This is a touching story that has a Florida hotel as its centre stage. Miami Beach was the winter destination for many seniors throughout the 70s and 80s, when upwards of 20,000 “snowbirds” would migrate to the 2.5 mile stretch of beachfront. A depressed economy and cheap rents in the crumbling Art Deco hotels made it an ideal choice for the mostly Jewish retirees on a fixed income. Harris moved into Haddon Hall to embed herself with the hotel’s residents, becoming their surrogate granddaughter. She shows us an insider’s perspective of the changes that affected the lives of her “bubbehs and zaidehs”.

South Miami Beach is a tiny gem of Art Deco architecture, warm sun and cool breezes. It was also the winter destination for many seniors throughout the 70s and 80s. During its golden age, upwards of 20,000 “snowbirds” (those who fly south for the winter to escape the cold north east) would migrate to the two and a half mile stretch of beachfront Shangri-La. After years of working hard, surviving the depression, the war and concentration camps, Jewish senior citizens made the pilgrimage south. A depressed economy and cheap rents in the crumbling Art Deco hotels made it an ideal choice for the retiree on a fixed income. The beach boardwalk overflowed with seniors, the sound of Yiddish filled the air as people spoke in their mammen loshen (mother tongue).

The Haddon Hall Hotel was the last option available to those seniors who wished to remain in South Beach. The dilapidated hotel offered the resettled seniors a place to live at a relatively reasonable price.

Visual artist Naomi Harris seeks out interesting cultural trends to document through her subjects. Personal projects include ‘Haddon Hall’ in which she followed the last remaining elderly residents of a Miami Beach hotel, published by Void and MASA Books; ‘America Swings’ (Taschen), which documents the phenomenon of the lifestyle; and EUSA (Kehrer Verlag), a reaction to the homogenization of European and American cultures through globalization.