Beacon South Beach – Free days in Miami Museums

•The MDC Museum of Art + Design
•The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum
•The Bay of Pigs Museum

The MDC features not only items from its own collection but also contemporary works, mostly of modern and post-modern style and design. Currently, you can expand your mind by observing a set of illustrations based on Oscar Wilde’s famous poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” which he wrote under the name of C.3.3: his cell and block number. The art at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum is more esoteric than that of its neighbors and features minimalist items. The Bay of Pigs Museum features exhibits and memorabilia from the ill-fated 1961 invasion of Cuba, including a Brigade 2506 flag once held by President Kennedy.

The best place to use as your home base in South Beach for your art-inspired pedestrian excursions is the Beacon Hotel. We’ve enthusiastically served the public for a full eight decades, and our spot on the beach is phenomenal for late-night stargazing and listening to the surf. It’s also within walking distance of the three museums listed above and of nine others that are free-of-charge to enter on certain days, including the following two:

At the Jewish Museum of Florida, the most important exhibit is the extensive mural that depicts Jewish life in Florida from 1763 to the present. There are also art deco chandeliers to admire and almost seven dozen stained-glass windows to appreciate within the walls.

If you’re a train enthusiast, then the Gold Coast Railroad Museum will certainly be your cup of tea. The museum has models on display of every scale from Z to G and even has President Franklin Roosevelt’s private railroad car on display. She may not have drawn the “Orange Blossom Special” in the 1930s, but Florida East Coast Railway locomotive #153 was the last steam locomotive to visit the Keys, and she’s on display at this museum.