a very SPECIAL MOMENT in TIME Issue Five, December 2014

IT ALL BEGAN WITH “CHEESECAKE” — SERIOUSLY!
By Seth Bramson, Miami Beach Historian

To celebrate Miami Beach’s centennial (March 26, 2015) the City of Miami Beach will publish a monthly monograph of Miami Beach history through February of 2016. Issues will focus on chronology, events, places and people. Through the complete series, the reader, the historian, and those interested in Miami Beach in general will enjoy a look back at the history of the city that, for its size, has had more words and stories written about it than probably any other city on Earth.

Our town, Miami Beach, is one of the world’s greatest resorts. The story is so incredible, so fascinating, so intriguing and so replete with so many different and true and real characters that fascinating is one of the minor adjectives that can be used to describe that history.

"Cheesecake"

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that Miami Beach came to prominence not just because of the names of its great, original founders, builders and developers but because one man – Steve Hannagan. At the time, he was recognized as one of the greatest public relations (PR) persons in America. He conjured up a word that he not only believed would describe the beautiful swimsuit models of his vision but that the use of that word would make everybody in America—at least all of those east of Denver—aware of Miami Beach. This word foretold would be the salvation of the failing land enterprise on an island formerly known as Ocean Beach, across Biscayne Bay from where it was already being called “the Magic City.”

During this time, the newly minted city was still mostly undeveloped and Carl Fisher and his partner, Jim Allison, spent an enormous amount of money clearing land and preparing the oceanfront island for sale. With the assistance of John H. Levi and C. W. “Pete” Chase, Fisher and Allison worked day and night to sell land on the island. Levi was a former yacht broker who had handled the sale of a luxurious vessel to Fisher and then had become his right hand man in the building of Miami Beach. Chase would become their head salesman after Dr. E. E. “Doc” Dammers went to Coral Gables to work for George Merrick.

Unhappily for them, and even after offering the land free to anyone who would build a house and live on the property, there were few takers.

The four men were nearly out of ideas when Levi, following his return from a trip to New York, casually announced to Fisher and Allison that he had the solution to the selling problem but that they would have to spend some money to bring in (according to Levi), the best PR and promotions guy in the world. “And who might that be?” Fisher asked. Whereupon Levi replied, “Steve Hannagan.”

It is from the Miami Archives website that we learn that “in 1924, during a Christmas visit to Florida, Hannagan met Fisher through Levi, who he had once worked for as a press agent in Indianapolis. Fisher’s problem was solved. He wasted no time in hiring the 24 year-old Hannagan to publicize Miami Beach.

Within days, Hannagan had his first story when a millionaire died while playing polo on Fisher’s field on Miami Beach. He sent the story to United Press:

MIAMI BEACH FLA — FLASH — JULIUS FLEISCHMANN DROPPED DEAD ON POLO FIELD HERE STOP DONT FORGET MIAMI BEACH DATELINE!

Hannagan’s credo was simple: Print anything you want about Miami Beach; just make sure you get our name right.

In 1925, Hannagan opened the Miami Beach News Bureau and hired a staff of writers and photographers. During the winter months the bureau supplied newspapers with a steady stream of stories and pictures from Carl Fisher’s island paradise -- all with the Miami Beach dateline.  

Steve Hannagan’s name, sadly and unhappily, has almost faded from the public consciousness except when memorialized—as it should be—in Miami Beach history. Hannagan’s untimely (and to some, unseemly) termination as Miami Beach’s publicity director occurred in the late 1940s or very early 1950s. In the years that passed, he was replaced by Hank Meyer, and, later, Harold Gardner as the city’s publicity and public relations directors (the title preceding today’s director of tourism or protocol or whatever term the powers that be want to use). In books, such as this writer’s Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake:  The Story of Miami Beach, Hannagan receives the long overdue accolades to which he is absolutely entitled.

So what, exactly, did Hannagan do that makes him such an important figure in Miami Beach’s history?  Well, even if he had done nothing else, it was Steve Hannagan who came up with the idea of using beautiful young women wearing skimpy (for the time) bathing suits in glamorous and seductive poses: Running down the beach, leaning against palm trees, lolling on sea walls and park benches, petting Fisher’s fabled elephant, “Rosie,” and generally doing what beautiful young women did in ads such as those. They looked enticing as they participated in the promotions that were the predecessors of Jim Dooley’s famous Northeast Airlines Cuh monnnn down! commercials. And what did Mr. Hannagan call those beautiful young women in their strikingly attractive poses?  Why “cheesecake,” of course! 

In fact, Jane Fisher, wife of Carl, the founder of our fair city, actually posed on one occasion in a scanty—for the time—bathing suit.

In her wonderful book, Fabulous Hoosier, Jane recounted how she wore this very sexy-looking bathing suit and was even photographed in it, complete with arms and knees showing! Afterwards, she wrote, she was almost afraid to face Carl, but when he saw the picture, wherever it appeared, he smiled broadly and told her how terrific she looked but suggested that she probably shouldn’t do it again. And, she didn’t. 

However, and as we know, a bevy of long-legged hotties (again, for the time) posed alluringly for Steve Hannagan and then for other photographers in pictures taken on Miami Beach which were sent by wire service to every newspaper in America east of Denver.

Hannagan had come up with a winner, and, indeed, it was his genius that put Miami Beach on the map. It was he who was responsible not only for the name “cheesecake” which glorified the delightful young women whose beauty and appeal helped to make Miami Beach a household name throughout the country, but also for the huge sign on the massive pylon that stood next to the Florida exhibit facing the Grand Central Expressway during the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair, and which, every day during the late fall, winter and early spring, was lit up to read “The temperature in Miami Beach today is….”  And boy, did that make an impression on New Yorkers!

There was, however, another “cheesecake,” and that delicacy. In many cases as beautiful as the young women pictured in Hannagan’s photos and on postcards being sent by tourists all over the country, it also had a flavor and taste that today is probably not available anywhere outside New York City or Los Angeles except for Epicure Market on Alton Road and in Sunny Isles Beach. The Miami Beach cheesecake was the real and true king of the cheesecakes, not that “nothing” supermarket or Sara Lee stuff (OK, OK, Sara Lee isn’t bad but that’s like saying Thomas’s bagels, which aren’t bagels but are bread dough baked in a circle with a hole in the middle aren’t bad, but the problem is that those ersatz bagels aren’t bad for bread but they sure aren’t bagels!) but, rather, an incredible almost-confection like delicacy made with real—as in Philadelphia brand—cream cheese, not ricotta cheese!

It is possible that the first of the great Miami Beach (and, to a lesser extent, Miami) cheesecakes was available at the Rosedale, which first opened on Miami Beach and then moved to Northwest Fifth Street in Miami. It would be followed on the beach by Joe’s Broadway and then a series of great “Jewish-style” cafeterias and restaurants, the food tastes of which remain, sadly, only in the memories of those who were fortunate enough to have had the experience of enjoying breakfast, lunch or dinner at one or more of them.

The names roll off the tongue and the keyboard and what happy thoughts envelop the mind when we mention the Ambassador, Governor, Dubrow’s, Hoffman’s and Concord Cafeterias and then add restaurants such as Wolfie’s, Junior’s, the Famous and Pumpernik’s as well as several shorter-lived dining emporiums of the Jewish style deli/restaurant ilk.    

Whether it was plain, chocolate, strawberry or blueberry cheesecake the memory of that wonderful dessert—and of the beautiful girls who were the descendants of the Steve Hannagan variety of cheesecake—will remain in our hearts and minds for as long as there is a Miami Beach.

Reader’s comments are welcome and should be addressed to Professor Seth H. Bramson, Office of the City Manager, City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139.

In addition to serving as the Miami Beach City Commission appointed historian, Seth Bramson is the historian in residence and adjunct professor of history at Barry University and adjunct professor of history at Nova Southeastern University’s Lifelong Learning Institute. He is also the company historian for the Florida East Coast Railway.

Text and captions were provided by Miami Beach’s City Historian, Professor Seth H. Bramson. In his capacity as City historian, Professor Bramson gives talks on the history of Miami Beach to service clubs, fraternal organizations, churches, temples and other interested groups at no charge. He can be reached via email at sbramson@bellsouth.net.

All images are from and courtesy of The Bramson Archive. Comments or questions regarding the images should be addressed to: Professor Seth H. Bramson/Office of the City Manager/1700 Convention Center Drive/Miami Beach, FL 33139.