1940's & 50's - The Aviation Building, formerly the Fritz Hotel, home of Embry-Riddle School of Aviation photo

Don Boyd | all galleries >> Memories of Old Hialeah, Old Miami and Old South Florida Photo Galleries >> 1940 to 1949 Miami Area Historical Photos Gallery - click on image to enter > 1940's & 50's - The Aviation Building, formerly the Fritz Hotel, home of Embry-Riddle School of Aviation

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1940s-50s	Courtesy of Bill Long, HHS '59

1940's & 50's - The Aviation Building, formerly the Fritz Hotel, home of Embry-Riddle School of Aviation

3240 NW 27th Avenue, Miami, Florida

This large building was located at 3240 NW 27th Avenue due east of runway 9/27 at Miami International Airport which is seen in the middle of the top of the photo. Construction of the Fritz Hotel began by the M. R. Harrison Construction Company in 1925 but the hotel was only three-fourths completed in 1927. Construction stopped due to the Great Depression.

In 1933 Ripley's Believe It or Not had a cartoon of the building titled "A Million Dollar Hen House" published, stating that the Fritz Hotel - a huge unfinished hostelry in Miami - is used solely for raising chickens and eggs, and it holds about 60,000 laying guests. The company found use for the building as a hen house temporarily.

Embry-Riddle School of Aviation, owned by John Paul Riddle and local Miami attorney John G. McKay, was busy training pilots at several locations including Miami Municipal Airport (LeJeune Road and NW 108th Street) and started a Technical Division to train mechanics. They moved that division in November 1940 into the south wing of the Fritz Hotel. By 1941 Embry-Riddle used all the available space in the structure and renamed it to the "Aviation Building." The Embry-Riddle spaces included executive offices, classrooms, military barracks, workshops, a cafeteria, library and clinic. Courses were held seven days and five evenings a week on aeronautical engineering and aircraft maintenance, and 15-week specialized courses on welding, radio, electricity, and sheet metal were offered. A very interesting article about the early days of Embry-Riddle School of Aviation, with comments about their seaplane base in Miami, is located at: http://www.erau.edu/er/abouterau/er-worldwar.pdf

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Carl gulbrandsen		04-Apr-2009 20:08
We lived several miles north of the Aviation Building in the 1940s 50s and 60s. I remember when it was a chicken house and run-down. I also remembers the hundreds of U.S. Navy personnel training there during World War II. A happy time during the war was riding on 'ole bus #15 out of down town Miami with a load of sailors singing and cutting-up. Yes, I remember the 'ole Fritz Hotel.

Rudy Fasco		31-Aug-2008 04:05
Late 60's, and very early 70's this property was my playground - the hotel was gone by then, and only some smaller buildings remained. I remember finding airplane parts and old bullet cartridges all over the place, which we would explode by striking with metal pipes. Remember, this was WAY before computer games. I think it was in the early 70's that the place was finally completely demolished and the Youth Hall for wayward teenagers was built.

Patricia Wolff-Kenner		08-Aug-2008 18:21
Back in the 70's when this bldg was abandoned, and I was a teenager ... a friend and I climbed all the way to the top (by stairs) and out onto the highest angled roof of the middle tower. We even laid down up there to be funny and thankfully didn't roll off. As we came down we went out onto the lower flat roofs when we discovered the whole back of the building was surrouned by firefighters who were yelling at us that the building was on fire! We escaped the fire and the firefighters by running out the front doors!

Ray		12-Jan-2008 17:01
I was born in Miami on October 29, 1929 and lived there until 1993. I remember this building was known as "The Chicken House" as chickens were hatched and raised here in the 30's.

Linda		28-Oct-2007 16:16
From my understanding my great great grandfather is the one who decided to build this hotel. I don't know a lot about the history of it, but would love to know anything about it that I can. Thank you Linda

Ray		23-Oct-2007 02:21
Thanks for the comments about the NWS radar. I first saw that classic radar installed at the U of M, on the Ungar building. I remember it moving to the building on US1. Now I know 'the rest of the story' as Paul Harvey would say. Even more history of the radar and the weather offices is here: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/history/. A picture that includes the Radar is here: From what I remember, that radar WSR-57 system was serial number 2. It started life here in 1959 and died in 1992 when it was blown off the roof in Hurricane Andrew. I don't remember seeing the building in this picture. I checked Google Earth and it's gone. Anyone know when it was torn down and why? More great Miami history here, thanks.

Jack B		13-Sep-2007 18:58
I worked in this building in the early 60's I was a clerk for the Dade County Public Works Department, I think the Director of Public works was Bert Prince at that time. I later took a job as a Rodman on the survery crew that worked out of the basement.

rr		16-Aug-2007 01:44
my father worked in this building with the what later became the National Hurricane Center in 1960. The radar "ball" is not pictured. Ironically, my daughter 47 years later works in the juvenile facility on these grounds.

George Stegmeir		21-Jul-2007 04:49
During the late 1940's and early '50's there was a Knights of Columbus Hall right across 27th Ave from Embry Riddle. I don't know when it ceased operation because I left for college in 1953

52Guest		09-Jul-2007 00:34
I lived on 33rd street directly in front of the middle of the bldg. I walked to Melrose Elem school for 6 years between 1961 + 1967. I can recall it being Embry Riddle school and then vacant and the clothing factories for awhile and then vacant again. It was built by Henry Flagler as a hotel and never made it. In later years it also housed the Natl Hurricane Svc "weather ball" before it was moved across from U of Miami. In the mid to late 70's, the bldg was torn down and replaced by a county juvenile justice center and courthouse. Strangely and sadly enough, this is the site where I had a custody battle for my 4yr old son argued, and lost, in 1980. We used to often remark while living on 33rd street that the Aviation Bldg would block all plane crashes from happening on our block. At least three cargo planes crashed during the 60's and 70's in the general area. I moved from Miami in 1988

Toni Deveson		06-Jul-2007 07:00
In the 1960's, this building housed clothing factories. My mother worked there for several years sewing. When I got out of school at 3:00 pm, I would walk to this building for my "job." At 10 year-old, I sewed buttons by hand at $0.01 each all afternoon until my mom's shift was over and we went home.

Mary E. Pent		24-Jun-2007 20:23
When I was a child about 10 yrs. old we lived in the NW section of Miami. I walked past this building many times. This building was first built as a hotel, but in the depression of the 1929's, building was stopped, and it just sat there. Then it became a chicken house in the late 1930,s. We kids used to call it the "Million Dollar Chicken House. I remember when it was completed, and became an Avation School. Oh how times have changed things.

Dale Barrett		24-Jun-2007 17:04
I went to Embry Riddle in 53 ,54 earning my aviation AE, mechanics license,my private and commercial pilots license. Then flew with Delta Airlines for 38 years

Fred Cohn		23-Jun-2007 00:01
I went to this school in 1956-57 Embry-Riddle School of Aviation

djmoore		18-Jun-2007 16:55
Re: Emery - Riddle Aviation Building. I remember spending a night in this building which was then a 'chicken warehouse' after it was known as the Fritz Hotel. The occasion was the '39 hurricane and I was 6 years old.