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August 7, 2014

Crandon Park Zoo - Key Biscayne, Miami-Dade, Florida

Crandon Park Zoo

Key Biscayne, Miami-Dade, Florida

I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last post. I have 3 interesting places suggested by one of our readers Tatiana Reina. The first of which is the Crandon Park Zoo. Thank you Tatiana for sharing this abandon place with us, and for the great photos.




Photo credit: Tatiana Reina

The Crandon Park Zoo occupied 48 acres at the Crandon Park on Key Biscayne. It was created in 1948 when three monkeys, one goat and two black bears were purchased for $270 from a small road show/circus stranded near Miami. 

 In 1965, Hurricane Betsy put three feet of water over most of the zoo and caused the deaths of 250 animals., and efforts was made to find a better location. In 1980 the Crandon Park Zoo was moved from the park to a location south of Miami, and became the Miami Metro Zoo.
 Sources:  http://www.elephant.se/location2.php?location_id=676; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crandon_Park



Opened: 1948
Closed and abandoned: 1980
Today: Cages and buildings can be found in the area known today as the Crandon Gardens.



Google Maps


2014

2002

2006

1999

1995

Photos



 Photo credit: Tatiana Reina          





 Photo credit: Tatiana Reina  

  Photo credit: Tatiana Reina  

  Photo credit: Tatiana Reina  

 Photo credit: Tatiana Reina  






Videos





Links

Articles

A Look Back at Crandon Park Zoo
By Levi Meyer
(year not given)

Of Gorillas and Ghosts
By Jim W. Harper
April 2013

More Photos

The old entrance 

Historic black and white photos

Photos on Facebook

More photos







5 comments:

  1. I remember going there many times as a child. We were even there one day when a gorilla escaped from it's cage. I do miss the smell of those machines that made the plastic animals, probably toxic as heck, but a great memory...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I also remember going there many times as a child and the smells of those machines that made plastic animals. They had those machines at the Seaquarium too.

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  3. In 1964 me and my other 3 siblings went to the zoo in my much older half brother,s convertible GTO. He had parked it at the far edge of the parking lot left the top down. As we were loading up to leaving we all heard a heckling laughing type noise and look over about 30 yards away is a giant african hyenna being chased by 3 large men with nets looking like the keystone cops. Us younger kids started to also run after this animal until my older brother yelled at us. Being that he sounded just like my father we all stopped dead in our tracks and returned to his car. I think we traumatized our older half brother caused he never took us kids anywhere alone again. ��

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I also visited the Crandon Park Zoo and Seaquarium. I have old guide books and the red elephant key for the talking boxes.

      Delete
  4. I remember visiting the zoo back in the early 70's whenever we went to the beach. I always wondered what happened to the location after the cleanup from Andrew

    ReplyDelete

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