took his local history class to Street. the site on today's South Miami Ave- That area was considerably reat- nue where Miami was incorporated on July 28, 1896, and where Julia Tuttle, the "mother of Miami," lived beginning in 1891. The Miami - Dade Community College class (16 students, mostly adults) asked why there are no his- torical markers at those sites. His answer was one of frustration, Their response was one of indignation — not at George but at the lack of private, city, county or state commitment to Miami's his- tory. Out of that defining moment sev- eral weeks ago has come "The Orange Blossom Initiative," a group deter- mined to reinstate historical Miami markers — genre as yet undefined — that have vanished and to get new ones erected at sites where history has been ignored. The group is also rais- ing money for a statue of Tuttle. This is an issue close to rne71n the first column I wrote for this newspa- per, on Dec. 31, 1989, I called for a statue of Tuttle. Not just some abstract mass of metal but a likeness of the lady. It was she who induced HOWARD KLEINBERG SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR Henry Flagler — through, as the stoT--y goes, a gift of local orange bloSS-Offis when the rest of the state was wither- ing in a freeze — to bring his railroad here and, thereby, establish Mianii. (Hence, "Orange Blossom InitiafiVe" for this new group.) At the forefront of this movement is Linda Collins Hertz, a partner at the law firm of Holland & Knight, a mem- ber of George's class. She is so indignant that she has begun tracking lost markers. Among them is a traditional stand-up marker that was placed near Tuttle's homesite by the Historical Association of Southern Florida on July 25, 1952. Surviving newspaper clippings tell us the marker included this: "She resided in the remodelled officer's quarters of Old Fort Dallas 100 yards S.E. of this spot until her death Sept. 14, 1898." The marker was placed in ranged in 1966 when an 1-95 express- way ramp and overpass were bat. The Tuttle marker disappeared. When I caught up with it in Jartna'ry 1992, it wasn't "100 yards S.E. of`this spot" any longer. It was 500 miles away, warehoused in the Ste archives in Tallahassee. When Lirida Hertz caught up with it last molith, she was told that it had been melted down. Many historical points here are unmarked or so remote as to be tan- tamount to being unmarked. That includes markers signifying the indigenous civilization of the Tequesta and of the arrival of Spanish conquistador Pedro Menenderle Aviles in 1567. They once were-4n Miami's downtown Bayfront Parkbut removed a decade or so ago. Present reference to those historical sitesis now along a riverwalk under, the Brickell Avenue bridge to which access is challenging. Hertz assembled her ad hoc group June 22, and out of that initial Meeting came battle plans for leaping thratigh the necessary bureaucratic hoops:and soliciting funds for the Tuttle stgm.m. To kick off general participatipAi, Dr. George will lead a free histclical walking tour that will coverlie Miami -incorporation and Tuttle ings on July 28, Miami's 104th birthday. (For more information, call Na,dine McConney in Hertz's office at 305-789-7459.) Much of pioneer Miami has been razed, the Tuttle house, which dated back to the 1840s, William and Macy Brickell's trading post of the 18709:and house on the south bank of the riqei. Should they also be forgotten? Miami has a rich history, pie - Columbian, Spanish colonial andlpio- neering days of the last half of the Wth Century. Through public energy, $uch as that of the Orange Blossom Initia- tive, it can be hoped that all of us:will become more conscious and respect ful of our historical buildings 'atid sites. hkmiami@aol.com ........