How a Warehouse Block Became Wynwood Walls

Before it was a must-see stop on every Miami itinerary, Wynwood was warehouses, auto shops and empty lots that most people drove past without a second look. Developer Tony Goldman saw something else.

The SoHo playbook, reapplied

Goldman had already helped revive SoHo in New York and South Beach in Miami, and he brought the same instinct to Wynwood: buy unloved buildings, then let art make the neighborhood impossible to ignore.

The turning point came through Jeffrey Deitch, who had worked with Goldman on a Keith Haring mural recreation in New York. Deitch's condition for getting involved: this couldn't be a handful of murals. It had to be a true outdoor museum of street art.

A wall is just a wall until someone decides it's a canvas for the whole neighborhood.

2009: the walls go up

Goldman reshaped the site into gardens and a courtyard while Deitch lined up an extraordinary roster. Os Gemeos, Futura, Barry McGee, Kenny Scharf and Shepard Fairey were among the artists who painted there in that first season.

From junkyards to global model

Wynwood Walls began as a cluster of privately owned warehouses around former parking lots and junkyards. It's widely credited with igniting the whole neighborhood, drawing restaurants, galleries and foot traffic into what had been a struggling industrial pocket of Miami.

Goldman passed the torch to his daughter, Jessica Goldman Srebnick, who has kept the walls changing, with new commissions rotating in so the place never quite looks the same twice.