Lincoln Road is a pedestrian road running east-west between 16th Street and 17th Street in Miami Beach

Miami Beach, Florida

Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter which separates the Beach from Miami city proper...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Once open to vehicular traffic, it now hosts a pedestrian

Pedestrian

A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...

 row of shops, restaurants, galleries, and other businesses between Washington Avenue and Alton Road.

History

Originally, Lincoln Road was covered by a forest of mangroves, as was most of Miami Beach. Around 1912, Carl Fisher had Lincoln Road cleared and it eventually became the town's social center. Fisher, himself, maintained a real estate office on Lincoln Road. Over time, Lincoln Road featured premium retail destinations like Bonwit Teller

Bonwit Teller

Bonwit Teller was a department store in New York City founded by Paul Bonwit in 1895 at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street. In 1897 Edmund D. Teller was admitted to the partnership and the store moved to 23rd Street, East of Sixth Avenue...

, Saks Fifth Avenue

Saks Fifth Avenue

Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury American specialty store owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises , a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the high-end specialty store market in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, i.e. 'the 3 B's' Bergdorf, Barneys, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor...

, and even Cadillac

Cadillac

Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...

 and Packard

Packard

Packard was an American luxury-type automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana...

 car dealerships.

Around 1960, Miami Beach architect Morris Lapidus

Morris Lapidus

Morris Lapidus was the architect of Neo-baroque Miami Modern hotels that has since come to define the 1950s resort-hotel style synonymous with Miami and Miami Beach....

, whose credits include Miami Beach's Fountainebleau and Eden Roc

Eden Roc (hotel)

The Eden Roc Renaissance Hotel Miami Beach is a resort and spa located at 4525 Collins Avenue on Miami Beach, Florida. It was designed by Morris Lapidus, in the Miami Modern style, and opened in 1956...

 hotels, was commissioned to redesign Lincoln Road. Lapidus's design for Lincoln Road, complete with gardens, fountains, shelters and an amphitheater, reflected the Miami Modern Architecture

Miami Modern Architecture

Miami Modernist Architecture or better known as MiMo, is a style of architecture from the 1950s and 1960s that originated in Miami, Florida as a resort vernacular unique to Miami and Miami Beach...

, or "MiMo", style that Lapidus pioneered in the 1950s. The Road was closed to traffic and became one of the nation's first pedestrian malls.

Today, Lincoln Road features a state-of-the-art multiplex cinema, a concert hall for the New World Symphony Orchestra

New World Symphony Orchestra

The New World Symphony is the United States' only full-time orchestral academy preparing musicians for careers in symphony orchestras and ensembles...

, boutique and national retail stores, fine restaurants and bars. Lincoln Road is also home to the newly restored Colony Theatre, a performing arts venue, and Art Center South Florida, a collection of studio and gallery space for emerging artists. Street performers entertain an almost constant stream of tourists and locals on Lincoln Road. It is among the most popular destinations for visitors to South Miami Beach.

In 2006, the Miami Beach Preservation Board approved the closure of traffic of the west end of Lincoln Road for the purpose of extending the popular pedestrian mall.

In 2011, the Florida International University

Florida International University

Florida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...

 School of Architecture

Florida International University School of Architecture

The FIU School of Architecture is the architecture school at Florida International University, located in Miami, Florida in the United States. It is one of the university's 26 schools and colleges and is a school within the College of Architecture and the Arts. The school was founded in the...

 opened a sister campus to its main campus at University Park

University Park, Florida

According to the census of 2000, there were 26,538 people, 8,646 households, and 6,501 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 6,535.1 people per square mile . There were 9,047 housing units at an average density of 2,227.9/sq mi...

, at Lincoln Road, with classroom spaces for FIU architecture, art, music and theater graduate students

On May 6, 2011, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

as Lincoln Road Mall.