Jungle Island remake just won’t fly

California has its wildfires, earthquakes and floods, while Miami has its . . . politicians.

I was in disbelief after reading the Jan. 24 frontpage story “COVID-19 or not, plans to turn Miami’s Jungle Island into an ‘ecoresort’ plow ahead.” Miami must be first in the nation to so blatantly embody a good-money-after-bad mentality.

I remember well from my childhood the originalParrot Jungle, with its bucolic atmosphere, sparkling clean coffee shop and marvelously entertaining shows of intelligent, brightly colored, parrots.

There was not a single visitor from up North whom we did not take to what was then an unforgettable Florida experience, filled with natural beauty and wonder, and that could easily compete with anything else in the state. We never tired of it.

But today, Parrot Jungle is a tacky (to put it kindly) attraction placed in the middle of Biscayne Bay on an already overused, traffic-clogged causeway that cost taxpayers millions in unfulfilled promises.

Yes, it’s a catering facility — something its former home in Pinecrest did not even need — and can put on a pretty decent wedding. But that is pretty much all that can be said for it.

Now, someone wants to cover its seedy, overpriced parking garage with a big hotel and turn the rest of the facility into a resort that will certainly destroy what is left of the otherwise desirable Venetian

Isle neighborhood across the narrow channel from it.

Of course, tourists will flock to it rather than experience the far more glamorous, and numerous, Miami Beach hotels, with their great restaurants, modern pools and ocean-front location.

At least the planned Miami Beach Convention Center Hotel has a huge facility next to it to justify its otherwise superfluous existence.

– Michael Peskoe,

Miami Beach