Artistically Social

Arts in Miami Through the Eyes of Amy Rosenberg

Amy Rosenberg is an attorney and arts advocate who founded the Overtown Music Project and the Arsht Center’s young patrons group. She is the co-founder of the environmental non-profit Dream in Green. Amy is a member of Art Basel’s Junior Host Committee and sits on the Board of the Funding Arts Network. She also serves on the New World Symphony’s Friends Committee as well as The Wolfsonian-FIU’s Visionaries Committee.

Weird often goes with wonderful. That was exactly the case when the genius minds behind the Bas Fisher Invitational launched Weird Miami. The idea: put an artist or two in charge of a school bus full of grown ups and tour them around the city. The first trip called “Untitled (How the Other Half Lives,” was led by artist Adler Guerrier and sold out. Adler took his passengers through Wynwood, Liberty City and Allapattah and hit spots such as Wig’s City, Bom-Bo’s backyard and Jumbo’s, Miami’s first integrated restaurant (the fried shrimp is to die for). The next installment is in September.

The Ward Rooming House, once an important part of the social fabric of Overtown, opened its doors once again as an art gallery and exhibition hall. Built in 1925, the Ward Rooming House opened its doors to black laborers and Seminole workers who were not welcomed elsewhere in the City they were helping to build. The works of Purvis Young now hang on the walls of the gallery.

Nearby, the Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum also functions as a testament to the not so long ago days when segregation was the rule. The police officers who were part of the precinct were assigned only to the “Central Negro District” of Liberty City and Overtown and were a division kept completely separate from the white police force. They were only allowed to arrest African Americans and had no authority over whites. A visit through the Museum with a tour guide is advised.

If heating up a Lean Cuisine in your microwave has you down, head to veggie heaven, The Honey Tree, where you can hear Buffalo Brown perform tributes every Wednesday alongside your kale burrito. Buffalo covers the waterfront musically and has been known to play sets from The Cure and The Doors.

Hundreds of hungry revelers dressed to the nines came together at The Fairmont- Turnberry Isle for Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation. The night featured some of the best South Florida chefs and restaurants, including Mercadito and Joe’s Stone Crab, crisp wines and great music by the Smiling Gums.

Photos by Megan Ann Harmon