The New York Times‘s real estate column profiles Tony Goldman’s attempts to gentrify Miami’s Wynwood section by using art:
On a recent tour, Mr. Goldman pointed out galleries that have sprouted in brightly painted cinderblock buildings once used as warehouses by shoe manufacturers; a former junkyard that now houses a stainless-steel sculpture park; and a new restaurant, Joey’s, which is named for his son and draws a fashionable crowd. Mr. Goldman has always used restaurants, whether the Greene Street Cafe in SoHo or Lucky’s in South Beach, to get people to talk about a neighborhood.
To provide an incentive to restaurateurs, the Goldmans persuaded Miami officials to ease parking-space requirements. Now Joey’s is one of seven recently opened lounges and restaurants in Wynwood. “He’s the perfect neighbor for us,” said Mera Rubell, an owner of the Rubell Family Collection, which operates out of a Wynwood warehouse. “Not only did he buy properties here, but now he’s bringing life and activity to them.”
The latest buzz-generating addition to Wynwood is the eye-catching display of murals by prominent street artists that Mr. Goldman and the gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch commissioned in time for Art Basel, the annual art fair in Miami Beach that was held in December.
Mr. Goldman provided lodging for the artists, who included Kenny Scharf, Shepard Fairey and Os Gemeos, at the Park Central, one of two hotels he owns in South Beach, and provided the canvas — freshly painted warehouse walls between Northwest Second and Third Avenues — but did not pay them. “I wanted to know that they had a desire to be part of this collective project,” he said.
A SOHO Visionary Makes an Artsy Bet in Miami (New York Times)
