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A long slender arm of land between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, three miles off mainland Miami, MIAMI BEACH was an ailing fruit farm in the 1910s when its Quaker owner, John Collins, formed an unlikely partnership with a flashy entrepreneur, Carl Fisher. With Fisher's money, Biscayne Bay was dredged. The muck raised from its murky bed provided the landfill to transform this wildly vegetated barrier island into a carefully sculptured landscape of palm trees, hotels and tennis courts. After a hurricane in 1926 devastated the city and especially the beach, damaged buildings were replaced by grander structures in the new Art Deco style and Miami Beach as we know it appeared. Since then, its history has been checkered: by the 1980s, crack dens and retirement homes were equally commonplace in South Beach, but the 1990s saw a renaissance spearheaded by a few savvy hoteliers and Miami's gay community.

One of the groups that remained in Miami Beach through it all was its sizable Jewish population, including many Holocaust survivors and their families. The Holocaust Memorial at 1933 Meridian Ave (daily 9am9pm; free; tel 305/538-1663), at Dade Boulevard and Meridian Avenue opposite the visitor center, is a complex, uncompromising monument to their experience. From a distance, the impression is of a giant, defiant hand punching into the sky; as you approach, however, you make out the mass of wailing people scrabbling up the wrist. Following the wall of names, inscribed with a relentless list of Holocaust victims, brings you to the foot of the sculpture, hidden from the road, where distressing statues portray more writhing, emaciated human figures. The whole, brutal, ensemble is underscored by the accompanying quote from Anne Frank: "Ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered."

A few blocks northeast is the prestigious Bass Museum , in a lovely Art Deco building at 2121 Park Ave (tel 305/673-7530 for opening times and prices). The museum has been undergoing major renovations, overseen by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, and its reopening has been put back several times: at time of writing, it was scheduled for early 2002. The museum's permanent collection consists of fine, if largely unremarkable, European paintings, although its temporary exhibitions are often lively and worth visiting.

Occupying the southernmost three miles or so of Miami Beach is gorgeous SOUTH BEACH , with its hundreds of dazzling pastel-colored Twenties and Thirties buildings. Concentrated between 5th and 23rd streets, Euclid Avenue and the ocean, the area referred to as the Deco district actually incorporates a variety of styles: take one of the excellent walking or cycling tours from the Miami Design Preservation League Welcome Center to learn the difference between Streamline, Moderne and Art Deco proper.

The most famous buildings lie along Ocean Drive , where revamped hotels have made much of their design heritage. One of the newest hotels is the reconverted Casa Casuarina at the corner of 10th Street. It was formerly the home of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace, one of the first people to rediscover the pleasures of South Beach in the 1980s only to be shot on the steps of his home in a shocking murder in 1997. By night, the ten blocks of Ocean Drive became one of the liveliest stretches in Miami, as terrace cafs spill across the specially widened sidewalk, crowds of tourists and locals saunter by the beach and Jazz Age neon illuminates the starry sky. Behind Ocean Drive are Collins Avenue , lined with more Deco hotels and fashion chains, and Washington Avenue , which tends more toward funky thrift stores and cool coffee bars. At 1001 Washington Ave, the imaginative WolfsonianFlorida International University Museum (MonTues & FriSat 11am6pm, Thurs 11am9pm, Sun noon5pm; $5, free Thurs 69pm) houses an eclectic collection of decorative arts from the late nineteenth century to 1945. The displays of old books, photos, paintings, posters and all manner of domestic objects are impressive, if a bit muddled.