Holland Park

Holland Park in Hollywood, Florida, marks the first appearance of a non Miami-Dade park for The Parks Department. At first when I started this blog I figured it would be easier to just limit myself to Miami. I've come to view this as foolish. While I don't spend too much time in Broward County (and even less in Palm Beach), this is afterall, the era of the staycation, and maybe a trip to a park in adjacent counties is a good way to explore close but unfamiliar territory.

Holland Park sits alongside the intracoastal waterway in Hollywood. It can be difficult to find, but it is basically at the east end of Johnson Street on the mainland (Johnson Street technically extends to the barrier island where Hollywood Beach is located.) Located across the intracoastal waterway from Hollywood Beach, you get a full view of Ocean Avenue/A1A from the park. It is a really cool place, and definitely has a more "natural" feel to it than the parks I've visited in Miami. In this sense, it reminds me more of the parks and springs I've visited in Northern Florida areas like Gainesville.

 
Since the park is bordered by water, aquatic activities are the norm here. Kayak launches, rowing, and jet skis are all good ideas for fun at Holland Park. There is also a boat launch area, and a nature walk/wooden boardwalk around the edges of the park that are next to the water. There are spiders and birds and other animals all along the walk

One of the best features of the park is the waterfront observation tower. From the top of the tower you can see all across the intracoastal waterway, and over to Hollywood Beach. You can even catch a slight glimpse of the ocean from the top of the tower. This is a really cool place to just hang out and take in the sunshine. Lower portions of the tower also have seats to sit and relax, while still enjoying the view.

Holland Park was such a cool place to visit. As I said, it seemed more of a natural place than many of the parks I've been to in the past. This is not to knock parks in Miami, just to point out some differences in how parks are planned. Whereas many of the past parks I've been to are so clearly the works of careful planning and design, Holland Park seems to be a natural area retrofitted with certain man made improvements to make it a park. Both concepts serve a purpose, it is just nice to experience both and have some variety. I look forward to coming back to Holland Park in the future, and recommend everyone, whether you live in Dade, Broward or anywhere else, to visit the park. Thank you to Michelle for the pictures, more after the jump.

Merrie Christmas Park

Merrie Christmas Park is a beautiful, well maintained park on Le Jeune Road, east of US1 within the City of Miami. One of the first things that you notice as you pull up to the park, or even if you are passing by it, is the decline of elevation from the road surrounding it into the park itself. It's almost as if the park sits in a kind of geographic bowl. For a place like Miami, where flat topography is the norm, this difference in elevation is striking. It's not exactly rolling hills, but it is still unique from other parts of the city.

One of the best qualities of this park is that its focus is really on open space. There are so many parks in Miami that seek to control space, to use the land for specific, physical purposes: a basketball court in this corner, a pool in the other etc. That is not to say this can't be successful. Look no further than my previous post on Flamingo Park to see a park with a highly controlled use of space to see how a park offering a wide variety of recreational activities can be great. Still, there's something to be said about the feeling you get in a park that is simply open space to do as you please.

 

A playground, swingset and picnic tables/benches are the only real built objects in the park. The rest of the space is open to trees, and there are a lot of them. The shade provided by the trees was a welcome relief on what was a scorching hot day. In a city like Miami where tree coverage is low, it's nice to go to a park and seek relief from the brutal rays of the sun. 

It was a great experience to go to a park where less was more. The park was well maintained but you never felt like it was controlled. Even on a hot day, walking beneath the huge trees of Merrie Christmas Park was an excuse to be out in the open. The wide open space allowed for families to sit around, throw a baseball, and have a recreational experience that wasn't dictated by already built structures. Thank you to Michelle Nakah for taking the photos. I also heard that the hit horror short film Play Dead filmed a scene at the park, so when that movie gets big, you can go here as a part of Miami movie history. More pictures after the cut.