This is The Herald's 7th favorable editorial about our efforts to restore the Marine Stadium. While the editorial is favorable, we should note that Friends of Miami Marine Stadium was formed not just to restore the Stadium, but to have it operate for the benefit of the community.   We take this responsibility very seriously.

Friends of Miami Marine Stadium to go to January, 26 Miami City Commission meeting to be designated as developer for the Marine Stadium. Call for support! Also, description of High Line event on February 17 and dinner honoring Jack Meyer, engineer of the Marine Stadium on February 29.

An article by David Sokol entitled "Revival On The Horizon For Historic Miami Marine Stadium"; explains our proposal to develop the Stadium

to Honor Jack Meyer, Engineer of the Miami Marine Stadium. At Biscayne Bay Yacht Club.

Photo by Iwaan Baan

High Line Presentation:
Where: Jorge M. Perez Center, Glasgow Hall, 1215 Dickinson Drive, Coral Gables (on the University of Miami Campus, U of Miami School of Architecture)

When: Friday, February 17, presentation at 6:00 PM; reception following

Seating is limited so please arrive early to get a good seat!

Robert Hammond, Co-Founder of Friends of the High Line and Philip Aarons, Founding Chair of Friends of the High Line will deliver a lecture at the University of Miami School of Architecture entitled: "The High Line-New York's Park In The Sky: Lessons for Miami Marine Stadium". The event is co-sponsored by the University of Miami School of Architecture and the Miami Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Funding for the event has been generously provided by Cliff and Petsy Mezey. There will be a press walk-through of the Marine Stadium with Robert and Phil that morning.

The High Line is a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan's West Side. It is owned by the City of New York and maintained and operated by Friends of The High Line. Founded in 1999 by community residents, Friends of the High Line fought for the High Line's Preservation at a time when the historic structure was under the threat of demolition. It is now the non-profit conservancy working with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to make sure the High Line is maintained as an extraordinary public space for all visitors to enjoy. You can learn more about the inspiring story of the High Line by purchasing the book by High Line Co-Founders Joshua David and Robert Hammond.   

The High Line has been remarkably successful: it is one of the most visited "tourist" attractions in New York City and has stimulated over $2 billion in private investment in the surrounding area. The High Line's trajectory is now being studied by many cities-both nationwide and worldwide. The parallels to our Marine Stadium initiative are significant-and we are extremely fortunate that Robert and Phil will join us in Miami for this presentation.

Negotiiations are continuing with the City and they are positive. We hope to be back to the Miami City Commission in the next several months with a proposal to develop the Marine Stadium site.

Robert Hammond Co-Founder of Friends of The High Line and Philip Aarons, Founding Chair, will deliver a talk entitled "The High LIne-New York's Park In The Sky: Lessons for Miami Marine Stadium" at U of Miami School of Architecture on Friday evening, February 17. The High Line is a terrific role model for our effort.

Friends of Miami Marine Stadium will also honor Jack Meyer, the engineer of the Marine Stadium on February 29 at the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club. More details to follow in future emails.

The attached photo is of the Circus Maximus, which was used for chariot races. The shape of the Circus Maximus-the elongated oval-was used to design the Marine Stadium Basin, which was dredged out the same time the Stadium was built.

Up to date description of efforts of Friends of Miami Marine Stadium to work out a development plan with the City of Miami.

The Miami Marine Stadium is the basis for a video installation displayed during Art Basel. We expect that once the Marine Stadium is up and running, it will host major art events for Art Basel.

As of December, 2011, we had made presentations about the Marine Stadium to seven Rotary Clubs, four Chambers of Commerce, and other business organizations. The Marine Stadium always gets a great response. We look forward to working with the Miami Beach Chamber-and the many other business organizations we work with-to make the Marine Staidum a real economic asset to our community.

The Miami Symphony Orchestra (MISO) is Miami's flagship professional orchestra. Tho organization enthusiastically supports the restoration of the Miami Marine Stadium and envisions doing a concert series at the Stadium.

The formal title of this paper is "The Shells of the Miami Marine Stadium: Synergy Between Form, Force and Environment". The principal author of this paper was Sigrid Adriaenssens, An Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Princeton Univesity. It was written for the 7th International Conference on Computational Mechanics for Spatial Structures, to be held in Sarajevo and is part of the Proceedings of IASS-IACM 2012. For more information, go to the website (http://www.gf.unsa.ba/iass-iacm-2012/

While the paper is technical it explains-in layman's terms- why the roof of the Marine Stadium works so well to create a very comfortable viewing experience.

Forum Journal is the quarterly publication of the National Trust For Historic Preservation. This article, which was the cover story for the magazine, was written by Co-Founder of Friends of Miami Marine Stadium Jorge Hernandez and makes the case for the exceptional significance of the Marine Stadium.

AMIKIDS Miami Dade is a not for profit organization dedicated to providing our community's troubled youth with a promising future. The program, which oriented to 14-19 years olds, has an extremely high 80% success rate. AMIKIDS has a branch located on Virginia Key near to the Stadium. Friends of Miami Marine Stadium looks forward to working with AMIKIDS on area cleanups, restoration projects, and unofficial sea grass surveys. Attached is a letter of support from Joseph King, the Executive Director of Miami-Dade AMIKIDS. It is these types of connections that we seek to foster to make the Marine Stadium a real community purpose building.

After a summer pause, Friends of Miami Marine Stadium continues to negotiatie wiith the City of Miami Administration to develop a workable plan to restore the Marine Stadium. We are pleased with the cooperaton we are now receiving.

The movement to restore the Stadium continues to get great press, including an article in Fast Company Magazine.

The initial members of the Board of Directors of Friends of Miami Marine Stadium have been selected. The Board-which will be expanded-is tasked with guiding the restoration and operation and procuring funding for the Marine Stadium.

This is a view of the front of the Marine Stadium-360 degrees-by photographer Jay Hirschfeld.

Nany's Closet is a blog created by young fashionista Daniela Ramirez. In this post, Daniela does a beautiful model shoot at the Marine Stadium. The Marine Stadium continues to attract attention in the most enexpected ways.

This highly popular magazine for entrepreneurs featured an article about the National Trust For Historic Preservation's Annual Conference. Four buildings were featured in the article-the most prominent of which was the Miami Mairne Stadium.

Miami designer Mark Diaz is an HGTV Design Star 6 Finalist. He was asked to do a video of his favorite building in Miami and he chose the Marine Stadium. This is a beautiful introduction to what makes the Stadium so special.

The Marine Stadium Basin is a world class triathlon site. For the last three years, we have been working with Miami Tri Events, a major triathlon promoter wthich has pioneered triathlons at the Marine Stadium. They understand the importance of a restored Stadium and we are pleased to have their support.

In late spring and summer, Friends of Miami Marine Staidum began to negotiate with teh City to assume the rights te renovate the Marine Stadium. Our initial negotiations were unsuccessful and we have taken a "summer pause" to recraft our proposal. We expect to have a new proposal soon.

We have received our 501c3 designation and we are in the process of selecting our first set of directors. The Marine Stadium continued to be in the news this summer with numerous articles and in the press, including the sixth editorial in support of the Marine Stadium by The Miami Herald.