Ever since developer Carl Fisher looked out over the tangled jungle and swampland of a forlorn island north of Miami and saw dollar signs, Miami Beach has been a place of refuge for those hoping to get away — in more ways than one.
Though he was referring to the French Riviera when he wrote “It’s a sunny place for shady people…” Somerset Maugham could just as easily been writing about Miami Beach, that palm tree laden stretch of sand where people of questionable morals and colorful character have long flocked to frolic and flaunt by the sea.Â
“I’ve never gone anyplace where more people had been arrested, indicted, or in jail,” says East End resident and author Steven Gaines who vacationed in Miami Beach as a child and is a big fan.
 It’s easy to see why.Â
From its quaint art deco buildings painted in pastel hues and backed by an impossibly blue ocean to towering hotels made famous by Jackie Gleason and his variety show, Miami Beach has long been the stuff of legends.Â
“When I was eight years old, it was the essence of glamour,” says Gaines. “It was very beautiful then, with low buildings, clear skies and warm water year round. There were paper lanterns and miniature golf, which I’d never seen before. It was magic. That first impression is indelible.”
And first impressions often last.
“I kept on going when it was very uncool to go there,” says Gaines. “Cheap airfare made it easy to go anywhere and people would ask, ‘What do you keep going there for?’ I’m looking for 1959 — my lost childhood stuff.”
In recent years, Gaines has spent a great deal of time researching and traveling back to Miami Beach to get a sense of the people and the place that he so loved as a child. His new book “Fool’s Paradise — Players, Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach” is a study of life in Miami Beach. What Gaines has found is that every 20 years or so, Miami Beach goes through a complete transformation. Ultimately, though, the problem with Miami Beach culture, notes Gaines, is that there isn’t any.Â
“I think it needs to find itself,” he says. It’s a resort based community. We’re seasonal here, but I wouldn’t call us a resort — there are not hundreds of hotel rooms and condos here.”
In his book, Gaines writes about Miami Beach’s past and present. The gangsters, bookies and developers of the early years, the Jewish population that came from New York to retire, the drug dealers and addicts that came next, followed by revitalization with glamorous models, photo shoots and European tourists. The booming Miami Beach real estate industry of recent years is the latest casualty and the city now faces half finished condos and a dire economy.
In the end, though Gaines went in search of Miami Beach, 1959, what he found was a cast of characters eager to share stories of their part in the creation of the Miami Beach that exists today. But what Gaines did not manage to find was his childhood.Â
Like Dorothy who travels to the colorful and eccentric Oz only to realize the comfort she craves is not in paradise, but back home in Kansas, so too has Gaines gained new perspective on his beloved Miami Beach.
“I knew when I was going to do this that it didn’t exist anymore and I was being a sentimental fool. But I’m still fascinated by it,” says Gaines. “Now that I’ve written the book and think I’ve captured it at this very moment, I can stop looking. It makes me very grateful to live on the East End. Everywhere I look, I think what a great small place this is. We’re really lucky.”
On Saturday, February 14 at 5 p.m., Steven Gaines will be at BookHampton (41 Main Street, East Hampton) to read from and sign copies of “Fool’s Paradise.” For information, call 324-4939.
Above: Steven Gaines
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