Biscayne Park is a Very Charming Neighborhood. Or it Should Be. Or it Could Be. Or it Will Be? Part 1.

Arthur Griffing probably didn't care whether or not we were charming.  He was a developer, and he bought, divided, and sold property in our area in the 1920s.  He brought in Australian pines and other dessicators, so he'd have more dry land to sell, he carved house lots to be compact, and he didn't waste precious square feet with sidewalks.

The City of Miami swallowed us in 1925, and they spit us back out in 1931.  We incorporated in 1933.  We started incorporated life with few houses and residents.

How charming were we?  Pretty charming.  Maybe almost caricaturishly charming.  We had some log cabin houses (two remain on 121st Street, just east of 6th Avenue), and we erected a log cabin Village Hall.  That's beyond charming.  It might be downright cute.  Over time, more houses were constructed, and they were Spanish style, wood frame ("Key West style"), and regular old CBS.  For decades, there was a garden club for the "ladies."  If Ann Harper didn't throw them all away, you can probably find some of the old photographs of our garden club ladies at the new Village Hall.  Dresses and hats?  Of course!

Over the years, we've developed something of a reputation for our charm.  We're not considered uninspired and run down, as are many parts of North Miami, and we're not considered stuffy or snooty, as are parts of Miami Shores.  We're just considered charming.  And we don't mind one bit.  We encourage that kind of characterization.

Our charm has become a topic of debate in recent years.  The first time I heard it prosecuted was when we had the idea to move our Village election from odd-numbered years, when BP Commission elections were the only thing on the ballot, to even numbered years, when we would piggy-back onto the general election.  Those opposed to changing the election schedule complained that we would lose or surrender an important part of the "charm" of Biscayne Park.  We wouldn't be unique that way any more.  It cost us more to run our own elections, and the turnout was much lower than it is for the general elections, but some felt it was worth the losses in exchange for claiming the extra manifestation of charm.

In more recent years, we considered annexing tracts east of the train tracks, from 121st Street to 118th Street.  Again, the loudest criticism of that proposal was that having those blocks, which are commercial, industrial, and feature some large apartment buildings, would dilute or even disqualify the charm of BP.  It wasn't as if we could pick up and move real estate, and we couldn't even see those acres from here (they're literally across the track), but even the municipal inclusion of this area in the corporate entity known as Biscayne Park was considered a ruinous defiling of us.

We have an image, we have a style, and for some, we have an aura.  It's all about charm.  Our self-image has something to do with modesty, although not a modesty that doesn't include self-respect and tidiness.  For many years, it was not only traditional, but actually a matter of our Code, that houses were painted white.  Or slightly off-white, for the adventurous.  It took a long time for generations of BP populations to agree that the neighborhood would still look nice and fully respectable, even if houses were painted in a significantly wider array of colors.  So now, some of them are.

Another part of our charm, at least as some of us experience it, is a theme of "openness" of the look of properties here.  No one is allowed to have a wall or fence in his or her front yard.  So where did the front yard walls and fences come from?  I'm told that one of our illustrious former Mayors, Ed Burke, was imperious in a variety of ways, and one of them included his personal permission for some of his neighbors (friends?) to do whatever they wanted.  Burke reportedly placed himself between his neighbors and the Codes, and if you got to him in the right way, you didn't have to deal with the Codes.

But fence or no fence, some of the BP old-timers say that proud landscaping was de rigueur.  It didn't have to be extravagant, but it had to be neat.  And those old-timers will say that attention to the condition of personal property here was also part of the charm of the Village.