Lincoln Road

What It Is

Lincoln Road runs east-west across South Beach, a few blocks in from the ocean. Originally a car-lined commercial street developed in Carl Fisher's early Miami Beach, it was reimagined in the early 1960s by Morris Lapidus, who closed it to traffic and remade it as a landscaped pedestrian mall — one of the first of its kind in the country. His design added shade structures, fountains, planters, and the playful curved canopies sometimes nicknamed "follies." After decades of decline, it was revived alongside the rest of South Beach and is now a busy stretch of restaurants, retail, and constant foot traffic.

Why It Matters

Lincoln Road ties together two of Miami Beach's defining eras. As Carl Fisher's original commercial spine it belongs to the city's founding, and as Lapidus's pedestrian experiment it belongs to the MiMo postwar moment when Miami Beach reinvented itself for the car age — paradoxically by banning the car from one of its best streets. Its later revival made it a model that planners around the country studied. For a city built on selling atmosphere, Lincoln Road remains one of the purest products: a street designed almost entirely for the pleasure of walking and being seen.

Neighborhoods: Miami Beach Eras: The MiMo / Postwar Boom Related people: Morris Lapidus