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johnrelay
Gender: Male
 |  | Sears: Downtown Miami
< on 11/29/2005 8:01 PM >
|  | | | This is my first post here. I found out about this place when I decided to Google search Omni Mall and found that one of the members here had done some exploring. While a lot of the mystique surrounding old buildings is motivated by my curiosity, nostalgia played a big factor in my searching of the Omni.
I probably could've been a pretty good tour guide for those guys since I have good memories about what was in the mall and where, even though---as the their photos pointed out---the mall was pretty much stripped bare. Anyway, I could probably dig up some old photos of that mall in its prime.
Anyway, on to the point of my post: the old Sears building in downtown. This building, as I recall, was built in the 1920s and it was an old Art Deco building. Like the Omni, I went to that Sears quite a bit as a kid. But while my memories of the Omni were very current up until its closure in 1999, my memories of Sears was confined to my childhood since Sears closed its doors around 1983.
The building remained vacant for nearly two decades, as city officials and historians debated on what to do with it. I remember reading an article that the building had loads of problems like bad wiring, dilapidated structures and God knows what else. After a lot of back and forth, the building---save for the building's signature tower---were demolished somewhere around 2000-2001, I think, (I can't remember the exact year since time flies). Today, as Miami residents know, the city is constructing a HUGE arts center on the location. I think saving the tower was a way for city officials to compromise with local historians who really wanted to preserve the building and give it an overhaul.
But just before I found out it was going to be demolished, I went inside. In particular, I wanted to get a look at what I called the "Grand Staircase" of the store, which was really art deco and I remember being something like three stories high. Funny how things look when you look at them as a kid.
I was glad to see the staircase, but it was nowhere near as big as I remembered it. But I was definitely glad I got a last look.
Like an inexperienced jackass, I was armed only with a disposable camera. So some of the photos look fuzzy, as if they were taken on the Titanic or something. But I got some pretty decent shots considering. I also got a shot of the old Sears sign, (anyone remember the cursive Sears sign?), which used to sit on the tower.
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I was going to post pictures, but they're too big, so I gotta resize, but I'm in a hurry. Stay tuned.
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westover18
  
location:
Houston County, GA
Gender: Male
| |  |  | Re: Sears: Downtown Miami
<Reply # 1 on 11/30/2005 9:31 PM >
| | | | Good story, cant wait to see the pictures.
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes |
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johnrelay
Gender: Male
| | Re: Sears: Downtown Miami
<Reply # 2 on 12/1/2005 4:48 AM >
| | | | Ok, I did some resizing, so I hope the pictures look ok.
This was the way Sears looked in the 20s. Some time after that, I'm not sure when, the building was expanded big time to the right and left. (This is clearly an archive photo.)
This was my approach to the Sears. You can see the white Sears tower just over the express way. And speaking of the Omni Mall earlier, that's the hotel portion of the Omni to the right. In addition, the building on the far left, including the Howard Johnson, orange-topped roof thingie, have both been torn down. (The whole area is going through a MAJOR overhaul.)
This is on top of the fourth floor. I'm standing in front of a door way of the main building. So I'm standing behind the tower if you were looking at it from the front. Naturally, I went inside the tower. I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't. You could see all the way to the top. The place was filled with boxes of papers that, if I remember correctly, were old customer receipts or something. I didn't want to touch too much because the place was also filled with pigeons and the boxes were covered in bird shit.
The following is what I call the grand staircase. I wish I could've taken a better picture, but there was a wide space to the right and then the OTHER set of stairs. So I couldn't fill it all in. Basically the other side looks exactly like the left side, but it curves left. You can't tell, but there were still turquoise tiles on the "hand rail" area. If you were looking at the Sears building from the POV of the first picture, than the staircase would've been on the far right where there was an expansion years later.
This a picture of the old cursive Sears sign that used to sit on the tower. I have a B&W photo somewhere, showing how the tower looked with the sign. You can see the tower on the upper left hand corner, so this should give you some perspective on how much the property was expanded. If you were to look to the left, you'd have seen that the building extended to the fence. This is where the staircase was located. The Sears cursive sign was used for scrap metal, apparently. By the way, I went inside the building through the door to the left of the sign.
Several years after my visit and the demolision, this is what Sears looks like today as the massive Miami Arts Center project continues. The center also extends across the street. This isn't my photo, but I thought some of you might enjoy a post-demolision picture. You can see that they cleaned it up big time.
I have several more cool pictures that I took inside the building that I'll share another time.
Enjoy, guys, and please share your thoughts.
[last edit 12/1/2005 4:50 AM by johnrelay - edited 1 times]
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nobody
  
location:
VANCOUVER B.C.
Gender: Male
5:55 is a state of mind
| | Re: Sears: Downtown Miami
<Reply # 3 on 12/1/2005 4:46 PM >
| | | | Damn cool place, Enjoyed the photos and info, thanks. N.
Operating Entirely With Bad Intentions |
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westover18
location:
Houston County, GA
Gender: Male
| | | | Re: Sears: Downtown Miami
<Reply # 4 on 12/1/2005 8:06 PM >
| | | | Looks like it was an awesome place to visit back in the day. At least they are saving the tower part. Good pics, looks like it was lot of fun. I would have loved to get in that tower before they started working on it.
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes |
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lokiplease
location:
Sarasota, Florida [soon to be Orlando, Florida]
Gender: Female
silent hill! <3
| | | Re: Sears: Downtown Miami
<Reply # 5 on 12/11/2005 5:55 AM >
| | | | That's a lovely story...I'd like to see the rest of the pictures, whenever you post them.
Is UE in Miami dangerous? I'm reluctant to do much of anything in big cities, for fear of police. But I'm not too disgustingly far from Miami, and if there's anything worth seeing without an enormous security risk, I'd definitely take the drive.
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