Stucco and Pastels: Scenes and Structures along Miami's Allapattah Rail Corridor

STUCCO AND PASTELS BOOK REVIEW

Stucco and Pastels: Scenes and Structures along Miami's Allapattah Rail Corridor is not likely to make its author -- Lance Mindheim -- wealthy, and he's fine with that.
The publication, mostly images, is sort of the anti-coffee table book.

It is neither the large format size of our the heavenly beauty of a traditional coffee table book.

Stucco and Pastels is a thin, softbound, but essential part of any respectable collection of books on Miami's visual history.

It is the first ever to document the heavily industrial and colorful Allapattah neighborhood, a three-block wide corridor that stretches north of the Miami River from Miami International Airport east to NW 7th Avenue.

"Faded pastel structures surrounded by palms and live oaks. Active rail branched running through narrow, cracked streets shielded by arching umbrellas of yet more palms and oaks," Mindheim opens in the introduction to his self-published book. "Open air produce markets. Narrow shipping channels carrying vessels from shippers with such exotic names as Antillean, Pioneer and Tropical."

Mindheim is the owner of Shelf Layouts Company, a Maryland-based custom model railroad consulting and building firm. His rail line fascination allows him, as photographer and writer, to see beyond the weeds, abandoned buildings and gritty nature of the Allapattah Corridor -- to lead us on a tour of colorful murals, classic art deco warehouse structures and other elements of raw urban beauty.

This is no South Beach glamour and neon book. This is Mindheim's loving look at a backbone of Miami neighborhood that probably 90 percent of South Florida doesn't know exists.

"Elements such as these are romantically linked to bygone eras characterized by movies such as Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca," Mindheim writes in Stucco and Pastels: Scenes and Structures along Miami's Allapattah Rail Corridor. "Casablanca still exists in Miami."

We couldn't agree more. And we wholeheartedly recommend Mindheim's $19.95 book on Allapattah.

http://www.shelflayouts.com/bookstore.htm

http://www.lancemindheim.com/

Wright is the author of 5,000 published articles on urban life, architecture, public policy, planning and design. He is active in working to make sure universal design, which provides barrier-free access to people with disabilities, is incorporated to the essential and rapidly-evolving practice of sustainability.