Allapattah is a

neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...

, located mostly in the city of

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

in metropolitan Miami. , the

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

-owned portion of Allapattah, from State Road 9 to

LeJeune Road State Road 953 (SR 953), locally known as Le Jeune Road (pronounced "Luh-JOO-n"), is a long north–south street in Miami-Dade County, Florida running a few miles west of central Miami from U.S. Route 1 in Coral Gables to State Road 916 in ...

, is being annexed by the

city proper A city proper is the geographical area contained within city limits. The term ''proper'' is not exclusive to city, cities; it can describe the geographical area within the boundaries of any given locality. The United Nations defines the term as " ...

. A stretch in the neighborhood along NW 17th Avenue was nicknamed Little Santo Domingo in 2003, in an effort spurred by former Miami mayor and longtime city commissioner Wilfredo "Willy" Gort to honor the sizable

Dominican American Dominican Americans (, ) are Americans who trace their ancestry to the Dominican Republic. The phrase may refer to someone born in the United States of Dominican descent or to someone who has migrated to the United States from the Dominican R ...

population in the community.

History

The name is derived from the Seminole Indian language word meaning ''

alligator An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus ''Alligator'' of the Family (biology), family Alligatoridae in the Order (biology), order Crocodilia. The two Extant taxon, extant species are the American alligator (''A. mis ...

''. The initial settlement of the Allapattah community began in 1856 when William P. Wagner, the earliest documented

white American White Americans (sometimes also called Caucasian Americans) are Americans who identify as white people. In a more official sense, the United States Census Bureau, which collects demographic data on Americans, defines "white" as " person having ...

permanent settler, arrived from

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

and established a homestead on a

hammock A hammock, from Spanish , borrowed from Taíno language, Taíno and Arawak language, Arawak , is a sling made of fabric, rope, or netting, suspended between two or more points, used for swing (seat), swinging, sleeping, or Human relaxation, res ...

along the Miami Rock Ridge, where

Miami Jackson High School Miami Jackson Senior High School, also known as Andrew Jackson High School or Jackson High School, is a high school located at 1751 NW 36th Street in the Allapattah neighborhood of Miami, Florida, United States. Its athletic team name is the Gen ...

presently stands. Development ensued from 1896 and into the 20th century in the area with the completion of the Florida East Coast Railroad (FEC). While most of Allapattah was populated by whites until the late 1950s, an African American neighborhood named Railroad Shops Colored Addition existed between NW 46th Street to the south and NW 50th Street to the north, from NW 12th Avenue on the east to NW 14th Avenue on the west. The neighborhood had been established at the end of the 19th century when the Florida East Coast Railroad built servicing facilities nearby. In the late 1940s the entire neighborhood was condemned under eminent domain, and the residents forced to leave. The area was used as a site for a new white school (originally named Allapattah Elementary, since renamed Lenora B. Smith Elementary in honor of an educator who once lived in the Railroad Shops neighborhood) and a park. There was a large influx of

black American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

s displaced by the construction of

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

(then, the North-South Expressway) into Allapattah in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to

white flight The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...

suburban A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

Miami-Dade County and

Broward County Broward County ( ) is a County (United States), county in Florida, United States, located in the Miami metropolitan area. It is Florida's second-most populous county after Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the List of the most ...

. Cubans migrated to Miami neighborhoods like Allapattah in large numbers following the Cuban Revolution of 1959, hosting one of Miami's largest

Cuban American Cuban Americans ( or ) are Americans who immigrated from or are descended from immigrants from Cuba. As of 2023, Cuban Americans were the fourth largest Hispanic and Latino American group in the United States after Mexican Americans, Stateside ...

populations. The 1980s brought influxes of Dominican Americans,

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

ns,

Hondurans Hondurans (; also called catrachos) are the citizens of Honduras. Most Hondurans live in Honduras, although there is also a significant Honduran diaspora, particularly in the United States, Spain, and many smaller communities in other countries ...

, and

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

ans in the aftermath of various

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

crises in those nations. Now, a

melting pot A melting pot is a Monoculturalism, monocultural metaphor for a wiktionary:heterogeneous, heterogeneous society becoming more wiktionary:homogeneous, homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an alternative bei ...

of residents from all across the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

more broadly, and African Americans who historically lived throughout the South, reside in the area.

Geography

Allapattah is northwest of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

, and about five miles (8 km) east of

Miami International Airport Miami International Airport , also known as MIA and historically as Wilcox Field, is the primary international airport serving Miami and its Miami metropolitan area, surrounding metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of Florida. It hosts over 1, ...

. It is located at , with an elevation of . Many of the businesses and educational institutions in the neighborhood are generally located on Northwest 36th Street (US 27). The boundaries are roughly the Airport Expressway (SR 112) to the north, the Miami River and the Dolphin Expressway (SR 836) to the south,

to the east, and Northwest 27th Avenue (SR 9) to the west.

Economy

A thriving

textiles Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...

market is located along Northwest 20th Street between Northwest 17th and 27th Avenues, with several garment manufacturing and wholesale outlets from

and the

makers along the row. The Produce Market, the largest open-air

food distribution Food distribution is the process where a general population is supplied with food. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) considers food distribution as a subset of the Food systems, food system. The process and methodology behind food distri ...

center in Miami, serves local

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

s and '' bodegas'' with the freshest variety of South Florida produce,

tropical fruit There are many fruits that typically grow in warm tropical climates or equatorial areas. Tropical fruits Varieties of tropical fruit include: * Abiu * Açaí * Acerola (West Indian cherry; Barbados cherry) * Achachairú (Bolivian mangosteen; ...

s and many other products. The industrial district of the city of Miami is located in an area straddling the Health District and Allapattah, along a former FEC corridor just north of Northwest 20th Street. Trades ranging from clothing manufacturers, auto repair, carpentry and upholstery shops. Additionally, several shipyards and dry docks located along the neighborhood's banks of the Miami River.

Education

Miami-Dade County Public Schools Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is the public school district serving Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in the U.S. state of Florida. Founded in 1885, it is the largest school district in Florida, the largest in the South ...

operates all area public schools:

Public schools

Elementary schools

*Comstock Elementary School *Maya Angelou Elementary School *Santa Clara Elementary School *Melrose Elementary School *River Cities Community Charter School

Middle and high schools

*Mater Academy Middle School of International Studies (charter) * Brownsville Middle School * Georgia Jones Ayers Middle School * Miami Springs Middle School *

Miami Jackson Senior High School Miami Jackson Senior High School, also known as Andrew Jackson High School or Jackson High School, is a high school located at 1751 NW 36th Street in the Allapattah neighborhood of Miami, Florida, United States. Its athletic team name is the Ge ...

* Miami Springs Senior High School * Miami Northwestern Senior High School

Libraries

Miami-Dade Public Library operates all area public libraries: *Allapattah Library *Medical Center Library

Demographics

, Allapattah had a population between 40,406 and 43,860 residents, with 12,508 households, and 8,224 families residing in the neighborhood. The median household income was $19,141.53. The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 72.23%

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race, 18.33% Black or African American, 6.89% White (non-Hispanic), and 2.55% Other races (non-Hispanic). The zip codes for Allapattah include 33136, 33125, 33127, and 33142. The area covers . , there were 23,967 males and 19,894 females. The median age for males was 33.9 years old, while the median age for females was 36.0 years old. The average household size had 2.8 people, while the average family size had 3.4 members. The percentage of married-couple families (among all households) was 36.4%, while the percentage of married-couple families with children (among all households) was 16.6%, and the percentage of single-mother households (among all households) was 14.5%. 8.0% of the population were in correctional institutions, 1.0% of the population were in nursing homes, and 1.2% of the population were in other group homes. The percentage of never-married males 15 years old and over was 24.5%, while the percentage of never-married females 15 years old and over was 12.4%. , the percentage of people that speak English not well or not at all made up 33.0% of the population. The percentage of residents born in Florida was 30.5%, the percentage of people born in another U.S. state was 9.2%, and the percentage of native residents but born outside the U.S. was 4.3%, while the percentage of foreign born residents was 56.1%.

Transportation

Allapattah is served by Metrobus throughout the area, and by the Miami Metrorail at: * Santa Clara (NW 20th Street and NW 12th Avenue) *

Allapattah Allapattah is a neighborhood, located mostly in the city of Miami, Florida in metropolitan Miami. , the county-owned portion of Allapattah, from State Road 9 to LeJeune Road, is being annexed by the city proper. A stretch in the neighborhood ...

(

US 27 U.S. Route 27 or U.S. Highway 27 (US 27) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway in the Southern and Midwestern U.S. The southern terminus is at US 1 in Miami, Florida. The northern terminus is at Interstate 69 (I ...

and NW 12th Avenue) *

Civic Center A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains of one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, ...

(NW 15th Street and NW 12th Avenue) * Earlington Heights ( SR 112 and NW 22nd Avenue)