Mailed in 1938, a pre-development view from the old Venetian Hotel.
We found a couple more old postcards that show The Miami Herald property before The Herald built its bayfront headquarters in the early 1960s, so we thought we’d add them to the blog and create a gallery that shows different views in different years.
Your BelleIsleBlog is guilty of not being able to get enough of this….we admit it. But with The Herald leaving last week it’s 50-year headquarters last week, and portions of The Miami Herald sign coming down on Friday, and the prospect of Genting tearing the building down between now and year end, well…
So let’s look closer at what it looked like before the Knight brothers built Florida’s largest commercial building, which is what One Herald Plaza was upon completion in 1963.
Between the Venetian and County causeways (MacArthur wasn’t a hero yet)
Here’s the tightest view we’ve seen of the Venetian Hotel, as well as the Boulevard Shops (now a historic landmark on the site) and some other small structures. Click on it to check out the detail. The postcard back describes non-stop traffic on the causeways.
And here’s a look at the rest of the postcards we’ve found with the same general view.
Residences and the Venetian Hotel, undated.
More of a step back view, mailed in 1930.
1939 view of Biscayne coast, from east to west.
Belle Isle Blog 
There was a bar in The Venetian Hotel which, after The Herald invaded, became THE hangout for its writers, reporters, editors, and others. I think lunch and/or dinner may have been served, too. What was it’s name?
Are you thinking of Johnny Raffa’s Lobo Lounge? Thought that was in another building.
The original “Lobo Lounge” was Betty’s at the SW corner of Biscayne Blvd and NE 15th Street…Johnny Raffa bought the business and relocated it on the east side of Biscayne opposite Sears. Anyone remember the name of the deli restaurant on the ground floor of the office building that was converted from the Venetian hotel?
The Miami Dade Library Main Branch at 101 W. Flagler Street, will host
Sarasota author Liz Coursen on June 20, 1 p.m., as she presents her hour-long PowerPoint program “Having Fun, Wish You Were Here! An Illustrated History of the Postcard in Florida.”
Coursen is the owner of AmericanPostcardArt.com, an online art business that enlarges vintage postcards and republishes them as art prints.
“Miami has amazing vintage postcard material,” says Coursen. “All the finest postcard publishers–Rotograph, Langsdorf, Sunny Scenes, Albertype–flocked to Miami and its environs. If you like old postcards, you’re in for a real treat.”
Thanks, but: as Subtree said, “Lobo” was on The Boulevard, on the east side, where that little block of “historic shops” had been and, before them, The Red Coach Grill (without a/the cutesy “e” at the end).. The place I”m thinking about was in the hotel itself. A lot of news was written there, and some, made.
I worked briefly at Lobo’s Lounge in the 1980’s It was on the East Side of Biscayne Blvd. It had recently been bought from Raffa by a guy named Joey D, who tried to make it into a cool little smoky Jazz Bar. He couldn’t sustain it but while he had it some of the best Jazz Musicians in our century actually did play there. Ira Sullivan, Steve Bailey, John & Nicole Yarling, and Billy Marcus as well as David Sanborne.