History of Community
Community History: The City of Hollywood is a mature and built-out community, where rapid population growth in the 1950s and 1960s has given way to a population that is stable in size but undergoing significant changes in its composition. Hollywood, the "City of the Future," is proud of its cultural and racial diversity.
From its formal incorporation by adoption of a municipal charter on November 28, 1925, the City of Hollywood has transformed itself. Beginning as an undeveloped tract of pine forests, palmetto plants, and tangled undergrowth interspersed with tomato farms and low lying marshland, it has become the second-most populated city in Broward County and the ninth largest city in the State of Florida. Founded by the planning visionary Joseph Wesley Young, a Washington state native and former resident of California and Indiana, the original one square mile of farmland has grown to over 28.87 square miles.
Joseph Young first arrived in South Florida in January 1920 to survey several parcels of land that would be suitable for the site of his "Dream City in Florida." His initial vision included a wide Blvd extending from the ocean westward to the edge of the Everglades with man-made lakes paralleling each side of the roadway. One end of each lake would empty into the Intracoastal Waterway and the other would serve as a twin turning basin for private yachts. Also included in Youngs vision was the sectioning of Hollywood into districts, a precursor of present day zoning regulations, with a centrally located business district, large park spaces, a golf course, schools, and churches. Hollywood, in Joseph Youngs vision, "will be a city for everyone - from the opulent at the top of the industrial and social ladder to the most humble of working people." Unique in Youngs city plan was the incorporation of three large circles of land located along his planned principal Blvd. These circles became the sites of a ten-acre park (originally named Harding Circle and later renamed Young Circle), the City Hall complex (originally named City Hall Circle and later renamed Watson Circle), and a military academy (Academy Circle.)
In February 1921 Young purchased at approximately $175 per acre the first parcel of land that would evolve into present-day Hollywood. Young was successful in attracting numerous potential Hollywood residents to visit and eventually purchase property in Hollywood. By 1925, the Florida real estate market had reached all-time highs with speculators constantly bidding up Hollywood real estate in a frenzy of buying. Construction continued at a rapid pace with the building of the Hollywood Blvd Bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway at the cost of $110,000. By January 1926, Hollywood numbered approximately 2,420 dwellings with approximately 18,000 people, thirty-six apartment buildings, 252 business buildings and nine hotels either completed or under construction. The city had grown to include 18,000 acres, six-and-a-half miles of oceanfront and an assessed value of $20,000,000. With this phenomenal growth, residents from the neighboring communities of Hallandale to the south and Dania to the north petitioned the legislature and the Hollywood City Commission to permit their annexation into Hollywood.
During this period, construction along Hollywood Beach was rapidly transforming the coastline. Hollywood Beach also boasted Floridas largest and best-appointed bathing pavilion, the Hollywood Beach Casino located on the Boardwalk, built at a cost of $250,000 and complete with 824 dressing rooms, eighty shower baths, a shopping arcade and an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The "Atlantic City of the South" added more allure with the opening in February 1926 of the Hollywood Beach Hotel, which was situated on an 800-foot expanse of oceanfront property at the eastern end of Hollywood Blvd.
On September 18, 1926, disaster struck Joseph Youngs "Dream City." A vicious hurricane slammed into the South Florida Atlantic coast with Hollywood among its targets. The city was devastated by the hurricanes high winds and surging floodwaters. It claimed thirty-seven lives, uprooted trees, ripped electrical wires down, tore roofs off buildings, and flattened signboards and houses alike. Millions of dollars in property losses were incurred and the seemingly unlimited growth of Hollywood stopped overnight without warning. Again, Joseph Young took up the challenge and led in the rebuilding of Hollywood as head of the Hollywood Relief Committee.
Joseph Youngs vision of his "Dream City" included one last inspiration. His idea was to dredge a deep-water seaport from the shallow lake north of Hollywood to the Atlantic Ocean, so that ships from around the world could dock and disembark eager visitors and tourists to Hollywood. In February 1928, Youngs vision became a reality. From that initial predicament, the present day Port Everglades grew from a shallow lake into one of the busiest seaports in Florida.
Despite his best efforts to promote the new seaport and the City of Hollywood, Youngs precarious financial situation caused him to ultimately lose control of his vast Hollywood holdings to a sheriffs auction on the steps of a Fort Lauderdale courthouse in 1930. Young continued to live in his beloved city until April 1934, when he collapsed in his Hollywood Blvd home and died of heart failure at the age of 51.
By 1934, the city added to its recreational facilities with the opening of the Orangebrook Golf and Country Club and Dowdy Field, a local baseball park that later became the spring training home of the Baltimore Orioles for a short while.
By the beginning of the 1960s, Hollywood had over 12,171 single family homes and 2,422 hotel units in addition to thousands of other housing structures. In 1964, the countys tallest cooperative office-apartment building at the time, the eighteen-story Home Federal Tower, was constructed in downtown Hollywood. A spurt of growth during this decade resulted in an increase of the housing stock to 35,045 single-family residences with a similar increase in other accommodations.
The municipal boundary of Hollywood continued to expand from its eastern border on the Atlantic Ocean to new areas of unincorporated Broward County to the west, north, and south. From a population of 22,978 in 1955, Hollywood grew to 35,237 in 1960, almost doubling to 67,500 in 1965, expanding to 106,873 by 1970, and finally reaching over 121,400 by 1975.
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