Miami, June 12, 2019 – The acclaimed Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at Miami Dade College (MDC) presents Roadside Florida: Miami Beach Hotels with writer and historical consultant Sylvia Gurinsky, who will lead a film and video tour through three eras of Miami Beach hotel architecture using unique and historic video at the Miami Beach Cinematheque in South Beach on Wednesday, June 19, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
“Tourism has been the tent pole of South Florida’s economy since the beginning, and hotels are central to that industry,” said Wolfson Archives Director Rene Ramos. “Sylvia’s screening is like taking a tour through time to revisit some of the Beach’s grandest hotels.”
Mediterranean Revival, Art Deco and Miami Modern, known to fans as MiMo, are the three architectural styles that have shaped Miami Beach’s image, built the city’s tourist economy, and created the distinctive layers of history and design that have made the city world famous.
In Roadside Florida: Miami Beach Hotels, Gurinsky shares insights into the styles and histories of hotels on Miami Beach using unique and historic film and video from the collections of the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at MDC.
Among the legendary Miami Beach hotels featured in the presentation are the Roney Plaza, the MacFadden-Deauville, the Cardozo, the Essex House, the Castaways, the Eden Roc and the Americana. Gurinsky will also examine the beginnings of the Art Deco preservation movement on Miami Beach.
Roadside Florida: Miami Beach Hotels is one of a series of narrated screenings by Gurinsky that have been presented by the Wolfson Archives. Previous editions of the series have dealt with pre-Disney tourist attractions in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. The screenings are also the basis of a series of television documentaries that air on Miami Dade College TV and can be seen on the station’s YouTube channel.
Events at the Wolfson Archives are presented with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners.
To reserve free tickets, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roadside-florida-miami-beach-hotels-tickets-61954498573
For more information, please contact the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at 305-237-7731 or info@wolfsonarchive.org.
About The Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at MDC
The Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives is an official moving image repository and archives of the State of Florida and is one of the largest institutions of its kind in the United States. Lynn Wolfson helped found the Moving Image Archives in 1984, along with Ralph Renick and historian Arva Moore Parks. Named in honor of Lynn and the late Louis Wolfson II, a Florida legislator and leader in the state’s communications industry, the Archives is solely operated by Miami Dade College, and is housed in a 9,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility on MDC’s Wolfson Campus. The Archives’ collections include 35,000 hours of videotape and 23 million feet of film. A local television news collection dates to the late 1940s, with footage from landmark television station WTVJ (first in Florida, 18th in the nation) as well as WPLG, WCKT, WCIX, and WINK. The capstone of activities at the Archives is a long-term digitization project funded generously by an additional gift from Lynn Wolfson.
WHAT: Roadside Florida: Miami Beach Hotels screening
WHEN: Wednesday, June 19, 7-8 p.m.
WHERE: Miami Beach Cinematheque, 1130 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, FL.
Media-only contacts: René Ramos, Archives director, 305-237-7731, rramos@mdc.edu; Lou Kramer, Archives manager, 305-327-7731, lkramer1@mdc.edu; or Kevin Wynn, public programs coordinator, 305-327-7732, kwynn@mdc.edu