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Coconut Grove

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Coconut Grove

Coconut Grove, also known colloquially as "The Grove", is an affluent and the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhood of Miami in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by North Prospect Drive to the south, LeJeune Road to the west, South Dixie Highway (US 1) and Rickenbacker Causeway to the north, and Biscayne Bay to the east. It is south of the neighborhoods of Brickell and The Roads and east of Coral Gables. The neighborhood's name has been sometimes spelled "Cocoanut Grove" but the definitive spelling "Coconut Grove" was established when the city was incorporated in 1919.

What is today referred to as Coconut Grove was formed in 1925 when the city of Miami annexed two areas of about equal size, the city of Coconut Grove and most of the town of Silver Bluff. Coconut Grove approximately corresponds to the same area as the 33133 ZIP Code although the ZIP Code includes parts of Coral Way and Coral Gables and a small portion of ZIP Code 33129. The area is often referred to as "The Grove", and locals take pride that Coconut Grove is one of the greenest areas of Miami.

Coconut Grove is directly served by the Miami Metrorail at Coconut Grove and Douglas Road stations.

Several waves of immigration established Coconut Grove, the first in 1825, when the Cape Florida lighthouse went into operation, kept by John Dubose. The settlers primarily came from the Northeastern United States, in addition to British and Bahamian immigrants. They included sailors, naturalists, and artists. Many Black Bahamian immigrants were hired to construct the historical landmarks in and around Coconut Grove. They were believed to be the only people capable of withstanding the extreme heat and humidity, as well as the large mosquito population.

Dr. Horace P. Porter is credited for coming up with the name when, in 1873, he rented a home from Edmond D. Beasley's widow, who homesteaded 160 acres of bay-front property. He lived there for only a year, but during that time, he established a post office which he named “Coconut Grove.”

The first hotel on the South Florida mainland was located in Coconut Grove. Called the Bay View Inn (later known as the Peacock Inn), it was built in 1882 on the site of present-day Peacock Park by English immigrants Isabella and Charles Peacock, who had been the owners of a wholesale meat business in London. Coconut Grove's first Black settlement, in the 1880s, was established by Bahamian laborers who worked at the Peacock Inn. The Barnacle Historic State Park is the oldest house in Miami-Dade County still standing in its original location. It was built in 1891, and was home to Ralph Middleton Munroe, also known as "The Commodore" for being the first commodore and founder of the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club, an American yacht designer, and early resident of Coconut Grove.

Formerly an independent city, Coconut Grove was annexed by the city of Miami in 1925. In the 1960s, bay-shore Coconut Grove served as the center of South Florida's youth countercultural movement, notably hosting several love-ins and concerts (including a now-infamous Doors concert at Dinner Key Auditorium) during the latter part of the decade. The Bahamian community continued to grow in Coconut Grove through the 1970s.

A surge of commercial development in Coconut Grove was driven by the construction of three major residential complexes during the late 1970s and early 1980s: Yacht Harbour Condominiums in 1975; Grove Isle, a condominium, club, and hotel complex, in 1979; and L'Hermitage in 1980. This was followed by the opening of 2575 S. Bayshore Drive in 1982 and the 1983 opening of Grove Towers. Further development was proposed for Grove Isle in 2013.

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