![]() However, changes of another kind directly and adversely impacted the aformentioned shopping initiatives. In fact, it was the Grove’s uniqueness-along with its tolerance of a wide array of viewpoints and lifestyles-that catalyzed these changes. While the Mayfair in the Grove and CocoWalk, two ambitious malls that opened in that era and beyond, replaced many of the businesses dotting Grand Avenue. Home to many Coconut Grove “characters,” the modest, wood frame buildings on the ridge overlooking South Bayshore Drive gave way by the 1970s to high rise condominiums. With its parades, art festival and parties, Coconut Grove remains a celebratory neighborhood.įigure 4: Mayfair in Coconut Grove in 1982įollowing the “hippie era,” developmental change was in the air for the Grove. Their daily and even nightly presence brought young hipsters to the Grove from many areas of South Florida and beyond, but their growing presence vexed many business owners who pushed back against them.Įccentrics continued to gravitate to the Grove long after the hippie era was over, paving the way for huge, costumed Halloween street parties, the annual Bed Race, and the celebrated King Mango Strut, which began in the early 1980s, and continues to spoof each year at holiday time those politicians and others whose foibles make for splendid satire. Hippies came in much larger numbers to the park and elsewhere in the Grove from the mid-1960s into the 1970s. By the late 1950s, coffee houses hosted beatniks who sometimes read their latest poetic creations before an audience of like-minded people be it artists, writers, or even weekend hipsters. Many considered the Grove to be a center of “hipness” along the lines of New York City’s Greenwich Village. In the meantime, the playhouse awaits a long-delayed reopening that may come with a radical overhaul of the original theater.įigure 2: Hippies in Peacock Park on July 20, 1969.Ĭoconut Grove has also flourished as the seat of South Florida’s Bohemian life with its coffee houses, boutique art galleries and as a popular gathering place, particularly in Peacock Park, for beatniks and hippies. Today it ranks among the nation’s premiere juried arts show. Each year since the Festival has drawn artists and visitors from many parts of the region and beyond. Many Grove artists displayed their works in this setting, and tour goers turned out in droves, prompting a reprise of the festival the following year, now parading under the Coconut Grove Arts Festival banner. To generate more publicity for the play, theater officials, with a big assist from powerhouse publicist, Charlie Cinnamon, turned the streets surrounding the playhouse into a Left Bank/Parisian setting by creating the Left Banks Arts Festival. In 1963, the playhouse presented “Irma La Duce”, the Parisian themed comedy centering on a disgraced former police officer falling for a beautiful Parisian prostitute, Irma La Duce. Many of America’s most notable performers over the past five decades, ranging from Tallulah Bankhead to Kathleen Turner, appeared there. After its conversion to a live stage venue in 1956, the new playhouse opened with a presentation of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” The playhouse was an instrumental part of the Grove’s hipness and creativity in subsequent decades till its untimely closing in the first decade of the new century. Figure 1: Coconut Grove Playhouse in 1927Īnother prominent entertainment venue was the Coconut Grove Playhouse, a converted movie theater, known initially as the Coconut Grove Cinema, which opened in 1927.
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