Wynwood

What's now Wynwood used to be Little San Juan. Here's a look back

Present day there is not much left of the area once known as a majority Puerto Rican community

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Local leaders are working to preserve Little San Juan, which is now Wynwood. NBC 6’s Cherney Ahmara takes a look back.

The colorful buildings and busy streets of Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood used to be at the heart of a very different community, known to many as "Little San Juan."

"This was the barrio," said Miami Springs City Councilman Dr. Victor Vasquez. "This was Little San Juan."

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Present day there is not much left of the area once known as a majority Puerto Rican community, where people like David Martinez and his family settled back in 1945.

“Nobody wants to live in New York, when you can live in something that’s like Puerto Rico,” said Martinez. "So we started with the Santiago’s our neighbors, and it kind of grew from there."

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Martinez, now 85, lives 300 miles north of Miami in St. Augustine, but it’s stories from families like his that helped build the migration pattern from Puerto Rico to New York to Wynwood that retired history professor Vasquez has been working to preserve.

“We have to keep our voices out there and say hey we’ve been here a long time, and we have places. So that’s part of this renaissance effort. Puerto Rican Renaissance is to continue telling these stories," he said.

Before central Florida became the main migration destination for Puerto Ricans in Florida, Miami-Dade County registered more than 17,000 in 1970.

"This used to be a factory town,” said Vazquez. “The women that worked in those factories, 40% of them were Puerto Rican women, but then by the 80s industrialization set in all those places started leaving and that affected the community greatly."

Although major changes have come to Wynwood, there are still remnants of Little San Juan through things like art and street names, but the biggest reminder is the park named after the famous baseball player, Roberto Clemente.

"That 'in-migration' of Hispanics into South East Florida had always been there," said Casey Pickett of the Miami History Blog. "That large influx where it was beginning to be noticed, it was beginning to be written about, really began with the Little San Juans."

About six miles south of Wynwood in Brickell, Pickett noticed another phenomenon.

“Where we are standing right now in Brickell along the old millionaire’s row you had a lot of very wealthy Puerto Ricans," said Pickett. "Coming strictly because of some of those tax changes and land reforms. There are definitely two little San Juan’s. They are geographically separated, but also in terms of the type of composition of communities."

A significant South Florida history that many say should be remembered.

"We’re here," said Vasquez. "We’re part of this mosaic, this beautiful mosaic of Miami and we have to keep telling our story."

You can learn more about the history of Puerto Ricans in South Florida through Vasquez’s book, "Boricuas in the Magic City."

There is currently an effort led by the Puerto Rican Leadership Council of South Florida, to bring awareness of the need to restore Roberto Clemente Park, which turns 50 in 2024.

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