Flagler Street

What It Is

Flagler Street, named for railroad magnate Henry Flagler, is Downtown Miami's historic main commercial street, the axis from which the city's address grid is numbered. Once lined with department stores and the city's grandest cinema, it later filled with electronics shops, jewelry and gold dealers, luggage stores, and import-export wholesalers serving customers from across Latin America and the Caribbean. Long-running plans aim to renovate the corridor, which has cycled through decline and revival.

Why It Matters

Flagler Street is a compressed timeline of the whole city. It begins in the Flagler-Tuttle Era as the brand-new downtown's main drag, then is remade by the Cuban exile wave and the broader LatAm Capital Era into a wholesale and retail bazaar where Spanish is the working language and the goods flow south. Few streets state the site's thesis more bluntly: this is a Latin American business street that happens to sit on U.S. soil.

Neighborhoods: Downtown Miami Eras: The Flagler–Tuttle Era, The Latam Capital Era Related people: Henry Flagler