South Beach Guide: The Beach, the Art Deco District and Lincoln Road

South Beach, the southern end of Miami Beach, packs the city's most famous sights into about two and a half square miles: a broad Atlantic beach, the world's largest collection of Art Deco buildings, and the restaurants, bars and clubs that made it famous.

The Art Deco District

In the 1930s, Miami Beach was built up with small, affordable hotels in the new Art Deco style, and later with the curvier Streamline Moderne and the playful Miami Modern (MiMo) style of the 1950s. By the 1970s the area was run down, and a campaign led by Barbara Capitman saved it from demolition. It was listed as a historic district in 1979.

Look for the details: eyebrow ledges over the windows to shade them from the sun, porthole windows, terrazzo floors and neon signs. Ocean Drive has the famous frontage, including the Colony, the Leslie and the Carlyle. Collins Avenue and Washington Avenue behind it have more, with fewer crowds. The Art Deco Welcome Center on Ocean Drive runs walking tours and has maps for self-guided walks. The Wolfsonian museum on Washington Avenue is a small, excellent collection of design and propaganda from the same period.

The beach

The sand is wide, pale and public along the whole length of the island. Lummus Park, opposite Ocean Drive, is the busiest stretch. Head north towards 20th Street for more space, or south to South Pointe Park for families and calmer water. The pastel lifeguard towers, rebuilt after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, are sights in their own right. The paved beachwalk runs behind the dunes for miles, at its quietest for a run or ride before the sun gets high.

Española Way and Lincoln Road

Española Way is a short, pedestrianised street built in the 1920s in a Mediterranean Revival style, now lined with restaurants. Lincoln Road, a few blocks north, is a pedestrian mall of shops, cafés and street performers, with the modern New World Center concert hall nearby, where free concerts are projected on an outdoor wall in the season.

South Pointe Park

At the southern tip of the island, a lawn and pier looking across the channel to Fisher Island and the port. Come at sunset to watch the cruise ships head out to sea.

Tips

Visit Ocean Drive in the morning, for the buildings without the crowds, and come back at night for the neon. Eat a block or two inland, where prices are fairer. During spring break in March, South Beach gets packed, and the city has brought in curfews and restrictions. For the rest of our choices, see our things to do list, and for staying here, our where to stay guide.