Thanks to Tolga Erbora for bringing this excellent Eric Brown video to my attention. It illustrates the fascinating process of getting long ships up the narrow and winding Miami River.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the oddest experience. I’d just landed in Miami and started the day by the Miami River (which is right next to the airport). I stood on the riverbank and was struck by how narrow it was. I then drove to the other side and started shooting the Downtown Spur.
Then the weirdness. Smoothly and silently, a massive structure, a cargo ship the height of a five- or six-story office building, began drifting by. How on earth could something that gigantic get up a river that narrow and with so many twists and turns in it? And then the bigger question: how did they get back out since there was no turning basin at the end? Eric Brown’s video at the lead answers the question. Tugboats pull the ships back out. It’s another case of “only in Miami” and why it makes for such a compelling modeling subject.
This is where I was standing when the “floating building” drifted in front of me. You wouldn’t even know the river was there if you weren’t looking for it.
The bank-to-bank distance at some points is about seventy feet, or perhaps a little less!
Looking northwest up the river. The Downtown Spur is just out of view to the right.
My recent book, Modeling Miami, details my efforts to capture this fascinating theme in miniature.
This photo, taken in front of Antillean Marine, gives a sense of the size of the ships that ply the Miami River.
The Miami River on my layout.
This Miami Vice trailer was filmed on the river behind FP&T at the lift bridge.
An aerial view of the one-mile stretch of the Downtown Spur that parallels the river.