The Death of the Charles Hotel

Walking on Miami Beach's Collins Avenue today, I remembered the now-vanished Charles Hotel, a Deco gem built in 1938, but demolished in 2004 -- even though it was in a supposedly officially protected historic preservation district.


The owner seemed to let it deteriorate until it was deemed structurally unsound and he could get official permission to knock it down. Now a not-bad, post-modern, low-rise condo building has been erected on the spot.


But the Art Deco panels -- some of the best bas-reliefs in South Beach -- that decorated The Charles are gone forever. Here's what they looked like. The first picture is of the north wall; the closeup is of a more or less identical panel on the west wall, beside what was the main entrance to the Charles Hotel.