“Study the South” showcases photos of Jewish life in South Beach

Gary Monroe was born and raised in South Beach, a neighborhood located on the tip of the island of Miami Beach, Florida. Between 1977 and 1986 Monroe made it his mission to photograph the aging—and disappearing—Jewish community there. “The lifestyle vanished like it had never happened,” he writes in the short essay that precedes this collection of eighteen photographs. “In fact, every year of that decade I photographed the New Year’s Eve parties that hoteliers had thrown for their guests along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue, and by the eighth year I noticed the celebrations becoming fewer and less celebratory.” Monroe’s photographs that follow his essay reveal a community that existed, at least in hints, until as recently as the early years of the twenty-first century, but one that is all but imperceptible today.

See his photos in the latest “Study the South” essay