Last week, someone belted out the final tune of Let’s Sang at Gramps. I don’t know what karaoke song they sang. I wasn’t there. But I hope it was a real banger like “My Way” and not “Closing Time.”
Gramps was the best bar in Wynwood and one of the greatest creative spaces the Magic City has ever known. It’s been a cultural refuge, safe stage, and home base. It’s been precious.
I recently called it “distilled Florida,” and I meant that as the greatest compliment. It harnesses the wildness, innovation, and fragile beauty of a complicated place. And just like Florida, it’s a place I always feel at home.
Being part of a creative community in Miami with friends in the early part of the 21st century was such a ridiculously special time in my life. I cherish it. And I feel like Gramps was in many ways the zenith of that time.
Yes, we had Churchill’s Pub and other beloved venues, but with Gramps, owner Adam Gersten started from scratch and allowed his friends to give what we had to offer — our humor, our bands, our plays, our movie nights, every silly idea that came into our heads. All under his careful curatorial control.
I visited Gramps when it was just an empty warehouse, wrote the first article on it, threw joyful parties and made some questionable decisions there that still haunt me. So, I was thrilled when Oly Vargas, Gramps’ venue director and creator of Let’s Sang, asked me to fly to Miami to present a history of the bar during its final Nerd Nite event.
Here’s my presentation. If you want to, please share it with friends who also love Gramps!
And don’t despair, there’s still the delightful Gramps Getaway on the Rickenbacker Causeway where Let’s Sang, karaoke for music nerds, lives on the last Tuesday of each month.
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