The history of the Venetian Isles is fascinating. You can relive it on Sunday. Here’s how

The bridge to Belle Isle, 1937

(An earlier version of this post confused the date of the event. It is Saturday, April 9. )

Today’s quiz:

— Only one of the Venetian Islands was actually an island before developers dredged and filled. Which one?

— Which of the six residential islands once housed an airport?

— Which of the Venetian Isles hosted a U.S. president?

President-elect Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry, on the grounds at Belle Isle. (Photo part of J.C. Penney Collection at Southern Methodist University)

You will learn all of this and much more if you join the O. Miami poetry festival on Saturday, April 9.

The event is called Everyone’s an island, and it works like this:

You start in Margaret Pace Park in mainland Miami, just north of the VenetiaMarriot Biscayne Bay complex on the west end of the Venetian Causeway. Get there at 4 p.m. or after.

You will receive a “zine” — a less “maga” version of a magazine — that shows a printed route with historical notes and poems that will guide you through a tour (you could walk, bike or drive) that explores the history of the islands.

At each stop, the guide offers poetry inspired by the site’s history.

It all ends at Belle Isle Park, with a poetry reading that celebrates our islands. (If you are driving, know that parking on Belle Isle can be a challenge without a residential permit. There is some limited public parking on the north side of the Venetian Way, across from the park.)

You should register to participate on Eventbrite. O, Miami asks for a donation, starting at $5.

The event is put on with Islandia Journal.

Belle Isle Residents Association meet tonight

The Belle Isle Residents Association meets tonight on Zoom at 6:30 p.m., and as previously shared, the head of Miami Beach Public Works, Joe Gomez, will be taking questions, and new officers will be elected.

From BIRA:

The Belle Isle Residents Association will hold its Annual Meeting Thursday, February 10th at 6:30pm. The meeting will be virtual on Zoom and is open to all residents.

We are delighted to have City of Miami Beach Director of Public Works Joe Gomez as our guest speaker.

We will elect our board members, share BIRA’s goals for 2022 and take your questions about neighborhood issues.

To join the meeting, you need to pre-register by going to: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KGgAVWWZRGGwvRRhdg5ovg

Once you register, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions and a link to join the meeting where you will have an opportunity to ask the Director of Public Works a question. We will also take questions live during the meeting.

Expect 15,000 runners to pass through our neighborhood Sunday morning — plan accordingly

Miami’s annual marathon and half marathon, this year branded under the name Lifetime, happens Sunday morning, and as always, crosses Belle Isle and the Venetian Causeway.

The race starts at 6 a.m. near the FTX Arena downtown, crosses the McArthur Causeway east to Miami Beach, and then heads back to mainland Miami over the Venetian Causeway.

The first runners are expected to reach our neck of the woods sat about 6:20 a.m., and the roadway will be crowded with runners until at least 10 a.m.

It will be pretty much impossible to leave Belle Isle by car during that time, so get you shopping down Saturday night.

Why not haul out a chair and cheer on the runners!

To add parking and renovate, The Standard wants a zoning change

The Standard on Belle Isle is valet only — today.

The Standard Spa and hotel is moving forward with its effort to add on-site parking and renovate one of the wings of its property, but this time with a twist — it’s asking the city of Miami Beach to create a hotel overlay district for its property.

That’s because the Miami Beach zoning code for Belle Isle doesn’t allow a hotel use; the Standard is grandfathered in because it was built (originally as the Monterrey Motel and later the DiLido Spa) before the current code was enacted.

The Standard will meet with Belle Isle residents on Sept. 13 at 6 p.m. at the hotel, 40 Island Ave.

It plans to go before the Miami Beach Planning Board on Sept. 27.

The Standard’s latest proposal is believed to involve knocking down the existing single-story east wing of rooms. It would be replaced with a two-story wing — with parking on the first floor. In preliminary discussions, no additional rooms were to be added to the property.

As proposed, the overlay district would only apply to the Standard property, not other sites on Belle Isle.

 

 

 

Town Hall meeting on Zika tonight at 6 p.m.

There’s a town hall meeting for Miami Beach residents on the Zika threat tonight at 6 p.m. that will include the state surgeon general and Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales.

The meeting, scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Waverly Condominium, 1330 West Avenue, is hosted by state Rep. David Richardson. There will be a presentation on protecting yourself and preventing the spread of Zika, as well as a question and answer session.

As you know, Miami Beach between Eight and 28th Streets has been designated by the Centers for Disease Control as a Zika zone.

Thinking of going north on Alton Road this afternoon or coming home on the Julia Tuttle?

You might want to reconsider. President Obama is coming to town, and he’s attending  a couple of fund-raisers on Miami Beach.

As a result, the city is warning commuters that between 4 and 7 p.m., “there will be periodic closures” on the Tuttle, Alton Road north, and the 41st Street corridor.

It might be a good time to sign up for Miami Beach traffic text alerts. They really do help. Or follow the city on Twitter.

Temporary playground in Belle Isle Park? Residents at meeting emphatically say no

The playground at Maurice Gibb Memorial Park

The notion that the park on Belle Isle could host a playground while Maurice Gibb Memorial Park undergoes renovation received a mostly negative response from Belle Isle residents who attended a community meeting Thursday night.

The Miami Beach Parks Department posed the question to the Belle Isle Residents Association, which invited residents to give the city feedback during an association board meeting at Belle Plaza, 20 Island Ave.

“I wanted them to hear directly from residents” about the proposal, BIRA president Scott Diffenderfer told the roughly 30 residents who showed up. “This is literally to hear your input.”

What the two Miami Beach parks representatives heard was mostly against the idea. Some said the playground would be too noisy. Others said itt would attract too much traffic in an area that lacks parking. The dogs and the children would be a bad combination, one resident said.

Some of the concerns ventured into the bizarre. One resident said the playground would attract children, and the children would “attract sexual offenders.” (We are not making this up).

The one attendee who spoke out in favor of temporarily moving the equipment  pointed out that when Maurice Gibb Park closes for renovations, “people are going to come to the park with their kids anyway,” because it will be the closest available open space for parents in the Belle Isle/Sunset Harbour area.

Cindy Casanova, assistant director of Miami Beach’s Parks and Recreation Department, told residents: “We know there is no appetite for this from anyone here, which is something we needed to hear.”

(UPDATE: There is an effort on Facebook to encourage parents who couldn’t attend the meeting to let the city know they do support the playground move.Parents are urged to email Casanova at cynthia.casanova@miamibeachfl.gov).

She said the city has no plan to move the equipment to Belle Isle if residents don’t want it.

Diffenderfer said he had approached developer Bradley Colmer, whose company is seeking to build a mixed-use project across from Maurice Gibb park, so see if he would consider temporarily making his property available for the equipment until his development gets city approval and construction can begin. Right now, the proposal is stalled before the city commission.

Diffenderfer said Colmer is”open” to the idea. Casanova said the city would reach out to him.

 

 

O Miami brings restorative meditation and poetry to Belle Isle.. in the year 2100

Jillian Mayer leads participants to the Standard pool (Photo courtesy of O, Miami/Farah Diba Cristina Yamini)

Your Belle Isle was traveling last week, and missed the big O, Miami poetry event at the Standard.

But our correspondent (and Belle Isle Residents Association board member) Lisa Palley provided a report:

On April 6th, the standard at the The Standard was raised a few notches by O Miami’s poetry missionaries.

The mission of O, Miami Poetry Festival is to give every human existing in our city a poetic encounter. This particular encounter, Current, created by Miami based artist/filmmaker Jillian Mayer, and executed by her band of humanoids, gave Miami a glimpse of how restorative transcendental meditation will look like… in the year 2100.

So, this is underwater poetry? (Photo courtesy of O. Miami / Farah Diba Cristina Yamini)

(Photo courtesy of O, Miami/Farah Diba Cristina Yamini)

First thing you need to know–it happened underwater. Second, it was called the “art of virtual sight recognition,” amongst other things. For the techno-conservatives in the reading audience, please, rest assured, this meditation was a perfect marriage of  ancient wisdom and futuristic innovation.

Jillian’s vision anticipated all the challenges for a 2016 you–and the future “you”–living in the year 2100. Issues like social anxiety due to super-population, inability to focus due to super-stimulation (thank you, perpetual pinging gizmos) and other anxieties… like not being superhuman due to our inability to be productive and perfect 24/7. This interactive performance and site-specific sound piece Current assuaged us, causing all of our anxieties to float away, far away.

To help with social anxiety, Jillian used coaxing imperatives in a serene, half human, half borg voice “do not be disturbed if you come into contact with somebody.” For our compromised attention, those jumping monkeys in our brains, she used sensory isolation and had participants use black painted goggles, as waterproof blindfolds. That way we could focus on the poetic collage of instructions that successfully tapped into our greater imagination. One particular meditation stuck with me, even til now, were these words of poet Mary Oliver asking, imploring us to think.. “What is it you plan to do/ with your one/ wild and precious life?”

Hmmm… how about experience a brilliant poem first hand? Visit www.omiami.org and engage with poetry in a variety of ways during the remaining days of April, Miami’s O poetry season.

 

 

 

O, Miami. We’re making underwater poetry at The Standard!

We’re about to hit April, which means it’s poetry month. And that’s become a fun time in Miami, thanks to the Knight Foundation and omiami.org, which puts on an annual poetry festival with great events to celebrate with verse.

O, Miami tries make an encounter with poetry the norm around town.

“We want people to find poetry on rooftops, or in a fortune cookie, on a cafecito cup, at a fashion show, on the sand, on prescription medicine bottles, on the lawn, in hair, on doorsteps, or even under water,” says O, Miami promoter (and Belle Isle Residents Association board member) Lisa Palley.

And this year, that’s where Belle Isle comes in. There’s an O, Miami event on our little island.

It happens April 6 at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. at The Standard, 40 Island Ave., and it’s called Current.You have to RSVP to attend. Oh, and pay $6.09.

What is it? A guided virtual reality meditation under water led by  artist Jillian Mayer.

What will happen? We’re not sure, but here’s what the website advises for attire:

NOTES FOR AUDIENCE

Please wear a bathing suit under your clothes.

Please be prepared to:
-Enter a body of water
-Place your head under water
-Relinquish your cell phone for an extended amount of time

Here’s a little more:

“The group will be quietly led into the pool and instructed to take distance from other members in the group. On an audio cue, they will be instructed to lower their heads into the water with their faces fully submerged…..A 15-minute musical/meditational composition will lead the group on a series of mental prompts, conceptual meditations and light movements….”

You get the idea.

Don’t forget — Critical Mass rides tonight and traffic snarls expected

Just a reminder that the monthly Critical Mass Miami bike ride starts at 7:15 p.m., and should be working its way through Miami Beach after after 8 p.m.

The last last leg of the ride goes west down Dade Boulevard and across Venetian Way and our islands to mainland Miami.