We picked our friends up at the Intercontinental Hotel and drove up past the American Airlines Arena. I pointed out the Freedom Tower and, a short while later, the advertisement-draped facade of the Miami Herald.
In South Beach I found a space in front of Club Deuce ("oldest bar in Miami Beach," I continued in my tour guide mode) and walked to dinner at Grillfish. The prices had shot up since we'd last eaten there, and I rather wished we had gone to Gigi's or Indomania.
After dinner I drove up Washington and took a left on 17th Street, pointing out The New World Center (still with a chain link fence outside, though with Gehry you never know, that could be an integral part of the design) and then the Lincoln Road parking garage ("the only garage in the world," I boasted, "that got a full-length article in The New Yorker.")
Though I tempered my boosterism by noting you didn't see anyone carrying a book.
It was too cold and windy to get out and walk, so I drove to the Delano, then did the Saturday night crawl down Ocean Drive. I pointed out Versace's old digs, and the steps on which he was shot, and our friends said they had forgotten about the episode. And that, I thought later, is what a great city like Miami does: it reminds you of pivotal moments in world fashion.
