Why does Fort Lauderdale continue to abuse its river?
Years ago the city - like many others around the nation - discovered the attractions of its main waterway. It created a Riverwalk, a lovely promenade along the north bank.
Then it built a downtown mall, The Riverfront, also on the northern bank. This was an OK idea, in theory, but it came with a parking garage smack on the river. (Perhaps to make the prison less of an eyesore.) Then the Riverside Hotel expanded, and gave the river another parking garage, there at the opposite end of the Riverwalk. This was a bit like creating a national park and then putting two belching smokestacks at either end. (Both garages, by the way, cannot be mistaken for anything else, as parking garages in Miami often can.)
The Riverfront has been worse than a colossal failure; it has been contagious. The lovely River House restaurant, on the other side of the tracks - in the one commercial section of the city that can accurately be called gracious - went out of business, as did the casual restaurant across the river, Shirttail Charlie's.
Shirttail Charlie's, I discovered on a recent bike ride, has been resurrected as a pirate bar. A few months ago, when Somalian pirates took an American captain hostage, the romanticizing of pirates in popular culture was called into question. Fort Lauderdale, happily oblivious - not so much to world opinion, but rather to world events - has had no problem turning a rustic waterfront eatery into a tacky haunt for the eternally adolescent. And, this being Fort Lauderdale, it will probably be a great success.
