Wynwood is a household name in the street art scene nowadays, with world-famous murals and graffiti art drawing in culture and creativity from across the globe.

But how did this Miami district become the artist hub that it is today? Here’s the history behind South Florida’s most vibrantly-painted neighborhood and how it came to be.

Wynwood’s history of street art & murals

Wynwood’s early history

Wynwood had a much more utilitarian history prior to its rise to street art fame, although it still had artistic origins.

The 1920s saw a large influx of Jewish New Yorkers to South Florida, creating a relatively new community in the ever-expanding Miami metropolis. They brought with them fashion expertise and built large production warehouses all over the neighborhood, establishing Wynwood as a thriving garment district. 

Wynwood continued to grow as a production hub, and by the 1940s the job opportunities had attracted scores of families from Puerto Rico to settle in the area. With them came culture, food, music and a community which has remained a hallmark of the neighborhood to this day!

In fact, with all the workers, factories and businesses the neighborhood gained in the few decades since the 1920’s, Wynwood became one of the largest garment districts in the country. It’s success, though, didn’t last. The mid-1950s saw many large corporations turn to outsourcing their labor and goods from overseas, and the locally-owned garment businesses were left struggling. It didn’t help that the newly-constructed Interstate 95 bypassed downtown Wynwood and drew traffic away from the district, causing warehouses to shutter and families to move away. 

Wynwood faced a decline for decades, and the Miami riots of 1988 saw more of the businesses destroyed or damaged in the chaos. The once-vibrant neighborhood was slowly falling to disrepair — at least, until a public art program took residence in an empty warehouse. 

The art scene’s arrival

In 1993, the Rubell Family Collection opened a fine art gallery in one of Wynwood’s old warehouses with the intent to bring contemporary art to the general public. The Rubell Museum was one of the first private art collections in the country to share its work with the public in this way, and it sparked a new interest in Wynwood as a burgeoning art scene with plenty of large, open spaces to house collections. 

More and more galleries moved into the neighborhood over the next few decades, and by the late 2000s Miami — and Wynwood’s quickly-growing neighborhood — was seen as a destination for high-end art.

Elsewhere in the city, street art had become a popular medium for artists looking to explore Miami’s urban art scene. Street art evolved from clandestine graffiti art in the 1970s to vibrant, creative works in the 1980s to the storytelling and social-commentary styles of the 1990s. As Miami slowly became sprinkled with the unique colors and designs that street artists offered, greater appreciation of the art form began to take hold. 

By the time the turn of the millennium rolled around, street art had become large-scale creative efforts that involved crews, new mediums, collectives and installations. The first Art Basel art show in 2007 sparked even more interest in the street art scene, and Miami became known as a vibrant street art center! 

Wynwood’s spread of abandoned warehouses offered the perfect canvas for Miami’s street art movement — giant walls, no windows and plenty of culture and history to feed artists’ creativity. 

Real estate developer Tony Goldman saw Wynwood’s creative potential for street art and opened Wynwood Walls in 2009. Centered around a collection of six small buildings upon which artists could create street art, this outdoor mural collection was designed to both increase pedestrian traffic through the neighborhood and give artists recognition for their work — a mission which succeeded on both fronts! 

The Wynwood Walls started as a collection of unassuming, plain ol’ buildings on the corner of NW 25th Street and NW 2nd Avenue, whose walls have since been covered with street art by over 90 artists from over 20 countries around the world. The project has even expanded out of the museum and onto the walls of buildings around town!

Wynwood today

Today, Wynwood has completely embraced its street art culture and is well-known around the nation for its collections of murals and graffiti art. In fact, Wynwood contains the largest collection of street art in the entire nation! The Wynwood Walls and its colorful, vibrant collection of creativity was even ranked as the 16th-most Instagrammable place in U.S. cities!

The 50-block neighborhood that constitutes the Wynwood Art District contains over 200 murals alongside the many galleries, boutiques, eateries and clubs that make up Wynwood’s contemporary vibe. The neighborhood draws in over 6 million visitors annually, with the ultra-popular Art Basel, III Points Music Festival and Miami Music Week festivals highlighting Wynwood’s creative culture!

If you live in or near our apartments in Wynwood or elsewhere near our South Florida apartments, then make it your mission to find as many of the famous Wynwood murals as you can — chances are there will always be more to find!

Enjoy Wynwood!

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Featured photo courtesy AMLI Residential