From serving as the home to Miami’s first newspaper to becoming a vital center of refuge and aid for Cuban immigrants, the Freedom Tower has stood in downtown Miami as a landmark of American history. Under the stewardship of Miami Dade College, the historic edifice will mark its centennial and a new purpose.
Scheduled to be completed in May following a two-year, $25 million restoration, the tower, 600 Biscayne Blvd., will become a museum highlighting the building’s full history dating back to 1925.
“We are thrilled, for the first time, to develop exhibits that tell the full history of the building from its very beginnings,” said Maria Carla Chichuen, executive director of cultural affairs at Miami Dade College and a leader in the Freedom Tower restoration project.
(Courtesy R.J. Heisenbottle Architects)
The original tile in the Freedom Tower was matched by a company in Spain
The restoration — not a renovation — refers to a complete replication of the tower’s original form, said head restoration architect Richard J. Heisenbottle, president of R.J. Heisenbottle Architects, P.A., the firm conducting the makeover. Heisenbottle also worked on the tower’s 1987 restoration that focused on structural damages sustained from the structure’s various stints of abandonment.
Financed by the state of Florida and multiple competitive historical grants, current preservation efforts include exterior painting, detailing and hand replicating decades-old murals. The details, though microscopic and tedious, are each crafted with the utmost intention and care, down to the tiles, Heisenbottle said.
Project manager Stephanie Michell is an integral part of the attention to detail necessary to uphold the Freedom Tower’s original charisma, Heisenbottle said. When searching for a tilemaker who could create a replica, Michell located a shop in Seville, Spain, which had possession of the original collection dating back to the early 20th century. The 1924 Schultze & Weaver “New World 1513” mural tile will remain in the reconstructed Freedom Tower.
(Courtesy Miami Dade College)
The Freedom Tower at night
“They had the original Freedom Tower collection in their studio, which was incredible,” Michell said. “They knew exactly the colors, exactly the designs, and they managed to do that for us.”
Michell said her family has historical ties to Freedom Tower. At the first signs of Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba, they immigrated to Miami and sought aid at the tower, she said.
“My grandmother and grandfather had to take their English lessons there to even be considered for work,” Michell said. “Those are the stories and the history that make us who we are in generations to come. Those are the stories that I'll still pass down to my kids knowing exactly where they came from, who we are, what we stand for.”
A longer version of this story, which appeared on the WLRN website. was originally published by CommunityWire.Miami, an independent, community news outlet in the School of Communication at the University of Miami. The news service, staffed primarily by graduate journalism students, provides informative and interesting coverage of the university’s nearby cities.