At the water's edge

The subject of the mangroves came up in a story from yesterday about mangrove trimming and in the comments, people have been going back and forth about what was and what was not at the water's edge in the past. I always remember the water being open. I found this article in the Grapevine from
July 27, 2014, which might explain it. Here is the article again:

When you could see the water

There was an argument going on in the comments section (isn't there always) about whether there was ever more of a water view in Coconut Grove. I don't know if people mean ever or in the past few decades. This photo above was making the rounds in social media this week, it was taken in Kennedy Park in 1978, it sort of looks like an ad or something, I vaguely remember it. But anyway, you can see the water and I'm not sure if that's Key Biscayne in the background or Grove Isle being built. But I think Grove Isle was done a year or so before.

I also remember being in Peacock Park in the 1980s, and the water's edge did not have any bushes or mangroves there, I remember you could go right up to the water. There were about three shelters, too; picnic tables with shelters, I believe they were blue. The baseball diamond backed up to that area, home plate was sort of against the water a bit. I remember them filming the Sally Field movie, "Absence of Malice, there at the baseball diamond. If you watch the movie, you can probably see the open water behind home plate. At least I think that's what I remember.

I believe the mangroves that are in all the Grove parks now were mitigation for something done by developers, tree removal or whatnot, just something that they needed to return to the city/Grove for some damage that they did in the 1990s. Not sure whose bright idea it was to block the water, but I'm betting they felt it would be protection from storms. Anyway, someone asked for photos, I only came up with the one above, but check "Absence of Malice" out and if someone wants to take some screen shots or send a video of just that section of the movie, we would all love to see it.

Below is just a cool photo of the Cape Florida lighthouse on Key Biscayne which many of us can see from the Grove's shoreline. It's from 1908, according to the text below the photo. It was constructed in 1825.