MIAMI _ Miami's Torch of Friendship, erected in 1960 as a welcoming beacon to the city's Latin American and Caribbean neighbors, has flamed out.
"I guess the friendship is over," surmised Dwight Mancera, who snapped pictures of his family by the downtown landmark on Friday. "How can it be a torch if there is no fire?"
Mancera, a tourist from Canada, knows how torches are supposed to work. The 2010 Olympic torch in his city burns every night.
But that's Vancouver. This is Miami, where many nice things decay, malfunction or break and never get fixed. So it is with the Torch of Friendship, which shares Bayfront Park with the bone-dry Pepper Fountain, which has not spouted in years, and the Isamu Noguchi-designed Laser Tower, which went dark after a brief lifespan. Now, like the fountain, it draws baffled looks, if any looks at all.
A pity, agrees Paul George, resident historian at HistoryMiami Museum.
"The torch is a historic monument that was the strongest emblem of how Miami saw itself as the gateway of the Americas," George said. "The rich history of our city ought to be preserved, not neglected."
The internal machinery that kept the 2-foot-high gas flame aglow needs to be replaced, said Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo. The refurbishment is on the to-do list of the Bayfront Park Management Trust, which Carollo chairs.
"It is not a budget problem. We have the funds to install a new system which would keep the flame from blowing out no matter what the wind speed is," Carollo said. "We discussed the torch at our last meeting. It's a matter of going through the government procurement process to find out what it will cost and acquire the right technology."
The 40-foot-long curved keystone wall embedded with the bronze seals of 20 countries is in good shape, as are the plazas and statuary of Simon Bolivar and Juan Ponce de Leon surrounding the 18-foot-high torch, which is located off Biscayne Boulevard at Northeast Third Street by the entrance to Bayside. Behind the wall sits a pile of trash, socks and coconuts and a frozen gas gauge.
"We know about this sad situation because in Italy lots of ancient buildings and squares are not maintained," said Daniele Nastro, a tourist from Pompeii. He and his two friends cited the famous Gladiators' House in their city, a 79 A.D. ruin that was falling into further ruin until it collapsed in 2010. It took the city's cultural heritage agency nearly 10 years to restore and reopen it. "What's strange for us to see in Miami is so much money all around and then some very important things look abandoned."
Laura Plannells and German Guillem moved to downtown Miami from Valencia, Spain six months ago and didn't realize the torch used to be lit.
"If you love history like I do, then this torch signifying friendship should be burning, because the flame is the original meaning of it," Guillem said. "This entire plaza should be given more attention. It is part of the culture."
The torch was a pet project of Miami City Manager Melvin Reese and Mayor Robert King High. Built to burn day and night, the torch was ignited and dedicated "to the everlasting friendship of our neighboring countries" on Oct. 26, 1960, when Miami was already welcoming thousands of Cuban refugees fleeing Fidel Castro's revolution.
"We hope it will have the significance that the Statue of Liberty now has," High said.
Miami had been positioning itself as the Pan American capital since the early 1900s, and "the great irony was that the tremendous influx of refugees finally made it happen," George said.
"High was an internationalist, spoke Spanish, and saw the torch as a symbolic link of the hemispheres," George said. "But it was politically incorrect to include Cuba as one of the 21 nations because Castro was persona non grata by then."
Today, there is a notable blank space on the wall between Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic where Cuba's plaque would have hung.
The spot caught the eye of Christopher Woods, a visitor from Memphis.
"I figured they took it off after the Cuban Missile Crisis," he said.
George isn't certain what became of the Cuba plaque. The others were placed on the wall when each head of state came to Miami for a ceremony.
"In 1962, when the Organization of American States was considering admission of Castro's Cuba, a guy driving a truck rammed into the masonry to protest," George said. "A lot of crazy things have happened at the torch."
The torch was re-dedicated to John F. Kennedy in 1964, two months after the president was assassinated.
Since then, the torch has been a popular place for demonstrations _ against Castro, for civil rights, against the Vietnam War, for free speech.
Carollo intends to spruce up all of Bayfront Park but doesn't have a clear timetable yet. He wants to honor the "village green" vision of Noguchi and the late mayor Maurice Ferre. A young Commissioner Carollo voted for their concept three decades ago. But as downtown has grown as a residential hub and toursit draw, the park has never fulfilled its potential as Miami's beautiful front yard.
Repair the torch, restore the trash-collecting Rock Garden lagoon and get the Mildred and Claude Pepper fountain flowing again _ the city did not budget enough money for the water bill and shut down its 36 jets. Later it was used as a staging platform for a hot air balloon concession, and large concrete cubes were left behind when that venture failed. The empty fountain has been mistaken by passersby for a skateboard space, a bunker and a helicopter landing pad.
"We also need more police patrols to help get homeless people to all those shelter beds we pay for," Carollo said.
The park's playground is being enhanced, and Carollo promises something special for Christmas season.
"We'll have a classy Christmas village," he said. "We'll light up the park."
