Attractions in Ft. Lauderdale
African American Research Library and Cultural Center
More than 75,000 books, documents, and artifacts focus on African American experiences in this sparkling showplace unveiled in 2002 as what retired Broward County Library Director Sam Morrison calls “a symbol of hope – a bridge across time and cultures, and an introduction to a world in which knowledge is the true power." Among compilations are the Alex Haley Collection including eight unfinished manuscripts by the author and cast photos from Roots. Also featured are the Charles Mills Phonograph Album Collection covering blues, popular and jazz albums. The 5,000-volume Daniel M. Johnson Collection charts African, African-American, and Caribbean history, the Fisk University Collection includes slave narratives, and the Kitty Oliver Oral Histories Collection on Race and Change contains manuscripts and recordings from Broward and Okeechobee. Well-lighted parking is free.
2650 Sistrunk Boulevard. (954) 625-2800
Ah-Tha-Thi-Ki Museum
With a name meaning “a place to learn, a place to remember,” the museum honors Seminole traditions through display of artifacts and re-enactment of rituals and ceremonies. The living Seminole village has nature trails and a boardwalk into a cypress swamp.
17 miles north of Interstate 75, Exit 14.
Airboat Touring
Airboat tours, alligator wrestling and more await at the 30-acre Everglades Holiday Park, which also has a grill, convenience store, and campground with RV hook-ups. At Sawgrass Recreation Park, all sorts of wildlife from snakes and turtles to alligators are on view near an RV park with hook-ups and a gift shop.
Everglades Holiday Park, 21940 Griffin Road. (800) 226-2244
Sawgrass Recreation Park, U.S. 27 north of Interstate 95. (954) 426-2474
Anne Kolb Nature Center
In West Lake Park, the Anne Kolb Nature Center (named for the late environmental activist, a former Broward Commissioner) has a five-level observation tower, fishing pier, two nature trails and an outdoor amphitheater. An exhibit hall features nature displays, a 3,500-gallon aquarium, and a 10-minute ecological-themed video, and the Mangrove Hall can be rented for activities. Boat tours depart from the nature center dock for 40-minute narrated excursions onto West Lake. The rest of the West Lake Park/Anne Kolb Nature Center complex is a 1,500+ acre coastal mangrove wetland sheltering an abundance of plants and animals, including some threatened species. Five boat trails offer wilderness area access for fishing and sightseeing.
751 Sheridan Street, Hollywood. (954) 926-2480
Antique Car Museum
The Fort Lauderdale Antique Car Museum, established to ensure preservation of the Packard Motor Co. history and showcase development of American automotive engineering skills, was founded by Arthur O. Stone, former CEO of Buning the Florist, Inc. The museum collection of pre-war models and other memorabilia represents his life-long passion for the Packard. Within are 22 beauties from a 1909 Packard Model 18 Speedster to a 1947 Packard Model 2111 Clipper Eight Deluxe Custom PU Truck, along with a gallery dedicated to the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1527 Packard (S.W. 1st) Avenue. (954) 779-7300
Beach Options
With 23 miles of sun-drenched shoreline, Greater Fort Lauderdale’s beaches are within easy walking distance of hotels, restaurants and other attractions. Fort Lauderdale’s palm-fringed “Where The Boys Are” beach promenade is only the beginning. On family-oriented Hollywood Beach, bicycling, jogging and strolling are popular on a 2.5 mile broadwalk running parallel to golden sand. Among other possibilities are Deerfield Beach and the stretch of shoreline along village-like Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Between Dania Beach and Hollywood Beach is the pine-shaded John U. Lloyd Beach State Recreation Area, with a jetty, marina, trails, and canoeing on Whiskey Creek. This is also an excellent vantage point for watching cruise ships enter and depart Port Everglades, just to the north.
6503 North Ocean Drive. (954) 923-2833.
Billie Swamp Safari
Airboat and swamp buggy rides, walking safaris, and Indian cultural history unfold at this attraction providing close-ups of the Seminoles’ 2,200-acre Big Cypress Reservation. Daily tours head into reservation wetlands, hardwood hammocks, and areas populated with alligators, bison, deer, ostrich, water buffalo, wild hogs, and rare birds. Swamp buggies (customized motorized vehicles) provide comfortable elevated views of the frontier, while faster-moving airboats ante up more thrills.
Big Cypress Reservation. (954) 983-6101
Bonnet House
This 35-acre beachfront estate (named for the bonnet lily once blooming in swamplands) was the winter residence of the late Frederic and Evelyn Bartlett, artists whose whimsical taste permeates the breezy two-story home. (Lore has it that when alligators peek from the water, lilies sometimes cling to their heads like bonnets.) Evelyn loved monkeys and such a motif runs all over, with two monkey statues from New York’s Plaza Hotel flanking the den entrance. Decor melds with the colony of Brazilian monkeys outside, to this day adding swinging high notes to weddings and other outdoor celebrations. The estate first belonged to Hugh Taylor Birch, a Chicago lawyer arriving in 1893, enchanted by Fort Lauderdale’s untamed coastline. In 1919, when his daughter Helen married artist Bartlett (also from Chicago), Birch gave the property to the couple for a winter cottage. Bonnet House was completed in 1920, but Helen soon died unexpectedly. In 1931, Bartlett married Evelyn Fortune Lilly, who wintered at Bonnet House until 1995. She died in Beverly Mass. two years later at age 109, but not before making sure her outpost of romantic eccentricity was accorded protection from developer encroachment. Bonnet House, on the National Register of Historic Places, is a property of the Florida Trust. Peaceful surroundings insulate Bonnet House from city bustle. East of the boathouse is a fruit grove. As the main gate opens, the grand entrance is framed with stately melaleucas. Wetlands to the west have a mangrove jungle preventing erosion and supporting wildlife. Tours pass through the gift shop, stocking a cookbook for entertaining in Bonnet House style.
900 North Birch Road. (954) 563-5393
Buehler Planetarium
Surrounded by palms on the campus of Broward Community College, Buehler Planetarium was built in 1965 through a bequest from aviation pioneer Emil Buehler. Since opening, the planetarium has presented shows and astronomical programs to almost a million visitors. Through the Emil Buehler Trust, the planetarium was renovated in September 1988 with a Zeiss M1015 star projector and computerized automation, and since opening it has presented shows and astronomical programs to almost a million visitors.
3501 Southwest Davie Road. (954) 201-6681
Butterfly World
Winged wonders from South and Central America, the Philippines, Malaysia, and elsewhere are among some 80 species fluttering to heart’s content on this three-acre outdoor kingdom in northwest Broward’s Coconut Creek. The Tropical Rainforest Aviary has observations decks, waterfalls, ponds and tunnels. Also on premises are a breeding lab, museum, insectarium, garden center, cafe and gift shop.
3600 West Sample Road, Coconut Creek. (954) 977-4400
Dania Antique Row
A two-block stretch along Federal Highway in Dania Beach harbors scores of antique dealers buying, selling and talking vintage value. Once known as the “Tomato Capital of the World,” the winter harvest boom faded with saltwater intrusion into the soil, giving way to Dania’s affinity for a new type of commerce in all things old. After Genevieve and Willard Ely set up shop in 1945, it took a decade for others to follow, but shortly thereafter Dania began calling itself the “Antique Capital of the South.” Antique Row’s stores are housed inside buildings steeped in city history including Broward’s first movie theater. Architectural styles include Greek Revival (Dania Bank Building 1923); Mission Revival (Model Land Company Building 1900); Mediterranean Revival (the Martin Frost House 1913); and the Dania Beach Hotel, built by architect Francis Abreu in 1925. Art Deco styles also are evident in the Florida Theatre (1939) and the former Pirates Inn Hotel, originally known as the Hotel Katherine (1940).
Dania Jai-Alai
Played in Dania since 1953, American, Basque, American and Mexican professionals hurl a rock-hard ball at wall with speeds exceeding 170 m.p.h. Jai-Alai at the Dania fronton is an offspring of handball -- a game the ancient Greeks had a word for and that pharaohs may have viewed on the banks of the Nile some 4,000 years ago. What is now the sophisticated Basque sport of jai-alai developed from a simple game played long before an anonymous Mesopotamian built the first wheel. Handball was old when ancient Greeks called it "pilos" and played it for exercise on rough ground outdoors. The Romans played "pilatta," while French and English monarchs tried their royal hands at the game in the 14th and 15th centuries. Yet it was the Basques, those mysterious people with the tongue-twisting language, who polished one-wall handball into what is now the fastest ball game in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Dania Jai-Alai features pari-mutuel betting on live jai-alai games, horse racing and harness racing, with all kinds of bets including Win-Place-Show, Quiniela, Exacta, Trifecta, Pick 3, Tri-Super and more.
301 East Dania Beach Boulevard, Dania Beach. (954) 920-1511
Discovery Bahamas Party Cruise
Leaving Port Everglades at dawn and returning to Fort Lauderdale late in the evening, with an afternoon stop in the Bahamas long enough to enjoy shopping, tours, Isle of Capri casino and beaches, the Discovery Bahamas Party Cruise offers dancing with live music, sun decks and swimming pools, a Las Vegas-style casino, game rooms, cocktail lounges and non-stop fun.
Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale. (800) 866-8687
Dolphin Stadium
Open-air Dolphin Stadium, on the Broward / Dade county line and home to Miami Dolphins football and Florida Marlins baseball, in 1987 revolutionized pro sports economics on opening as Joe Robbie Stadium with Club Level executive suites. In March, 1990, entrepreneur H. Wayne Huizenga, picked up 50 percent interest in the facility and became the point man in bringing Major League Baseball to South Florida. In 1994, Huizenga took sole stadium ownership, and in 1996, Pro Player (Fruit of the Loom’s sports apparel division) sponsored renaming of Joe Robbie to Pro Player. Its first football game was a pre-season Aug. 16, 1987 skirmish between the Dolphins and Chicago Bears. Major League Baseball officially began in South Florida with the spring, 1993 Marlin debut.
2269 Dan Marino Boulevard, Miami, at the Florida Turnpike Stadium Exit 2X. (888) FINS-TIX