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BY EUNICE SIGLER
The Miami Herald
Posted on Sun, Aug. 25, 2002
The South
Florida landmark is preparing for its December closing by changing its
schedule to weekend hours beginning Sept. 2. The facility's Watson Island
site is expected to be ready in the spring. Story, X.
As Parrot
Jungle gets ready to move out of Pinecrest to new digs on Watson Island
in December, people are flocking to the historic bird attraction to catch
one last glimpse of the local landmark.
Mike De Santis
took the day off Tuesday and, at the request of his children, Tony, 7,
and Melissa, 9, trekked all the way from Weston for a final visit to the
Pinecrest site that has been home to the attraction since 1936.
"They said,
'Let's go back before it closes,' '' De Santis said. "It's part of Florida
history -- I was here when I was their age. It's been here so long, you
don't know what to expect of the new one.''
Lisa Szekely
from Cooper City brought her nieces, Aleah, 7, Haley, 6, and Kamryn, 4
months, for a day trip -- also for one last look.
''I think
Watson Island is actually a nice idea,'' she said. "But I want to see
it again before it closes.''
Park administrators
say they've seen a surge in attendance lately since word has gotten out
that starting Sept. 2, the site will be open only on weekends.
''Initially,
we had intended on closing many months ago -- and on Sept. 2 for good
-- but with construction [at Watson Island] being delayed with the rain
and everything else, we thought it would be better to just close our seven-day
operation first,'' said Barbara ''Bobbie'' Ibarra, the park's general
manager.
And it seems
the public is grateful for that.
Ibarra says
most phone calls she gets these days are from people who want to make
sure they still have time for a final peek.
Even employees
have been finding themselves a bit nostalgic lately.
William Sanchez's
eyes moisten as he thinks about leaving the historic, 14-acre site at
Red Road and Southwest 110th Street.
''When I
got here, they taught me everything,'' said Sanchez, a Parrot Jungle worker
for 27 years.
As assistant
horticulturist, he keeps the tropical landscaping in tip-top shape.
''I loved
the Christmas parties here. We used to play bingo,'' he said. "We used
to get a lot of people from Canada and from South America in the summer.
Now we get a lot of the kids from the schools.''
It's the
ambience he says he'll miss most.
''I'll miss
the park, the cafeteria, the people -- everything we enjoyed,'' he said.
''I get emotional
when I see [the birds] riding bikes, skating,'' said Elpidio Matos, who
feeds and takes care of the animals. "We'll get used to it, but it will
be different.''
The park's
promoters say the Watson Island attraction, to be called Parrot Jungle
Island, will have a little bit of old and a lot of new.
The $47 million
attraction is expected to open in the spring on 18.6 acres on the north
side of the MacArthur Causeway, between downtown Miami and South Beach.
It will still have a Parrot Bowl, and roller-skating and bike-riding birds,
but it will also have a serpentarium, a jungle theater and an Everglades
habitat.
Where Parrot
Jungle now has about 1,000 varieties of plants, 500 birds and about 300
reptiles, primates and other animals, the new attraction will boast more
than 1,200 animals, and more than 1,000 species of plants.
Jeff Shimonski,
the park's director of horticulture, has been working for years preparing
huge trees to be moved and taking cuttings from Parrot Jungle plants.
''We're in
a sense replicating a lot of things,'' he said. "We're going to replicate
Flamingo Lake, but what we're going to do is replicate the feel of the
park.''
He disagrees
with people who tell him it can't be done.
''It's doable,''
he said. "In February 1977, we had a freeze that killed everything to
the ground practically. People said we would never open again. Well, we
came back. After Hurricane Andrew, people said we wouldn't be able to
save the trees. Well, we did.
''We have
moved over 80 trees onto [Watson Island] and we've had 100 percent success.
To do that with that kind of success is unusual, but that's based on our
experience at Parrot Jungle,'' he said.
But even
with the excitement and challenge of re-creating Parrot Jungle's charms
in an island setting ahead, Shimonski also finds himself already missing
the park that once was the site of a nudist colony before Franz Scherr
signed a lease on it in 1935.
The history
books say the nudists had to move out after their neighbors became outraged,
and the site lay vacant for years.
Thus, Scherr
was able to lease the property, with the understanding that he would build
a bird attraction there, for $25 a month.
It soon became
the world's first ''parrot jungle,'' drawing the likes of Winston Churchill
to admire the free-flying birds.
Shimonski,
who has been with the park since 1975, was out strolling through the gardens
at 6:30 a.m. recently, feeling ``bittersweet emotions.''
''There are
a lot of plants there that I grew from seed,'' he said. "But when you
can't really control something, you have to kind of go with it.''
Others say
they'll hang on to their memories, even if they can't hang onto the park.
Like Ruby
Seays, who started working there in 1978 as a cleaning lady when the Scherr
family still owned it. Through the years, she worked in the gift shop
and other departments, and now is a ticket taker at the front gate.
She remembers
the time a parrot pecked a large diamond from a woman's ring -- then swallowed
it -- while the woman was posing for a picture with the bird.
She says
the trainer told the woman: ''We know all about birds, don't worry, you
will get your diamond,'' then put the bird in a cage by itself so they
could watch it over the next few days.
''Sure enough,
out it came. The lady came back and picked up her diamond the next day,''
Seays said. |
